Down Rigger in Hobie Mirage

I use my Mirage Pro Angler to troll for lake trout in Northern Michigan and am considering installing a Cannon Lake-Troll but would have to cut the Cannon Deck Plate in half to make it work. Does anyone have experience with installing a down rigger? Does Hobie have a better option. Thanks,

I am just finishing off a downrigger install in my pa14. I have done the install without drilling any holes into the PA or using the rails. Involves use of the rear rodholders, but also leaves them usable for rods when the downrigger is installed.

I am new to the forum, and am not sure how to post pictures yet, I assume i need to belong to a picture hosting site to do so easily. (Maybe someone knowledgeable can give a few hints about this, or give a link to an explanations one is already on the site) If you are open to pm'ing me your email I will send you some pictures. The way it is done should accommodate most downriggers. I am planning on ocean fishing and lake fishing so I have installed a scotty 1050 so that I can get greater depths than with the laketroller version.

I can install or remove the downrigger with this system in less than two minutes. The weight will drop just off the side of the Pro Angler and is easily reachable. This system will work for either left or right side, or both. I admit i have not been out to test it out yet but can not foresee any problems using it.

I'm actually tempted to install a larger battery and use it for both the FF and an electric downrigger, but perhaps that would be overkill.

Regards

No such thing as overkill on this forum! Also i have found the Tapatalk app for the phone is the best way to post pics. Super easy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree that there is no such thing as overkill in using a down rigger......I started off using a Cannon Mini-troll, then moved to a Scotty 1050...which is really good, and then finally, to my 12V electric Cannon Mini-Mag, I had saved when I sold my 18' Jetcraft in 2009.....Knowing the sale of the boat would not bring any more $$ with the down rigger, I removed it and was in storage until 2 years ago.

Since I down rig fish about 75% of the time at depths of 25' to 110', I became weary of hand cranking from depths while trying to reel in a nice fish......the electric down rigger is a god send to me.
I mounted the electric down rigger on my 2013 PA-14 and ended up reinforcing the black equipment mounting boards with 1/4 x 20 SS threaded rods, due to the flexing I observed while using the down rigger.
I power the electric down rigger with a 18 A/H, SLA that cost $50....it never runs short of energy and easily handles the 3 A DC load.

The following photos show the changes I went through for those who are interested in the 3 units.

_________________
Dr.SteelheadCatcher
Warrenton, OR

djogren - welcome to they deep end of the pool. I have been using a "sawed-off" Scotty 1050 Depthmaster on my PA14 for several years. I attached the Scotty base to a piece of breadboard material which, in turn, was bolted across 2 H-Rail mounting plates. With the rail mount in place, the DR takes about 15 seconds to rig. Although the rail mounts are easily removed, I generally leave them in place when fishing shallow water or even trailering, as they are not in the way of anything. A few photos of my setup can be seen here: https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=59063

BTW - Sounds like you are fishing in my backyard! I live in Charlevoix and have been deep water trolling Lk MI between TC and Petoskey for 5 or 6 years. In all that time, I have only met 1 other PA out there, and that was the guy I sold my old PA14 to. Once you get your DR in place, I hope you can get into some of those 30+ lb Chinooks that have been coming out of GTB in the past 2 weeks!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk