Brocraft Minin Manual Downrigger/Small Boat Easy Catch Lake-Troll Manual Downrigger/Kayak Downrigger

I mounted this on my Lifetime Tamarack Angler 10 foot fishing kayak. I went fishing with it at Twin Lakes, Ca.for 2 days (August 20-22,2019). I added an Extreme Max 4 pound weight ,and 300 feet of Power Pro's 150 lb test,braided downrigger cable (after removing the steel cable that came on this model).Got it all rigged up,and started fishing.The first thing I noticed was the gunwale of my kayak was flexing up and down/side to side with each turn of the downrigger handle. Not good. The next thing was the huge amount of drag caused by the weight. With every right side stroke of the paddle,I had to make2-3 strokes on the left side in order to counter the enormous amount of drag from the submerged weight just to keep the Angler under control, and on a relatively straight course.I use a Sea Sense Extreme II, 8ft (96 inch,243.84cm)paddle, which gives me a lot of power when paddling my kayak,and ,frankly,using this downrigger, with all of the added drag, made paddling a real chore! It can be done, but I believe that it would work much better with a higher quality , pedal drive kayak.I also own a 9ft Classic Accessories Colorado Pontoon boat, with a Minn Kota Endura Maxx 55 pound thrust trolling motor that I plan to try this on in the very near future at Lake Don Pedro,Ca. for Salmon and Trout. I hope it works better! We'll see. I'll update this review and let you know how it does on this type of boat. For now, I can't recommend this downrigger for the Lifetime Tamarack Angler kayak. Maybe a lighter weight will help. We'll see on that ,too.UPDATE 1:I went back to Twin Lakes, Ca. on September 03-05 ,2019. I fished from my Classic Accessories Colorado 9 foot pontoon boat. I bought a second Scotty #267 Fly Rod Holder w/ #266 Float Tube Mount .I've owned the first Scotty #266/267 combo that I bought for almost 2 decades now. It was originally bought for my Caddis Float Tube in the year 2000. I added a Scotty Casting/Spinning rod holder head to it. They are strapped side by side on the left side pontoon of my boat when in use. The Brocraft mounting base for the downrigger fits it perfectly. I had assumed that it would. I was glad to see that I was right. I now have one for the downrigger, and one for my trolling rod.I was only able to fish for a couple of hours (Sept. 04,2019) on Lower Twin Lake before a severe thunder storm drove me off the lake with sudden high winds, and heavy rain. Unfortunately, I didn't catch any fish, and I only saw one fish boated during those approximately 2 hours. I left the next morning before the storms returned. Everything worked great during the time I was on the water, and I would recommend this Brocraft Downrigger for use with either a small motorized, or rowed, boat.

Looks well build can’t wait to put in use!

This is absolutely what I was looking for, perfect downrigger for my 120 PDL love the handle design very well made for this type of downrigger thanks so much!

I put two on my kayak and tried them out today and worked excelent, mount, line release, and downrigger itself are solid. I have never heard of brocraft products but they are on par with Scotty and Cannon. I will be ordering other brocraft products in the future.

I bought two of these for a small fishing boat that I’m putting together for the lakes around us. I’ve had downrigger in the past and I mark them every 10 feet especially when they don’t have a counter like these. The problem is there’s only 70 feet of cable on each Downrigger when they say there’s 100…..it would be nice if they provided 100 feet of cable as advertised.

This is far and away the best Down rigger for a kayak on the market.. There is basically one competitor to this and this is about the same price but souch better made! If you are looking for a kayak down rigger this is the one!

Good alternative to Scotty's Lake Troll system. A bit cheaper, about same quality.

Worked great! did what its supposed to do. Caught quite a few fish using it with popgear.