Hi! I've been thinking about getting a couple downriggers for my boat for a while and I've finally decided to do it. My price range and boat size (16' low sided driftboat with points cut off making it actually about 13.5') dictate that I go with a manual downrigger. Doing some googling, it looks like the Cannon lake-troll and easi-troll are good options in that area. Any thoughts on these models? From the reviews, it looks like people aren't satisfied with the line counters on these but some others say that you can just turn the wheel on the boom to reset the counter to zero. Also, what weight downrigger balls would you recommend? I fish mostly for trout so the lakes I fish usually aren't too deep (Mineral, Nahwatzel, Diamond in Oregon) but I'd like to start fishing for Kokanee more in lakes like Meridian (live 5 min away from), Stevens, and Clear (Pierce).
Also, what would be a good release clip setup? I often troll flies for trout with no flash or other additional action. I like the idea of being able to add flashers that aren't attached to the line but to the downrigger ball. It seems like, for this to work though, the lure would have to be almost directly under the boat with not much line back.
Thanks for any help you can give me,
Andrew