Natural drop

101idea101I was readingTrolling truths by Sep and Marilyn Hendrickson and a section titled Downrigger dynamics sunk in to my fish sized brain. They say that not accounting for the natural drop of the terminal rig is " The SINGLE BIGGEST mistake" that anglers make. Thats me thier talking about!. My question is how do you estimate natural drop of a 0000 dodger and a Squid?. It strikes me that this could be the reason I am catching 4 or 5 Salmon a day and reading others on this site are catching 20 that same day same place...

I've read that section too. They go on to say trolling a dodger or flashers 100' back at 1mph the terminal rig can drop as much as ten percent...from 5 to 10 feet depending on speed and size of dodger/flashers being used. When fishing deep targeting a specific depth a short set-back is most accurate.

When people tell me that they are catching fish at 8' - 10' in early season, I set my riggers at 8' - 10' depth and 120' set back. Well, I catch fish too so if we're all making the same mistake, I guess it is all good, right? LOL! Like SilverBullets, when I go 40' or deeper, I'm 6' - 15' behind the ball.