Deep Six

I've never used a Deep Six before and was wondering if they are affective in getting bait down 30 plus feet. Fishing the salt the last couple weeks we've been hitting fish with 4 ounces and herring in the morning but after that the only way was off my 1 downrigger. Just curious if they help get bait down a bit deeper and how much drag they put on the rod while fighting fish. Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks, Dave

The Deep 6 is effective at taking a trolled lure down to 60 + feet. Even though they do trip when a fish hits, it still puts drag on the fight. I don't like them, but they have been around for a long time and in someplaces (Ilwaco) they are the preferred method.

Run a stacker clip on your downrigger about 10' above the bottom clip and you can fish 2 rods off of it. It's a little more hassle, but a lot better than fishing a Deep six.

D-6 work well to 65 ft ,lots of drag,and strain on main line .Do ya have a stacker for your DR ?Try one might be better .

Used to use deep six's before I had downriggers or out the back to change up the presentations. But their is a lot of drag on that line..... Works good for coho. Kinda hard to tell how deep your fishing though.

Get some halibut snaps and hook a downrigger release to them. Snap it on your wire 10 feet above your other release. Stack the rod closest to the stern on second so they don't cross and tangle when a fish hits.

I use divers all the time, but only in fairly shallow water like B10, Willapa, Grays Harbor, etc., and mostly so I can get down quick and avoid flatlining in those typically crowded areas. I also use them in the Straits when I am fishing a lot of people for a lot of fish, like for the 4 fish humpy limit - otherwise when fishing is hot you spend too much time cranking up wire. I don't ever use a deep six, however, I use a locally built diver that self-sets when a fish hits but doesn't stay hooked. Again, saves time out of the water. The more time in the water the more fish

I'll forget the 6 but would like to know just how you set up the stacked lines on the downrigger without crossing lines. Taking my folks to the Straits and want to be productive with more than just the one downrigger rod. Thanks for the help.
D

Deep sixes work fine, you just have to figure out how-many-pulls-is-how-deep (an inexact exercise at best). Once you dangle on a fish remember how many pulls you let out and repeat as necessary. If you really want to know: The size of the six, boat speed, current direction, flasher/dodger, all have an effect on how far down the thing will go in my experience (Oh yea and seaweed!). Remember geometry? It's basically about triangles when you estimate/guess depth with a six . (Test this by letting out fifty pulls in forty feet of water, if you don't snag bottom you aren't down fourty with fifty pulls! If you are, bye bye deep six) I used one for a considerable time and eventually was able to get a relative idea of how deep I was going. Just hang the rig off the side of your boat on a sunny day and tool up to trolling speed with five, then ten, then twenty (it'll disappear about here) pulls, look at the line angles and you get a close approximation of how much of the triangle is taken up in aft movement (elongating of one leg of the stern/line/depth triangle) Cornfused yet? just try it and you will see what I mean. You get an 'eyeball' idea of how deep different pulls off the reel go...based on the line angle.
If at all possible get a 'rigger if you want a closer approximation. Even with a rigger it's still got aft drift, elongation on one leg of the triangle and subsequent 'shortening' of the metered depth (on the counter). My one cents worth.

We regularly use three or four rods on our boat when fishing Sekiu or Neah Bay. Two rods are on down riggers, one on each side using plug cut herring, flasher & hootchie or other gear. One rod is rigged with a 1 to 2 oz banana sinker and a plug cut herring, straight out the back. Finally we run an Eagle Claw "yellow rod" (10-25lb rated) with an ABU 6500 C3 loaded with 60lb braided line and a deep six. This rod is regularly fished at 25 pulls out the back.

With a set-up like this you have the ability to cover all of the depths that the silvers are at, from 3 feet down to 80 feet, and you can put each rod into play quickly without having to reset two rods at once when you have one trip off of the downrigger. Seldom will you need to go deeper than 50 feet at Sekiu or Neah Bay.

When you hook two or more fish in a small area, mark it as a waypoint on your GPS and troll through again and again until you stop catching fish. Why find other fish when you have already found a school?

The "yellow rod" sees as much action or more as all of the other rods combined on my boat. I know the set-up may seem a bit heavy, but there is a lot of drag and a light graphite rod rigged light would eventually break, or you may have a line faiilure that causes you to lose your fish, and the deep six.

For your boat, unless you are experienced at handling three or more fish on at a time, I might suggest limiting yourself to three rods. Fish one off of the downrigger, a deep six rod out the back at 25 pulls, and a third rod with a 2 oz sinker off the other side.

Our primary bait/lure was brined plug cut herring. Yes, there is some additional cost and effort to fish this way, but the ratio of hook-ups to landed fish has been higher on my boat with a mooching rig (2 hooks), when compare to Coho Killers or Coyote Spoons with a single siwash.

Out at Buoy 10 the diver that most folks use is a "delta diver" that does not "trip" unless you have a fish or salad on your line while a Deep Six releases and greatly reduces drag.

The drag cause by a tripped Deep six rarely gets in the way of fighting a silver, while a flasher has caused more lost fish within sight of my boat than any other single piece of gear. I own a few flashers, but rarely use them.

There are a number of people here who have fished on my boat who know the effectiveness of the "deep six yellow rod." Other folks have given you some good suggestions, and mine is that you should be prepared to try it all and find out what works best for your style and your boat set-up. 350+ fish have been brought to my boat so far this summer, fishing this way, but it took a few years to get it dialed in.

Finally, if you plan is to fish PA, drive the extra 50 miles to Sekiu instead. Start fishing from the 400 foot line out to 650. Don't be afraid to follow the boats here, they are usually right, and bring a GPS and VHF when going out into the shipping lanes cause that fog can be a beyotch when it rolls in.

Have fun! Try it all, and if you need some more help, send me a PM with your phone number and I can help you out.

Andy

Phreak and Dogfish are right on the money. I use a digital line counter on my diver rods. I don't like stacking on downriggers. It works but I always tighten one too much and pop it. If fishing is slow, I always run two downriggers and a deep six out the middle in the back. We have caught huge kings on it. We also use flasher/spoons behind it. It is a little tougher to land them as this setup is longer than the rod. I fished Neah Bay and Westport hard this year. A total of 28 days from the end of June til three weeks ago. When I had 5 people on board, I had 5 sets of gear in the water. I used 2 10'6 rods with dipsy divers out side of the downriggers (with the deep six still in the middle). These have a weight you can rotate and it pulls away from the boat. You do not want to do this when the bite is on if you are into big kings or coho above 12 lbs. You will have a mess. We only do this during the slow periods. Our deep six out the middle has been very productive. In fact we learned that kings are up higher off of it. We would be fishing 90' plus and the deep six was always at 42' of line on the counter. The kings always slammed the deep six. There are different sizes of deep sixes. There is another one just added with more weight to it to pull even deeper. I think it is called a double deep six. I believe the standard big one is #2. I had a deep six for years before I ever tried it. My friend came out and fished the race track with us. He caught a 10# blackmouth right in front of us with a green spatterback hootchie-no flasher. This everyone says is wrong. I put one on the deep six and had a big one hit too. Yo will need to adjust the screww and make sure you can pop the clip on it. Also run at least 20-25# main line as this tends to be a lot of stress on the rod and line. Use a rod of 20#s also. If you cannot pop it reel it in slowly and loosen the set screw. Good luck. I wouldn't let anyone talk yo out of it.

The #2 deep 6 with a fish flash and cut plug herring trolled at 2.5kts,at 50ft. dives 23ft.

At 100ft.,dives 42ft.

The double #2 at 100ft., dives 65ft.

At 150ft., dives about 85ft.

When not using a linecounter measure from the reel to the first guide,my trolling rods are 20 inches,6 pulls =10ft..24 pulls =40ft.

I used a Cabela's small depth guage attached behind the diver to get the numbers.

I can verify that Andys' Yellow Rod works!

I am shopping for one as we speak!

I also use a deep six out the back and run two riggers. One is electric, so that helps.

I never run more than 3 rods, too much hassle.

Any way that gets ya fishin', then just Do It!

The deep six has been working in the puget sound for years.

WW

To calculate deep six diving depth, first estimate the angle at which the line is entering the water. Then, the formula is:

Depth = Line length * SIN(angle)

ANGLE ------> SIN (angle)
0 deg--------> 0
30 deg------>.5
45 deg------>.71
60 deg------>.87
90 deg------>1.0

does that formula also work for downrigger cables at those angles?

I have scotty electrics with only 8lb balls and would like to be sure I am accurate at the depths I think I am.

C & B,

Only 8# balls? Which model # do you have? You should try and run at least 13# and even better 15#. Less blow back and less mono in the water!

By bouncing the weight off the bottom and checking the fish fisnder will give you the diference from the counter.

I do not believe the formula works as well with downriggers because the line bows out and is not straight. What makes divers unigue is that they exert a considerable drag force (parallel to the bottom) and this keeps the line straight.

There's some great info here, I'll add just a couple of things...

The diameter of your mainline has a lot to do with how deep the Deep Six (or any diver) will dive... I'm guessing this is why Dogfish is using braided (I'm assuming Spectra) line... it's got a much smaller diameter per given pound test rating than mono does, hence less drag in the water, hence the diver will dive deeper.

The other thing I'll add is that with a levelwind reel, I find it a lot easier to estimate the amount of line I'm letting out by counting the number of times the levelwind goes back and forth... First, let out enough line so that the levelwind goes across just once... measure how much line this is... say, 10 feet... (about right for fully-loaded a Penn 310) then you know that if you let the reel freespool and let the levelwind go back and forth two times (four passes), you've let out ABOUT 40 feet of line... it's not exact, but for me, it's easier to count to 4 than it is to count to 20... (plus, I don't have to take my shoes off ) Whenever I try to count pulls, I inevitably get to about 15 pulls and something will happen that distracts me, and I lose count... I also find it easier to teach beginners the levelwind method, and it's the same for everybody... whereas 10 pulls for a little kid (short arms, not paying 100% attention) might be different from 10 pulls for an adult.

Hope this helps,

-N.