Month: June 2021

We tried going out fishing again today. It was an ill-fated venture. Because we are still having downrigger problems.

Anyway, we only started with one working downrigger, this time. The other is missing cable (line), and we have to purchase replacement line and re-spool it. This time, we got the weight and line down in the water at depth, and were trolling, but when we went to pull it up, once again, the “up” wasn’t working.

Very frustrating.

At least we had brought the new halibut poles and reels. So we put in a few hours hoping for halibut, at Caldera Bay. A few nibbles, and some orange-colored rockfish that we threw back, but no halibut.

Very sad.

Once again, hearts heavy, we returned home.

Once again, I put in a few hours trying to figure out what it was that I don’t get about downriggers, their motors, their switches, their little circuit boards inside. Perhaps the motor is just “tired.” That’s how it seems. Like, it has enough umph to let the cable out, but not enough to pull it back in with a weight attached.

But then I discovered something. Perhaps I’m just hallucinating, out of some misplaced hope that I can get it fixed, but it seemed to me that when I reversed the polarity on the connection from the circuit board to the motor, the motor’s “up” seemed more energetic. Yesterday (or, rather, day-before-yesterday) I had learned that polarity was in fact something that was important on the inputs to the circuit board, and  today, I wonder if what I learned is that polarity also matters on the outputs – the connection to the actual motor.

The reason why this is surprising is that Art has been quite insistent, all along, that polarity shouldn’t matter with an electric motor. That might be true for old style electric motors, but I’ve begun to wonder if his knowledge is out-of-date. Anyway, I got a lot more “pull” out of the “up” direction on the downrigger, by switching the polarity on the outputs to the motor. So maybe that’s been the issue? Art had taken apart the motors back before we launched the boat, and I wonder if maybe he switched things up when he put them back together – based on his assumption that polarity didn’t matter.

I told Arthur that I can foresee two distinct possibilities as outcomes for my third effort at downrigger repair: 1) “third time’s the charm,” and things work great; 2) “three strikes, you’re out,” and we give up and buy new downriggers.

We shall see. Because of the weather, and upcoming scheduled time at work for me, we probably won’t get another chance to test things out on the water until maybe Friday or Saturday.

And thus the fish are safe, for now.

Year-to-date totals:

• Coho: 0
• Kings: 0
• Halibut: 0
• Other: 0
• Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1

We got up bright and early to go out fishing today. After all the various delays and problems we had, the weather seemed auspicious and we wanted to give it a try.

We went out to Caldera Bay, only to find that the downriggers would go down, but not up. Both of them. Despite the fact that I’d tested them before departure, and had thought I’d solved the electrical problems yesterday morning.

Having the downriggers already partly down and then not having them go up is a bit of a problem. You have to turn the wheels manually, very slowly, pulling up on the weights (8 lb) on the ends of the lines. Arthur was doing that on the port side downrigger, and I was on the other side messing with the switch and trying to see why it would go down but not up. I made the mistake of messing with the “clutch” – a screw-in clamp on the side of the mechanism. This was because I was thinking maybe the wheel was screwed in too tight and so friction was combining with gravity to make it too hard for the motor to do “up” while it still could do “down.” Well, that may have been the case, but anyway I loosened the clutch just a bit too much, and suddenly the wheel was spinning and gravity was pulling the weight and the line out fast. I tried to stop it, and managed to lose my grip entirely, and just like that, the whole length of line was out and the wire snapped, and the weight was lost on the bottom of Caldera Bay.

Meanwhile, Art got the other one up, but the motor remained unable to do “up” and so we gave up on trolling. We thought: well, we could try for some halibut – Caldera is a place where we’ve had luck with halibut, before. But then we realized that Art had brought along the old halibut rods and reels – despite the fact that they both had some major problems and in fact, Alan (Art’s brother, my other uncle) had bought us new halibut rods and reels last fall. They were sitting in the boathouse. We should have brought those, right? But we hadn’t.

We sat in the sunshine and discussed looking at the scenery.

“Looks about the same as it did last year.”

“Yep.”

We decided to go back home. We tied up at the dock again by 8:30 AM.

I spent the rest of the day wrestling with downrigger electrical problems.

I feel, once again, that I’ve solved things. But! I’m not very confident, given I felt the same way yesterday at this time. So… looks like some stormy weather is coming through tonight, but Sunday might be nice. Tentatively, we’ll try again on Sunday. We will only have one downrigger though, even if the electrical problem is truly solved – because we don’t have any replacement downrigger line. Unless I drive into town tomorrow and shop for some. I might.

It was a trial run, I guess. On a positive side, the boat remains unsunk and no lives were lost.

Year-to-date totals:

• Coho: 0
• Kings: 0
• Halibut: 0
• Other: 0
• Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1