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Basic Downrigging

   When the walleye are deep and hugging the bottom as they often are in the warm summer days I like to use a bottom Bouncer and crawler harness. The problem is keeping the rig trolling the bottom when your running deeper than 20 feet. Using a 1 to 2 once bottom bouncer weight I tie a crawler harness with a 3' to 4' leader to the top arm to the weight.
   Setting the rod in the rod holder I let out 10 feet of line while trolling about 1 to 1½ mph. I then attach the line to my downrigger release and lower the ball over the side.
In this case I am using a squeeze release looping the line and inserting it ¾ of the way into the pads. Then swing the arm back out and lower the ball to within 5 to 8 feet of the bottom allowing the wire of the bottom bouncer to slide just over the bottom.
This way I can more closely follow the bottom using the bouncer to pick up the slack over a uneven bottom. Great for running over rocky bottoms where you do not want the ball to hit bottom or hang up.



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