Electric Downriggers

[dubob]

Sorry for the slow reply.  Work has been dawn till well after dusk the past couple days. I'm not sure how they do it.  My guess is that since the spool is set back further into the downrigger, they are using an inductor to put a voltage on the wire.  And, the auto-up feature detects when the ball is in the water by watching what the ground is doing relative to the boat.  If you hook up a cannon downrigger to a battery that is otherwise disconnected from the boat ground, the auto-up feature is disabled.  In fact, that's how I disabled the auto-up before installing the Scotty electrical connectors and the braided downrigger line.  I would assume, but can't be sure, that disabled the "Positive Ion Control" as well, or at least made whatever voltage they are trying to put on the downrigger cable short to ground.  So, between that and the math telling me that electrical fields don't propagate well under water, I'm skeptical that the PIC or black box works.  I think, and the math says, it catches fishermen, not fish.

DUDE - you are one hard sell!    

First of all, it ain't 'math'; it's physics.  My college professor would have smacked your knuckles HARD for not knowing the difference in his classes.    

Let's define what an ion is.   Ions are particles that have an electrical charge because they have lost or gained an electron.  Pure water has NO ions in it.  But there isn't any lake in the world that doesn't have impurities in it, and some of the impurities are in fact ions and it's these ions (impurities) that allow current to flow through water.  Water that is 100% pure - nothing but hydrogen and oxygen - will NOT conduct an electrical current.  Period!

I have no idea how far kokanee can sense a positive ion charge, but scientific research has determined that if two AA batteries were connected 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) apart, a shark could detect if one ran out.  I can only guess at this point, but believe that kokanee can probably sense the positive ion charge hundreds of feet away from it's source.

Cannon describes PIC this way:

This feature is based on the principle that applying a low voltage positive electrical field into the water where you’re fishing will attract fish and increase your chances to catch more fish. Since fish are attracted by a slight positive charge and repelled by a strong positive or negative charge, generating and controlling the correct charge can be critical to the success of your fishing. With Cannon’s exclusive Positive Ion Control you can change the natural negative field created by the grounded electrical system of your boat to a positive field. More information on how fish respond to electricity can be found in The Secrets of Fishing with Electricity by Ollie Rode.

Cannon describes Short Stop this way:

Short Stop is a Cannon exclusive feature that automatically stops the weight at the water’s surface, preventing the lift motor from raising it into the pulley at the end of the boom. When the downrigger cable is in the water, a small electrical current flows between the cable and grounded metal boat components in the water. When the cable clears the water, the current flow stops. The short stop system senses this interruption and turns off the motor. The trolling weight insulator is used to break the cable contact to the water while the weight is still in the water. Stopping the weight at water level eliminates the cable strain caused by a bouncing weight or a weight hitting the boom end and it also keeps the weight from swinging into the boat hull. This feature comes on all Cannon electric downriggers and requires the boat to be properly grounded.

Cannon describes what happens to both when you replace the metal cable with braid/mono:

Both of these features rely on the stainless steel cable to conduct an electrical current into water. Since monofilament and superlines will not conduct an electrical current, these features will not function when the downrigger is re-spooled with them.

When you wired your Cannon directly to a battery that wasn't ground to the boat, you essentially eliminated the current path through the water back to the negative side of the battery and neither of the functions would have worked.  However, if you had measured the voltage between the cable (before you switched to braid) and the negative terminal of that isolated battery, you would have seen a 0.6 vdc differential between the two.

There are lots and lots of ion particles in lake water.  The technology to control the voltage level configuration of those ion particles is real and it ain't math - it's physics.  There is a ton of material out there that explains it to us uneducated folks.  I can explain it to you until the fish bite, but I cannot make you believe it if you refuse to do so based on scientifically documented studies saying it is true.

Hodges Marine out of Florida has the best prices on downriggers that I found and they sell both Cannon and Scotty brands.  The Cannon Mag 10 & Scotty 1106 are both right around $530 each and they have free shipping to the lower 48.

I think I'm done here.  The OP should have enough information to make a decision on which brand to buy at this point.  Y'all take care, stay safe, and tight lines.