I'm new to this board and found it `cause I was checking out all the posts about the "Black Box". I didn't even know that electrical charges even existed on my downrigger cables until 2 weeks ago. This board has really `learned me alot'.

Seems that salt water fishing is what most of you do, hense a lot of info on salt water species. Does anyone have info that would be helpful for fresh water fishing utilizing the Black Box? I fish upstate New York lakes and my target species are Rainbow trout, Brown trout, Lake trout, landlocked salmon (Atlantics) and walleye. Downrigger fishing is my method of choice and I'm just itchen' to enhanse my fishing experience .

Welcome to the board Stinger.

Check out Pro Troll\'s web site on how to use a BB in fresh water. Lot's of interesting reading.

I agree with Carl.

My Scotty Black Box came with a good size book that talks alot about freshwater species as well.

It also stated that for electrical current conductivity there's virtually no difference between fresh water and saltwater... so for practical purposes... works the same.

I started my salmon fishing in the upper part of michigan and yes we us box's there. the settings are a little less. I once read that for deep brown trout the settings have to be fine tuned even more.....one interesting thing is I have a little boat and no black box here and I stood up one day and looked over the side and there must have been 15 dog fish following behind each cable so I must be putting out some charge that they find attractive. I still manage to catch salmon in the salt......DJ

You know, that seems unlikely. Salt water is a much better conducter of electricity, which is why zincs are so important in salt water, and not really that big a deal in fresh water.

Thanks for all your posts. I went to the ProTroll web site and read all the stuff they had. I checked out my boat and it reads .425 with clean zincs and new downrigger cable. All the rest of the check list was OK. So....I guess my boat is naturaly low. Sounds like it needs a jump start.