I fish my flasher up to 60' behind the weight. Most of the time the hooksets are no problem. However last time I went to Neah we all of a sudden started missing hooksets so I shortened it up to about 10' and it made no difference on the hooksets but we got half as many hits on that rod.

Then I ditched the downrigger/flasher setup and went to a fly. Got just as many hits that way and it was a LOT more fun!