Shasta Tackle ShuttleHawk Review

I had a chance to take out the kayak to Lake Merwin yesterday and wanted to test out the Shasta Tackle ShuttleHawk (SH). While there are numerous proven ways to troll for kokanee, in the past few years I have found using downriggers with a fishfinder to be a very effective way at targeting kokanee during the warmer months. However there are definitely drawbacks to using manual downriggers in kayaks. Even with the best of mounts it is a chore to crank up weights from 40+ feet deep to do bait checks or to pull off a pikeminnow. IIRC it was uplandsandpiper who mentioned the SH on a post I had made about using downriggers for kokanee maybe a year ago. Recently I was on the Shasta Tackle website and decided to buy one to give it a try.

The SH is a diving/rising planer of sorts that has a loose weight inside, which with forward momentum and clipped on to the fishing line, travels down the downrigger line. When the release clip is triggered i.e. fish bite, the weight inside rolls back and the SH rises back to the surface. The fact that you don't need to do anything while the line is being taken down to depth is great for multitasking, you can get another bait in the water, eat etc.

There are some downsides of the SH, compared to a conventional ball n' downrigger clip, it is a bit harder to detect the bites because of the movement of the SH so you may have to do more frequent bait checks to ensure you are indeed baited up. Then again bait checks are much easier because you don't have to do any cranking. Because the SH isn't actually attached to the downrigger you can't quite get as much tension on the line as a conventional setup because it rides up if you crank too much. I also noticed it was a little more difficult to pull the fishing line out of the downrigger clips, but nothing serious. Without enough forward momentum ~1mph the SH barely dives down so really slow trolling might be difficult with the SH. Another issue is that the downrigger line is not held in very securely but a simple rubber back oriented from front to back is a cheap and easy fix.

All in all its a pretty nifty product, I could see it being really useful for stacking a downrigger and being able to reel in a fish/bait check etc without having to reel up the ball. If you downrigger troll (manual riggers at least) down deep I would highly recommend giving the ShuttleHawk a try to save your shoulders.

Nice review....might have to try mine again. Got pretty frustrated and gave up....was trying to stack 2 on 1. Was more confident in just long lining the 2nd rod. And as you mentioned, I think  I mostly troll pretty slow,so I always wondered if it made it down to the bobber stop. Always felt it would be handy ,as you pointed out ,for deeper depths and not having to crank up. Figured I would go fast to set it ,then slow down.
How was the fishing. ..haven't tried too many times this year,did well,but the fish were smaller than last year. Am hearing good things about Yale...bigger,fatter fish this year and the limit is 16.

I could see the ShuttleHawk on the Fishfinder right above the downrigger ball. I reeled up on the rod and watched it go up so its definitely down there. Going a bit faster does help to get it down quicker even about 1.5mph was plenty fast.

The bite at Merwin certainly is on, barely could deploy 2 rods at times, but it was tough to find decent sized fish. Only got 3 fish above 12", those footballs are few and far between this year it seems unfortunately.