What blank would you recommend for a Dipsey diver rod, plan to fish along with down riggers.

I have a ton of these rods fishing Lake Michigan. The best blank I have found hands down is the SU1209F-2-MHX. For a nine footer, the SU1088F-2-MHX works great inside the 10', with an ever so slight softer action that keeps them seperated.

Check out the Batson trolling blanks - they have some Excellent choices and one of the best selections. I have built a good number of them, good performance, rock solid.

Thanks - Marc

Keep it simple - that's all I can handle!

Gerald,

Building the best Dipsy Diver rod you can is probably the most challenging rod to build of all rods. There are so many factors to consider like layout of the boat, placement and angle of rodholders and their orientation to downriggers, the length and angle of downrigger arms, the worst case scenarios of water and wind conditions the boat will fish in, and height off the water of the various components. Angler preferences dictate things such as length, action, and power. Terminal rigging factors will dictate minimal guide sizing while line type will dictate minimum ring material (Silicon Nitride is good for braided wire lines). Some people want roller guides (even though they are not necessary) and the weight of heavy roller guides on a 9-10'6" long blank will drastically deter both the feel and performance of the finished rod. Some trollers want to deploy magnum sized divers on wire inside diver rods deep for salmon and run an outside slide-diver on mono or braid high for offshore steelhead. These two rod which run right next to each other, and next to the outside downrigger cable, must all work in concert. There still are more factors a builder could consider to help them select a blank.

Now, consider this is a small market segment of the fishery. Despite what some mfg might say in their advertising, there are really no blanks purpose engineered for this use. There are just a few blanks that possess a lot of the desirable qualities a truly great high performance diver rod should have. Most of the blanks will likely fall into the surf rod categories. Tony's MHX recommendations are a couple of good choices, so would be the 1089, 1198, 1199, and 1208 MHX blanks. The American tackle AXSU100M-2 is another option. For other MFGs, look for mod-fast to fast action blanks around 9-10' that have line ratings in the 15-30 and 20-40 lb class. Both the 15-30 and 20-40s will likely work with standard divers but I'd give the nod to the 20-40s for inside magnum diver duty. In addition to those you can also consider the moderate action Batson RDR100H for single rod per side diver application (but not as a longer outside rod paired with a shorter inside diver rod - the moderate action of the blank just doesn't pair well with faster action inside blanks when fished in close proximity to each other.

With most other types of fishing, you have so many choices to choose from you can usually find a few really nice blanks to choose from. But because there are so few good candidate blanks to use for diver rods, you should keep in mind that you may need to trim and/or extend a blank to get what you really need. I pretty much go into diver rod builds with the mindset that I'm going to have to modify the blank to build the rod my customer needs.

If you going to build both an inside and outside rod it's really important to approach the build as a pair designed to work in concert with each other rather than two separate rods built in isolation of each other. Determine what sizes divers will be used and spend some time mocking up the boat's rigging these will be used on. When I build a set for my customers (two per side) I have them provide a fully dimensioned overhead photo of the back of their boat. I replicate the downrigger and rod holders details from one corner of their boat as accurately as possible in my workshop. I have them pre-set their current rod's reel drag settings to their preference and have them bring the reels to me so I can measure the slip point with a digital scale. I'll then set my mock-up reels to the same drag slip point so they can take their reels home with them. With a dual diver setup you'll most likely need to trim one or more tips, and/or trim or add to one or more butts to get the perfect interplay of the two loaded rods.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2015 10:03AM by John E Powell.

Thanks for the information I just finished a Steelhead spinning rod using a MHX ST1143 and am very impressed, I had been using Batson ST1143 I realize a lot of this is personal reference but I feel that the MHX has an edge. please understand that Batson makes a great product also.

Wow thanks for all the detail this customer wants to fish the Dipsy in conjunction with down riggers magnum Dipsy on each side with rod holders ahead of the down riggers (ahead towards the bow) these will be fished off a 23" Boston Whaler conquest. Is there a problem fishing Dipsy divers and down riggers together? I have built a lot of down rigger rods but this will be my first dipsy rod.

If you want to find out information about our products you can visit the links to the left or you can go directly: [www.rainshadowrodblanks.com]

R. McBride

Batson Enterprises
BatsonEnterprises.com | RainShadowRodBlanks.com | ALPSForeCast.com | Build2Fish.com

The challenge with dipsy rods is to balance the power needed to pull the dipsy and the bait, to fight the fish (without pulling hooks from soft mouthed trout), provide adequate reach so the diver line never cuts across the downrigger cable (in an absolute worst case water/wind/wave scenario a given boat might be fished in) and keep the rod proportions reasonable without having too lengthy of a rod placing the leverage in a fish's advantage. It's a lot easier to do one diver per side than two. The single diver just has to clear the downrigger cable.

When you place a pair of divers per side, the outside diver (running higher and further to the side in the water column) is placed in the forward rod holder. This rod holder on most boats is 12-18" in front of the second diver rod.

If deployed, a second diver rod is placed in the rearward rod holder 12-18" behind the forward diver rod. This diver is set to run between the corner downrigger and the more forward outside diver. It is set to run at a deeper depth and not as far off to the side of the boat as the forward outside diver rod. With the right set of rods rigged to run correctly a fish should be able to hit any trolled downrigger or diver rod and that line should not get tangled with any other trolled line. During the time between when the fish hooks themselves and the angler gets the rod out of the rod holder and repositions themselves from the side to the rear of the boat, the rod should never come in contact or get tangled with and other rod.

The rod should be perfectly balanced to land small 4-7 lb coho, brown trout or steelhead and handle 30lb salmon while maintaining a trolling speed. You do not clear other lines, you keep trolling along down the lake. You would only clear lines on a trophy or possibly a foul-hooked fish. The rod should be short to keep the mechanical leverage advantage the fish has to a minimum, but needs to also provide adequate reach when loaded so the rod can be moved around other rods still deployed. At netting time, the rod needs to be long and stiff enough to steer that 30lb salmon between downrigger lines and cables and brought to net behind the boat's transom.

If it sounds like i'm describing a lot of factors that seem to be opposites of each other, I am. This is why it's so challenging to build a great diver rod compared to an average diver rod. One boat can have a set of rods that fish perfectly on that boat but if transferred to a buddy's boat, just don't work well at all. I see this kind of thing all the time. If you follow the threads on diver rod preferences or recommendations in any of the great lakes trolling forums your bound to see a wide spectrum of recommended factory rods. This is because there are just so many boat physical layout and equipment factors and angler preferences and fishing practices to consider.

Oh here's another one I haven't mentioned - how long of a leader will they fish behind a fixed diver? If the guy wants to run a 10' leader behind the diver this will be to the front of a flasher. Add to this the length of the flasher (8-10") and the leader length to the squid or fly (22-26" or longer on large rotating flashers - "Twinkie rigs" can be 5-6' long), and the length of the fish itself... keep in mind you can only reel in line up to the point the diver is at the rod tip. Everything beyond that complicates netting habits. Some crews will actually hand-line the fish the last few feet because the rods just aren't long enough. with a small open boat with no top an angler can step backwards towards the bow, but on a larger boat with a hardtop or canvas, this may not be possible. There are even more factors to consider, I could go on and on.

If you have never fished with diver before, I would highly recommend you search for a variety of YouTube videos filmed on charter or "tournament" boats and view them paying particular attention to the placement, rigging, and running of the divers, and how the rods need to be handled from deployment through netting of a fish. This should give you a good sense of helping you visualize some of the factors I've described.

By the way, on my boat I have three diver rods per side. When I run a single standard diver rod high in the water column, I run the Batson RDR100H. It's very forgiving and is not tasked with working in conjunction with a second nearby diver. I trim it just a bit from the tip to adjust the power and I cut the length to about 9' 3" or so. I don't have long reach requirements on my boat. I actually laid out my boat to work with the rods I want to fish which is how it should be - most everyone does it backwards. For the diver rods that I fish in pairs, I am running some two-piece 8' discontinued lamiglas blanks on the inside for magnum divers and some american tackle AXSU100M trimmed from both ends for an overall length of 9' 3" on the outside.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2015 04:42PM by John E Powell.

John, looks like we share a passion. On our tourney boats, we also run three divers (all wire) per side. This season we are also playing around with getting rid of the chute rigger during the high sun periods and deploying a "chute diver". I am playing with 6'6" and 7" blanks for this. The 6'6" is a total riot to fight fish on wire, but takes a skilled angler to not overpower the fish/line. We handline all of our fish to the net, even with the 10' diver rods, twelve foot leaders plus terminal tackle make this a necessity. These shorties also prove to be great combat diver rods, fishing the piers and channels late in fall. John is correct, lots of thought and planning go into making a great diver rod vs. average ones. Even more so when multiple divers work in conjunction with riggers and longlines(coppers, leadcores).

If the rod will use ss wire line, take a look at the Torpedo swivel roller tip. It is the best tip for wire that I am aware of. The Twilly tip is effective, but very crude and will at some point wear through and fail if the rod is fished enough.

Tony,

I'm building 4 new rods to field test a completely new design of swiveling roller tip that is both conventional and spiral wrap compatible. The samples I have look way better than anything on the market, including the Torpedo tip.

My buddy at Traxstech said he seen that tip at the Niagra trade show? He is supposed to be getting me contact information?

Tony,

It was me he talked to, I showed him the sample tip. He never followed up with me though.

I would like to give a couple a try. Where are you located John? Jeff said they were also the best he has seen.

Tony,

I'll email you the info and you can contact them directly. Unfortunately, the intro pricing is no longer available. Had he acted sooner...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2015 02:39PM by John E Powell.

John, the email listed on this site is an old email that I no longer use. Please email me at eyefullsportfishing@gmail.com