Z Wing vs. Downrigger Weight. Which won works best?

[jtocean]

I haven't made the jump yet but i've heard a lot about the ZWING and many swear by it.
Let me know your opinions. Which model works best? the 250 or 500?

Thanks in advance.

[OCcaptain]

I don't use weights any more. I use either a large planer or the Z WING. I tested them side-by-side on two downriggers. The z-wing tracked a little deeper, but not much. The z-wing gets a little squirly when close to the top and almost got into my wheel. IMO for the money get a large planer and forget the weights and the z-wing. Paint the planer flat black to keep the toothy creatures from eating it!!

[Swami]

There's probably a lot of opinions on this but I'll toss mine out for what it's worth--I hate z-wings. You just about have to come to a complete stop to retrieve the darn things. You will have more blowback with a downrigger ball (switching to 200-pound braid will help on that) but you can crank it in fast to clear the lines when you get bit. If I use a planer then it's in-line so it trips when that line gets a strike as well.

[thums up]

I use the z-wing 500 all the time. I love it. I use it on a cord from the transom cleat. We got rid of the downrigger after going to Ixtapa, MX and most the crews down there just use it on the cord. I take about 75ft. of cord and mark off every 10 ft. cleat it off at the depth that I want and put it over. Then we get paper clips and a rubber band ,size depends on bait, wrap the band around the line, then conect it to the clip, hook the clip on the zwing line and feed it out. The pull of the water pulls it down. If you get a smaller fish like a sail or some thing you don't even need to pull it back up. Just get another rubberband and paper clip and send down another bait. We can troll our rig up to 12 knots and there is no cable noise like from a downrigger or the cranking etc. Just need a pair of gloves to pull it back in. We caught everything from grouper to marlin on it.

[Mike15]

This can and will be debated until the end of time. Its really just a matter of preference. Both have their tradeoffs.

[floridadeckie]

hate the zwing. never had anything but trouble with it, and rigged it a million different ways to keep it down. everytime it would come back up and get tangled in every line near it. just stick to an old school planer or big downrigger ball

[Tricia Lynn]

You guys are using Planers with Downriggers ? Please tell me more, sounds interesting . Not too much stress on the downrigger ? It would be so nice to not have to crank up everytime. Thanks in advance for the tips