Different lines sink different. When I fish Lake Ontario I use wire, copper, braid and mono. Each line gives a different presentation. Sometimes I run the lines out 300 to 400 feet behind the boat. Can’t do that at the Hook where I fish. In the lake we fish up to 400 FOW (feet of water). At the hook the bottom changes too much and you will get hooked up on the bottom. I have found that the wire line works the best around here. You don’t have to have your lure that far back and most times I am running it 50 to 75’ back. The wire does not stretch and sinks fast.
Up at the lake I use a unit called a Depth Raider witch hooks to your down rigger and tells you the temp and speed at the ball. Sometimes you see a big difference in speed from your gps and ball speed and sometimes it’s the same. This is due to sub surface current. That is one reason you will pick up fish trolling one way and not the other unless you adjust your speed when you turn around. With the Depth Raider you know the speed has changed and you can adjust for it. I don’t use the Depth Raider at the hook because I don’t use the down riggers. I am going to try them this year in the spring because of so many boats out fishing I can run a shorter line behind the ball.
In short, I use wire line with 1000’ of line on the reel when trolling shad rigs and bunker spoons. All reels have line counters on them so you know how far back you are and you don’t need a roller rod or tip. If you do a lot of wire fishing with the wire rod, you may want to change the tip of the rod to a twilli tip.
