Getting Dredges Down

[POON MAN]

You COULD pull a dredge from your chair for about 2 to 5 minutes until it either goes sailing or the gimble rips from it's mount---- the drag is unreal on a dredge---- use a reinforced gunnel rod holder

Glen I agree 100% On reinforced gunnels

Backing plates are a must on your rod holders !!!

Don't ask me how i found that one out

[Glenn W]

Don't ask me how i found that one out

Ya gotta love it--- I lost 2 separate $200 dredges within 20 minutes of each other last year--- don't ask me what happened, but I will say it was plain stupidity on my part.

[FinRazr]

Thanks poonman!

[POON MAN]

Ya gotta love it--- I lost 2 separate $200 dredges within 20 minutes of each other last year--- don't ask me what happened, but I will say it was plain stupidity on my part.

Luckily we did not lose anything

There was supposed to be backing plates in one of the boats i was fishing on and i will say we found out rather quickly with the rod holder screws being yanked on

The force was over 40 lbs of drag that was required to set the Dredges

I was pulling triples off both corners that were min of 20 feet long

effective enough to put us in 1st place for the first 3 day's of the Tourney

The Boat that took First and Second was pulling our dredges as well and the
Boat that bumped us into 4th caught Blue Marlin for more Points

[robbarker]

thanks for all the help

[clt_capt]

I've had pretty good luck with Downriggers to pull the dredges - especially with a large number of rigged mullet. The dredge itself has 2 lbs of lead molded in and we used an additional 60 oz trolling lead in front of the dredge.

I don't pull them very often - but having a newbie assigned to dredge duty isn't a bad way to go. especially if there is weed around

[O-SEA-D]

The Offshore Innovations Dredges are the best on the market.

There are others that have tried to copy the design unfortunately, but no body makes a Callapsible Titanium Dredge like Offshore Innovations.

[Chris Marsh]

I just wired up 2 electric downrigers on my boat for the striper season. When you pull dredges from a downrigger are they electric or hand cranked? As long as it does not trip the breaker do you think it will work? Also I am thinking of changing out the wire for 250lb power pro on them to get rid of the wine, is this a good idea? Thanks

[BTH284]

I use the manual hand crank and it ain't that bad. Took the wire off my downrigger way back when and went to mono. Then last year took the mono off and went with 200 lb Jerry Brown spectra. Works great! I re-do the terminal connection for the rigger to dredge before every trip out. Would hate to loose the dredge to operator laziness. Also. if your dredge weight has a stranded cable harness, make sure you inspect that cable before every trip. I have seen and heard of some that will break after time and bye bye dredge.