I was just reading on fishing lake trout with light line, and three way swivels.
That sounds easier than down riggers.

Can someone bring me up to speed on using the swivels?

Wabigoon,

I have fished lake trout extensively for 60 years and a lot of it was done with 3 ways.......downriggers are a PIA IMO.....the 3 ways work best for trolling spoons especially in mid water or snaggy bottom.....

Having said that, I seldom use that technique any more as I troll with a different lure and I jig a lot more now.

It's difficult to find 3 way swivels of quality....mush prefer attaching duo-lok snap [only] to my main line and 4 feet of flourocarbon leader to my lure with the swivel at top of leader......and snapped into the duo-lok. I then just fasten weight line into snap also......no real need for a 3 way.

Having said that.....I usually just use a banana sinker snapped to my main line with the leader snapped to the sinker......I always cut all the swivels and crap off my lead sinkers as they are of poor quality and failures are common.....keep it simple.....

IMO, you have to know where your lure is.....otherwise you're not fishing...you're just wishing....therefore I only use reels with line counters....Shimano being the best and most accurate......when you see a trout on your depth finder, lower the largest Buzz Bomb down nearly to same depth and jig it a couple times. I can taste the fried trout now!

Try Torpedo weights. We use them a lot in Great Lakes

http://www.torpedodivers.com/torpedo.asp

I try to keep all terminal tackle separted into traditional, two-participant sex; one male and one female.

John, comes to mind the old joke about the patient telling his shrink, "You're the one with the dirty pictures."
The Rorschach test.

I run downriggers with weights that I made by filling 1.5" stainless pipe with lead and welding a tapered cap and bottom on.This design is nearly transparent to my sounder but I can detect it to get an accurate depth vs the bottom.

I run chamberlain releases and they are just plain slick.