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Downrigger releses


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You can put tons of verticle tension on, but have a hair trigger on the release. Thats the nice thing about a chamberlines. I used them on another boat and have the blacks on mine. I have not changed from blacks to chamberlines as i dont see the need personally.

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I recently switched from Walkers to Blacks. The Blacks can be set light and still load the rod a plenty. The Chamberlains are nice with the two different settings and I considered them. I bought two Blacks to try and I liked them. The Chamberlains are about 1-1/2 times the price of the Blacks. I'll pick up two more Blacks soon. The Blacks can take a lot of upward pressure without tripping even when set relatively light. Any outward horizontal pressure trips them easily when set light. I fish mostly walleye.:)

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I understand that with the chamberlain releases you can crank down on the rod to remove some of the bow in the downrigger line so you don't have so much slack to reel in when it releases and still have a light release. My question is why do you want a light release on the lure end? I'm talking for Salmon as well.

My thinking is you would want a tight or strong release on the back so when the fish bites it has some resistance to pull the hook deep into the fish's mouth. With a light release wouldn't it be releasing as soon as it hit? A lot of times with mine I see the rod bounce a few times before it releases, or sometimes it doesn't release at all, and we just yank up and it releases and reel reel reel.

Am I in the wrong to have them set tight so where they don't release on the initial hit?

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I understand that with the chamberlain releases you can crank down on the rod to remove some of the bow in the downrigger line so you don't have so much slack to reel in when it releases and still have a light release. My question is why do you want a light release on the lure end? I'm talking for Salmon as well.

My thinking is you would want a tight or strong release on the back so when the fish bites it has some resistance to pull the hook deep into the fish's mouth. With a light release wouldn't it be releasing as soon as it hit? A lot of times with mine I see the rod bounce a few times before it releases, or sometimes it doesn't release at all, and we just yank up and it releases and reel reel reel.

Am I in the wrong to have them set tight so where they don't release on the initial hit?

Some guys fish areas that have more small fish. Like you said about the line bouncing and not releasing. If you didn't see the rod jump, that that fish will drag behind the rigger till pulled. Back in the day when we fished the Detour Channel we would have a bunch of Pinks mixed in with the Kings. One morning we where not getting any hits. When we pulled our line, we had pinks on every one of them. This was back when every one used pincher pads.

I use the Blacks set tight also, but here in West Michigan we have mostly big fish.

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I guess I'm old school. I've played around with the newer releases, but I keep going back to the old style Off-shore pinch pads. I do not want my release to pop unless it is a big fish because I feel I get better hook sets this way. I twist up my line and bury it deep into the pad. I can get good rod tension this way and the fish will hook themselves. If I happen to get a pile of small fish like young coho hitting, I'll use a couple of rubber bands half-hitched to my line and put the other end in the pad. This gives a little play that will allow me to see the rod tip jiggle (use the same method for walleye).

More important than the release on my boat is how you set the line to begin with. It took me a while to catch on, but dropping the rigger while using the drag on the rod is the only way I've found to keep the bow out of line. You have to reset the drag each time, but it really isn't that big of a deal. Get rid of the slack and use a high tension release, and you'll be able to tell when you've hooked a fish and you'll hook up a large percentage of the biters. This is what works for me anyway.

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Blacks across the board for us. On our probe rigger we attach a Scotty release to the blacks to help eliminate the probe tangling up with the line attached to the rigger. This tangle up really only happens while going into big swells on our boat. Maybe the new ride will act differently???

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Some guys fish areas that have more small fish. Like you said about the line bouncing and not releasing. If you didn't see the rod jump, that that fish will drag behind the rigger till pulled. Back in the day when we fished the Detour Channel we would have a bunch of Pinks mixed in with the Kings. One morning we where not getting any hits. When we pulled our line, we had pinks on every one of them. This was back when every one used pincher pads.

I use the Blacks set tight also, but here in West Michigan we have mostly big fish.

on the chamberlains you can crank down the release to the fish as hard or as soft as you want depending on conditions,you can also adjust the tension to the rod separate.making it a lot easer to get the bow out of your line,having the rod preloaded to its max takes a lot of slack out of the line when a fish releases too.they are the only release i have used that you preload the rod with enough tension to make the drags on my rigger rods creep and still have a 10 inch king release or pull a 11 spindoctor 120 feet down at2.8 mph in 3 footers.i am not knockin the blacks but the chamberlains are a lot more adjustable.they are a little more money but when you allready have $50 grand or more wraped up in to a boat and gear what is $10 bucks more:thumb:

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  • 2 months later...

i think the chamberlains are going to be great for people like me. i fish the central basin on erie. we get alot of small trash fish like white perch white bass sheep head plus alot of yellow perch. and some small eyes. and these fish just wont trip the releases if you have them set tight enough to not trip in choppy water. i have been useing rubber bands. one band keeps breaking and 2 just wont break on these small fish. but atleast alot of the time with the bands you see the rod tip shake.

i just got my chamberlains took them down to the pole barn, hooked everything up. adjusted the rod tension to where i could crank the rod tip down to the water line on my boat. then adjusted the lure tension to where just a small tug would trip the release. if these work on the water like they work in the barn. well there just going to be a godsend for me. and these are based alot like the blacks to start with. so with these i think your going to have the best of both worlds. you can adjust for a hard release if thats what you want. then if your getting shakers or small coho or lakers or in my case small fish, you just loosen up the lure tension. and if you fish salmon and walleye like i use to then you just adjust the lure tension as needed. and still load the rod untill your drag slips. ofcourse this is just one walleye fishermans opinion. but its good to get everybodies take on these. if you happen to get the chance to check them out you have nothing to lose by looking. you can start at downriggerrelease.com and click on the youtube video. have a great season.

....sherman....

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hey guys and gals

i just remembered one very important thing. the chamberlain release is coming out with a great stacker soon. i seen one of them and they look great. you can put them on the cable with one hand. the way i seen them work is when you crank your downrigger up and when it hits your pulley on your boom it trips the release on the cable then just slides down the cable to your weight. if you use them with big jon,s with auto stop if you put them above your bead you have to stop them before they hit your bead on your cable. if there below the bead your ok. they should be out by may. i had keith put my name on his contact list when there ready. as always have a great season.

....sherman....

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I have the stackers and they are every bit as good as the release. The hitting the rigger and automatically dropping down to the ball is a real nice feature. I used them last season and they are another great product from Chamberlain.

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