Electric Downriggers

[Downriggerer]

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.    

Bob, you can't "do" physics.  You can do the math that explains the physics.  You know good and well that physics doesn't mean anything without the math to explain it. The physics is the concept.  The math describes it.  Saying that it's "not math, it's physics" is disingenuous and you know it.  

And no one has argued that water doesn't conduct electricity and the more free conductive minersals in it, the more electricity it will conduct.  But you are talking about running .6v down 40-80 feet.  The electrical field that creates is virtually zero, like approaching zero as the limit of the water's conductivity approaches infinity.  That's less than your two AA batteries, which I might also note is a test run in salt water with sharks, which is more conductive than water in lakes, for the most part.  Whatever field there is, is gone, real quick.

The reality is that my downriggers were not directly electrically connected to anything when I took the steel cable off.  That can't be argued.  There were no connections between the electronics in the downrigger and the cable.  That's not to say that an inductor or a magnet couldn't be in the downrigger body itself.  But, there is no direct connection. 

As I said, even assuming that there is electricity on the cable, their explanation is plausible for how the auto-up works.  The auto up is also defeated NOT JUST BY SUPERLINES but also by using another battery NOT CONNECTED TO THE BOAT's electrical even with the stainless steel cable.  Fact.  It's how I've run my boat for years, specifically to defeat the auto up.  And it is likely because I shut off a negative return through the water.  But, again, so what?  That doesn't change anything I've said.

The bottom line is that I catch hundreds of kokanee a year.  I have shown people on this forum how I do it.  I built my own rods to make a better fishing experience and to land more fish.  I make my own lures.  I have specific hook setups that result in more fish in the boat.  I have caught them with and without the "positive ion control" nonsense.  I have caught them with superlines and without superlines.  I have caught them pretty much every way there is to catch them and I usually have to quit catching them before I'm done catching them because I have limits already.

Everything in my fishing experience says having 2 more lines in the water on a stacker FAR outweighs the value of whatever voodoo electrical nonsense.  Everything in my electrical experience says Positive Ion Control catches fishermen, not fish.  And, painting my downrigger ball with the superlines has resulted in no change to my fishing success either in terms of the number of hits I get or the number of fish in the boat. 

Cannons are generally available in utah at the sporting goods stores.  That's why I bought mine.  But that doesn't make them the best downrigger, which is a mistake I made in buying them. 

I made my case.  The OP can do whatever he wants.  But, at least through this process he can see the pluses and minuses of each type of downrigger.