Northwest Fishing Reports

How many people out there use these down rigger voltage black boxes?
I just bought one after putting a down rigger on my boat and trying it in the lake last week
and taking a multimeter and measuring 1 volt. Growing up, my dad had a fiberglass boat and
we never used one, didnt even know what one was. But we caught a lot of fish. It seems with
alumninum boats, your chance of a high voltage reading goes up a lot. I just learned you can
attach them to your transom to affect your boat voltage.

fishinwithg

Kind of a waste of $$$ in my opinion...My uncle has one, and it doesn't help/harm...

I see it as one more thing that could go wrong and break on a boat that would have to be replaced or spend money on...

Hearsay has it that a positive or negative charge (+ or - ? voltsDC) will make a difference in catching fish at a 6:1 ratio but that is hearsay. I forgot what polarity my downriggers charge is but the circuit (12voltDC) is broken when the plastic end of my cable breaks the surface of the water and the downrigger stops so that the ball won't slam into the downrigger. If you are catching plenty of native fish then I would think that you have the correct charge and I wouldn't worry about planters.

Black Box's can be useful if you know your boat has a voltage leak. If your boat already fishes fine than I would worry about buying one. BB's can be useful if you do a lot of downrigger fishing where you are fishing deeper than 100'. I have used them in the past and can't really say if my catch rate increased or decreased. I did notice that if you get the BB wet it gets fried pretty easily.

http://www.protroll.com/blkbox.html

Check out the on-line user's manual.

I can set my voltage p i c through my downriggers or fish finder...and after messing with it all summer..from high to low..i can truthfully say i saw no difference at all..if it didn't came with the system.... i don't think i would have bought it.... don't see any advantage or disadvantage.