Old fashion downrigger

I inherited this rod from my brother in law (meningitis took his life at 47' an amazing, healthy person -- freak infection ). It looks like a down rigger pole.  It was loaded with wire line.  One rotation is about a foot of line. I was thinking I could use this instead of a scotty lake troller. I would change out the wire to an 80lb braid and just run the line through the first roller/eye (to keep the down rigger ball close to the hull of my Hobie Outback and reduce pressure on the rod holder) I figured I could bungee the pole into one of the Hobie pole holders and setup a down rigger system.  Not sure what side and whether to use the fore or aft locations.  Nutty or doable..that is the question.

I did this setup with one of my broken halibut rods. I used to troll kokanee at lake.atevens, it.worked pretty well. But it was.not easy to pop off the down rigger clip.