You came to the right place to ask these questions .....
We have had the best luck running the dipsy 4'-5' ahead of a spoon. Naked. Seems to produce constantly for us. Spoons will vary day to day but some to try are five of diamonds, a Williams wobbler in silver/gold and the good old red devil (in a standard size like No2)
The "chart" will tell you what to let out on your line counter and the big dipsy goes down surprising accurate when compared the the chart (100 out is roughly 40 down).
I run these right off my Lund's standard rod holders which are in the track. No problem there. Yeah it pulls hard but there is no risk of damaging it or anything like that ..... it's fine ..... just gotta grip it hard if you need to pull it out while you are still moving forward and not tripped. My wife has a bit of a struggle with it, but for an average guy, it's no big deal.
I also run the Okuma cold water reels. Absolutely rock solid, great drag, excellent reels. Probably the best bang for your buck at that price point ( I also have Shimanos and ABU's) so it's a fair comparison. Love them, bought 2 more Cold Waters last year.
Here's the Okuma cold water in action, on the Lund track with a standard rod holder at Cold Lake (so we hit all your questions !!!!
) .... The below picture is on the downrigger here, but you get the idea ..... it works, no problem. I like to have the rod loaded and do prefer downriggers, but sometimes to test an area for the bite (or where the depth goes up fast and drops) it's quick/easy to pull in or deploy more line with a dipsy (especially If I'm on the steering wheel) - so I'm on a dipsy probably 30% of the time.
