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Author Topic: pontoon boat downrigger fishing  (Read 2402 times)

metal man

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pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« on: Sep 15, 2022, 04:44 PM »
I have been unable to fish this summer due to surgery to install some more metal parts. My wife convinced me to purchase a used pontoon boat since I could get on and off that. Looking ahead to next summer I need to decide what to do with it. Sell or rebuild and repower and install downriggers for togue fishing.

Does anyone have any experience with trolling and downrigging from a pontoon? If so, how was it setup? I am thinking of removing the back bench seat and mounting the downriggers at the stern. Probably repowering with a 30 - 40 hp 4 stroke. Hope to not need a kicker motor to run 1.5 to 2.5 mph trolling speed.

Any ideas?

Johnnh

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Re: pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« Reply #2 on: Sep 16, 2022, 04:35 AM »
Metal Man
Welcome to the board

You may want to look in You Tube. There are lots of ptions to consider.




zwiggles

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Re: pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« Reply #3 on: Sep 16, 2022, 07:47 AM »
Granted they tend to be a “fair weather boat”, but you can set them up extremely well to troll. A guy in NH years ago had a sweet set up in Squam lake. I believe they reinforced the rails, and mounted down riggers out back, and a planer mast/board set up on the front. They were very very successful using the boat, but it does take some customization.

Mac Attack

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Re: pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« Reply #4 on: Sep 16, 2022, 11:07 AM »
Not sure about fair weather boats.
I've seen tritoons out on Erie in 2-3's with a lot more frequency in the past few years.
If they can handle the Great Lakes I'm sure they would be fine for the smaller lakes in Maine.
Just gotta be smart.

taxid

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Re: pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« Reply #5 on: Sep 16, 2022, 05:41 PM »
Only downside that I know of with pontoon boats is if you don't have one attached to your dock it might be a pain to haul and launch them. Maybe not.

I do know they are excellent platforms for vertical jigging and they can be very comfortable on the water.  I don't see why trolling slowly would be an issue
“The trouble with quotes on the Internet is you never know if they are genuine.” —Abraham Lincoln

fishlessman

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Re: pontoon boat downrigger fishing
« Reply #6 on: Sep 20, 2022, 11:42 AM »
Granted they tend to be a “fair weather boat”, but you can set them up extremely well to troll. A guy in NH years ago had a sweet set up in Squam lake. I believe they reinforced the rails, and mounted down riggers out back, and a planer mast/board set up on the front. They were very very successful using the boat, but it does take some customization.

johns boat was a fishing machine. transducer mounted up front for the fishfinder that automatically raised and lowered the down riggers for those squam rock incidences, planer mast reels were auto winding. big stabile boat, never got out on it but had him back it up into the shop to fix a split pontoon. nice guy all around

 



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