[spooled1]

Downrigger weights are expensive and fulll of lead, I made my own dodgy version for free.

This job involved a 5 minute walk along the local railway tracks and some electrical tape.

Two rusty old sleeper pins made a perfect 800 gram weight. For the eyelets, I used treble hooks and cut off the third barb.

It doesn't matter what some things look like as long as they do the job.

The release clips were another Ebay @ around US$30 for 6 clips (nicely made) including postage.

 

[RedPhoenix]

Great recycled downrigger Dan.

Solid enough to function as a fish dispatcher too by the looks of things.
.. actually, solid enough to act as a killer whale dispatcher, if it came to that!

Red.

 

[Davey G]

would a large snapper lead do the same thing?

 

[Dodge]

would a large snapper lead do the same thing?

Dave, used them in Port Macquarie years ago with success

 

[RedPhoenix]

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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[Peril]

The really low tech but environmentally insensitive way to use snapper leads is to have a swivel in your mainline, loop an elastic band through it and loop the band through the snapper lead. The first run by a decent fish will see the band give way and you will then only have to fight the fish. Gets costly on a hot bite, but I guess you wouldn't care then. Not good to be dropping all that lead though

 

[Davey G]

peril - i was thinking anbout using a snapper lead as a downrigger, attached to a handline or similar.

then using the same rubber band or releae clip technique as you've described onto the mainline.

once the mainline had a strike, the snapper lead would release from the clip and would remain on the handline (downrigger line). the fish would then be played as per normal.

no need to drop a sinker every time you get a bite!

 

[spooled1]

Davey, That's exactly what I'm doing with my handline downrigger mate.

I've got the release about a foot above the weight. When it get's hit, the release seperates and the fish is supposed to be played just like normal.

No luck so far because I'm using nylon cord on the downrigger and my mainline has a pretty loose drag (to prevent the rod holder getting ripped out).

Need to try different ideas but one thing's certain, downriggers get more hits. Just need to lock on.