Down rigger coming for "H RAIL" ?

My buddy tells me there is a down rigger in the works for the H Rail ?

Any truth to this for those that are in the know?

There are already downriggers that work on the H-Rail. While they don't directly attach to the rail itself, it's fairly simple to put one on the H-Rail. I personally use the Scotty Depthmaster 1050. All I did was get a Hobie H-Rail Universal H-Rail mounting plate. Attach a Scotty 1010 manual downrigger mount. This makes it simple to take the downrigger on and off. Put the downrigger on the H-Rail mounting plate, position it where you want. I placed mine on the right side, facing forward, just far enough in front of the seat so that when I am sitting the crank doesn't hit the seat, but close enough that I do not have to stretch forward. Mark that spot, take the downrigger and mounting plate off the H-Rail. Put a strip of very thin rubber tape around the spot where the mounting plate clamps down on the H-rail. Put the mounting plate back on the H-rail (with the downrigger off the mounting plate), and tighten the mounting plate down on the H-rail, angled upward at about a 45 degree angle. After it's as tight as you can get it by hand, I used a pair or pliers with rubber tape over the teeth so not to damage the plastic tightener, and snugged it up nice to the rail. I angled the mounting plate up like that for 2 reason. It puts a little less torque on the bar, and since the boom arm of the downrigger is now angled up, it brings the ball closer to the kayak. You don't need to reach far at all to grab the ball/cable.

When I use it, I typically run smaller balls, mostly 4lb, but sometimes 6lb. They work fine for me down to about 60 feet or so. You want to lower the ball slowly into the water holding the downrigger clip. Don't drop the ball in the water, it will put way too much torque on the rail. I have no issue with torque on the rail. The angle of the downrigger arm being up slightly, and the ball naturally drifting behind you while you troll, spreads how the torque is being applied to the rail, it gets distributed more up and down the rail as opposed to being applied to one spot.

I know some people get nervous about the rail torque issue, and they use 2 universal h-rail mounts instead of 1, then make their own mount to put the downrigger on. Doing it that way will distribute the torque on the rail out a bit. Again though, I have no issues with torque using the method I do.

I did change out the wire cable for scotty braid.

Whether or not a downrigger is being built by someone to mount directly to the h-rail without using the universal mount, I have not heard.

Cranking up a downrigger weight puts a lot of stress on the downrigger's base. If you mount a downrigger on an H-Rail, cranking the downrigger will try to make the mount twist around the rail. You can eliminate that problem by adding a second attachment point on the hull of the kayak. For a description of the way I mounted a Cannon Lake-troll downrigger on the gunwale of my Revolution, using a block fitted into the water bottle holder to stabilize the mount, and an explanation of why I mounted the downrigger that way, see http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/in ... #msg138905 .

Most fishing kayaks come with gear tracks mounted on their gunwales. Hobie could improve the competitiveness of its products by adding gear tracks to them. This is particularly the case with the Revolution, as it is a hassle to mount gear tracks on the narrow gunwales of a Revolution. And it would be great if Hobie sold downrigger bases designed for the gear tracks and H Rails on its kayaks, and included an additional attachment point off to the side of the gear tracks and H Rails to stabilize the downrigger mount.

I am amazed at the number of "upgrades" you can get to "improve" your Hobie.....a bit premeditated IMHO.