Downrigger questions

Im new to open water fishing. It seems at my location people are catching walleye in about 70 feet of water and getting fish at 60'. Ive been marking lots of fish at 60-65 feet but have not had much luck with my crankbaits and would like to try some crawler harnesses as others have said they do wonders. My question is how much leader off of my downrigger should i have and do i need weight on my crawler harness to keep the bait in the same zone i have my downrigger ball or will it stay in that zone on its own? Also i think i may have not taken into account the dive that my crankbait does when i was trolling which may contribute to my lack of success. Anything helps guys. Im a newb but would love to at least pull 1 or 2 in the next time i get out. Thanks!

When using my downriggers with bandits I let out 58ft of line. By the time I grab the line twist it and snap it in the clip I'm out 50 ft. It is just a guess but by trial and error it seems to put my bandit 12ft deeper. When something works write your numbers down for future use. When I was marking fish at 46ft I went down 32ft so with the 12ft added I was at 44ft. 2ft above the walleye.. Now harness I would also put it out around 50ft no weight or very small weight. Try that first and from there add weight to see what works for you. Best time to do all this in my opinion is when the bite is good but not to good if that makes sense. If the fish seem spooked you can let out more line but I do like the 50ft to 70ft range behind boat.

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Originally Posted by verno

When using my downriggers with bandits I let out 58ft of line. By the time I grab the line twist it and snap it in the clip I'm out 50 ft. It is just a guess but by trial and error it seems to put my bandit 12ft deeper. When something works write your numbers down for future use. When I was marking fish at 46ft I went down 32ft so with the 12ft added I was at 44ft. 2ft above the walleye.. Now harness I would also put it out around 50ft no weight or very small weight. Try that first and from there add weight to see what works for you. Best time to do all this in my opinion is when the bite is good but not to good if that makes sense. If the fish seem spooked you can let out more line but I do like the 50ft to 70ft range behind boat.

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Thank you very much for the info. Just curious how you were able to determine the bandit was down 12 feet? I have lures that say they will dive up to 20 feet when trolling but i have no idea how much line it takes for it to dive that deep or how to calculate how much line for say 10 feet. Is it better to maybe narrow down my bait to something that only dives a few feet at most so i know im in my window?

you can use a lure that only dive a few feet. But I really like using the bandit. The chart I found for bandit showed the depth of the lure say for 10ft 15ft and so on but its hard to be sure because of line used. The chart i found was for 10lb line and I use 17lb so I split the difference. Having said all that one day I was trolling out 50ft with my bandit and was trying to run just off the bottom. I believe I was about 8 to 10ft off bottom with my downrigger ball and it popped so I caught the bottom with lure. I raised it up a few feet and never had that issue again. Even if I'm not down the extra 12ft that I think I am but catching the fish that is on the fish finder I'm in the zone I need to be in. I hope this makes sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by verno

you can use a lure that only dive a few feet. But I really like using the bandit. The chart I found for bandit showed the depth of the lure say for 10ft 15ft and so on but its hard to be sure because of line used. The chart i found was for 10lb line and I use 17lb so I split the difference. Having said all that one day I was trolling out 50ft with my bandit and was trying to run just off the bottom. I believe I was about 8 to 10ft off bottom with my downrigger ball and it popped so I caught the bottom with lure. I raised it up a few feet and never had that issue again. Even if I'm not down the extra 12ft that I think I am but catching the fish that is on the fish finder I'm in the zone I need to be in. I hope this makes sense.

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Yes it makes sense thanks a lot. Where can i find the chart you are talking about for the bandits?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by verno

you can use a lure that only dive a few feet. But I really like using the bandit. The chart I found for bandit showed the depth of the lure say for 10ft 15ft and so on but its hard to be sure because of line used. The chart i found was for 10lb line and I use 17lb so I split the difference. Having said all that one day I was trolling out 50ft with my bandit and was trying to run just off the bottom. I believe I was about 8 to 10ft off bottom with my downrigger ball and it popped so I caught the bottom with lure. I raised it up a few feet and never had that issue again. Even if I'm not down the extra 12ft that I think I am but catching the fish that is on the fish finder I'm in the zone I need to be in. I hope this makes sense.

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Also what bandit lure are you using that you have it dialed in for that depth if you dont mind me asking?

bandit walleye deep diver lure.
I found a chart by googling bandit deep diver depth chart. In there look at images or pictures of charts. there are different sites you can read with info some coming from people that use the precision trolling app.