Unweighted, your minnow or herring may not dive deep enough to get into the strike zone. Put on shot and it may go below the thermocline and come up with bulging eyes. Live lining can be boring and inefficient unless the fish are concentrated in the top 10-12 feet of water. Live lining is a lazy way to fish, but you can catch some rays on a glorious day. Slow trolling with downriggers and live bait is a relatively new strategy.
Fishermen keep the bait within a short distance of the ball and release clip.
Crank the ball down to just above the thermocline and motor along slowly with your electric motor. Since trout and stripers rarely stop moving this has been effective. River fishermen employ this strategy while their boat is anchored. As a last resort you can fish for warmwater species in the creek arms of these canyon reservoirs. Most often our large reservoirs are rough and it takes a larger boat to brave the chop.