Building a Downrigger Homemade for Better Fishing

If you've been looking at the price tags on professional trolling gear lately, you might be considering building a downrigger homemade to save some serious cash while still getting your lures down to the strike zone. Let's be honest: walking into a tackle shop and seeing a manual downrigger for $200 or an electric one for $600 can be a bit of a gut punch, especially if you're just trying to catch some lake trout or salmon on the weekends. The good news is that a downrigger isn't actually a complex piece of machinery. At its core, it's just a spool, a boom, a cable, and a heavy weight. ...

March 3, 2026 · 7 min · Tami Rojas