What I do is after seeing a pod of lakers while trolling I will note the depth and mark a way point sometimes, than set riggers at the same depth or even a foot or two below and go back over them. Exactly when I pop the release is a rather intuitive thing it petty much as soon as I see the target group of fish i have done this numerous times to single fish but it works more reliably when there is more than one fish. In anserw to your question I trip the release before the fish strikes, as soon as i feel line release i take up a bit the slack line, always keeping the rod tip up and feeling the lure. I sort of use subtle movements and jig the lure up to the suface. pumping the rod pauseing and reeling up some line until lure is on top. Sometimes the fish will hit the lure close to the top too especialy salmon which i have caught a lot of this way too. Why I think this works is you are afectivly dropping the lure on the end of the fish's nose and when you pop the release it momenterly stops the lure and than they see it start to swim away from them, and they strike. I troll between 2 and 2.2 mph and that works fine for this. I don't spend the day trying to do this becuase I think you would drive your self nuts lol. and also I have manuel downriggers so would some get sick of cranking. Give it a try next time out you will be suprised how well it works. i'm usualy fishing about 50' behind the balls too when i do this Good luck
I've been doing something similar (find em on sonar then drop the presentation right onto them) but I slow my trolling speed down (1.2 - 1.5 mph on GPS). Also, I'm usually tighter to the ball (10-20 ft) as I am using the Moosamaloo vertical flashers on the ball. I have not tried the "pop the release and jig" variation, but I will in the future!
Have you ever jigged for lakers? When jigging for Lakers a method that works great is an escape method Ie. ripping your bait away from the fish you are targeting. You jig above a pod of trout until you see one move up to look at your bait when this happens you rip it away from them and they HIT... This method you speak of is doing the same thing esacping the bait away from the predator fish triggering a instinctive strike!
