Boom and rod tip bouncing, manually pull line out of release clip,....fish off. frown I found a solution to that this weekend after losing several hatchery steelhead down on the Columbia that couldn't pull the line out of the down rigger clip on their own. Winch 'em to the top with the downrigger and then reach over and unclip the line by hand keeping a tight line to the fish.

Not sure how legal that is, but it works.