Question for the Drop Shotters

[Luke]

this is something I have never really done much of but I really need to get into it.
lake I fish the most is clear and deep and a Drop Shot is one of the main staples here for this lake and I suck at it.

I have all the gear to do it just really unfamiliar with it but its something I am going to start working on as we go into fall and winter here.
with that said I know the "general rule" is to drop it to the bottom and shake it and so on.
but with fish suspended half way in the water column say suspended at 40' in 80' of water, do you just drop it down to them and shake the tip of the rod to get some action out of the bait?

[reason162]

but with fish suspended half way in the water column say suspended at 40' in 80' of water, do you just drop it down to them and shake the tip of the rod to get some action out of the bait?

In those situations I've gone entirely to the damiki rig instead.

[smithlakebass]

In those situations I've gone entirely to the damiki rig instead.

X2

[DrewFlu33]

I fish the heck out of a drop shot, but the specific question you ask is decidedly way, way out of my comfort zone.

One thing I will say that may be helpful is that a lot of people shake it way, way too much. The only reason I learned this is because I found that I was doing it. It all started when I was learning to fish a drop shot; I was just mimicking what I saw the pros doing. The problem with that is what you see when watching them...the tip of their rod shaking...will fool you big time. I didn't figure it out until I started watching the tip of my own rod while I was shaking it like I thought the pros were doing and realized that the amount of movement I was imparting was way, way more than what I thought it was. What you see as shaking from a distance is really much, much closer to holding it completely still in terms of what you're doing with your hands. If you think you're not shaking it enough, shake it less. In fact, I think most times "weighing your weight" (which I think is what I heard Aaron Martens call it) is a better way to think about it...allow a small amount of slack to form, then pull it taut doing your best not to move the weight.

And since I'm on the subject of things that messed me up when I was learning to drop shot: watch line diameters. Even after figuring out the shaking thing, I still couldn't catch fish consistently on one to save my life. It all culminated when out with a buddy who was absolutely wearing me out from the back of my boat. We were using identical baits, weights, and all the rest, casting to the same spots, and I couldn't catch a fish while he was whacking them. We finally switched rods and I started catching them. Long story short, the 8 lb Berkley 100% fluoro I was using as a leader is the same diameter as Seaguar and Sunline 12 lb. I switched to 7 lb Sniper as my leader and started catching way, way, way more fish on a drop shot. (For what it's worth, I think it's the natural action of the bait more than the line visibility that makes the difference, but that's just a hunch).

Hopefully others can chime in on fishing for deep suspended fish!

[jc2bg]

I agree with everything Drew wrote, especially the line deal. But like him, fishing for suspended bass halfway in the water column is definitely in a different ballpark—technique-wise—than 99% of the drop-shotting I’ve done for the past 20 years. Because line diameters are listed by many retailers, it’s easy to select a line with lower “presence” in the water. And again like Drew, I am much more concerned about the way different diameters allow the bait to work than I am about invisibility. Very small, light lures don’t sink the same or have the same action with heavier/larger lines. Period. You have to find fish before you can catch fish, and then you have to coax them to bite. So using heavier line is only feasible, from an effectiveness standpoint, if you already have found the fish, convinced some to bite on lighter line, and then experienced some losses because that line seems *too* light. Or that’s my theory, anyway.

[Quillback]

When I'm vertical drop shot fishing on Table Rock, I generally target fish I can see relating to the bottom on the graph. As mentioned above you don't need to impart a lot of action and it helps to get a bait that moves a lot without much input from the rod tip. I really like 4 inch fat Roboworms, you can swim one or drag it and the tail has a kind of swimming motion. I think it helps to drop a bait down to where you can watch it and test it movement before you fish it, you'd be surprised by how much action some of these baits have with little rod movement.

The guides on Table Rock do a lot of drop shotting to deep suspended fish. Two things they do to help, they'll mark their line with a sharpie at 10 foot increments, and they'll get their depth finders adjusted so that they can see their baits.

[joexiong]

I fish the heck out of a drop shot, but the specific question you ask is decidedly way, way out of my comfort zone.

One thing I will say that may be helpful is that a lot of people shake it way, way too much. The only reason I learned this is because I found that I was doing it. It all started when I was learning to fish a drop shot; I was just mimicking what I saw the pros doing. The problem with that is what you see when watching them...the tip of their rod shaking...will fool you big time. I didn't figure it out until I started watching the tip of my own rod while I was shaking it like I thought the pros were doing and realized that the amount of movement I was imparting was way, way more than what I thought it was. What you see as shaking from a distance is really much, much closer to holding it completely still in terms of what you're doing with your hands. If you think you're not shaking it enough, shake it less. In fact, I think most times "weighing your weight" (which I think is what I heard Aaron Martens call it) is a better way to think about it...allow a small amount of slack to form, then pull it taut doing your best not to move the weight.

And since I'm on the subject of things that messed me up when I was learning to drop shot: watch line diameters. Even after figuring out the shaking thing, I still couldn't catch fish consistently on one to save my life. It all culminated when out with a buddy who was absolutely wearing me out from the back of my boat. We were using identical baits, weights, and all the rest, casting to the same spots, and I couldn't catch a fish while he was whacking them. We finally switched rods and I started catching them. Long story short, the 8 lb Berkley 100% fluoro I was using as a leader is the same diameter as Seaguar and Sunline 12 lb. I switched to 7 lb Sniper as my leader and started catching way, way, way more fish on a drop shot. (For what it's worth, I think it's the natural action of the bait more than the line visibility that makes the difference, but that's just a hunch).

Hopefully others can chime in on fishing for deep suspended fish!

that's some awesome infomation! I guess thats why i still have a hard time with Drop shotting... I should try smaller diameter leader next season.

[jign4pigs]

that's some awesome infomation! I guess thats why i still have a hard time with Drop shotting... I should try smaller diameter leader next season.

Line diameter plays a part for sure. But some floros are more limp than others, and those are what you want. You typically get what you pay for with Floro so just try some until you find what you like. Also you typically want to use the smallest weight you can get away with and still feel what you're doing, again for the most natural movement.

As far as the situation you presented where fish are in 40 ft over 80, that is definitely a challenging scenario. It will test your boat control skills just as much as your fishing skills, and you still may not get a bite. These fish are notoriously finicky. As Quillback said, I'd prefer to find fish relating to the bottom more. In my opinion you utilize more of the dropshots capabilities this way. Once the weight is on the bottom and you give slack the bait with flutter/glide/fall down nearly weightlessly. Essentially you can mimic the fish-catching qualities of a senko/slow fall lure but you can do it on the bottom in deep water. Anyway, sometimes if that 80 ft is next to a break/drop, you can follow it up and you will see that there are fish on the break relating to bottom at a similar depth that the suspended fish are out over the basin. In this example the fish are on a deep break relating to 35-40 ft just like the suspended fish over 80.

From my drop shotting experience as well as ice fishing experience, you almost never want to drop directly into the school you see on your graph. The fish are looking up in this scenario so that is where you want your bait to be in relation to the fish. If you can get them to rise a ways to eat your bait you can get those fish to bite something IMO. May not be the color or lure you have on right now but its probably close if they came up to take a peek. If you can get one to commit the next couple should be easier as it gets them more riled up similar to how one might get a school fired up on the ledges on Pickwick. I think what everyone said about not giving too much action is spot on. In my simple way of thinking here is what I envision: if there is bait involved, all of the bait is moving freely and naturally swimming around, so when you drop your dropshot in there and it has a duller/slower action this presents itself as a weak/dying/injured baitfish. Not to say you wont catch any shaking the crap out of it cause both have their place. No different than sometimes they want the jerkbait/topwater paused longer or worked faster, its not my place to tell the fish what they want.

Got a little wordy there, hope something in there is helpful.

[joexiong]

Line diameter plays a part for sure. But some floros are more limp than others, and those are what you want. You typically get what you pay for with Floro so just try some until you find what you like. Also you typically want to use the smallest weight you can get away with and still feel what you're doing, again for the most natural movement.

As far as the situation you presented where fish are in 40 ft over 80, that is definitely a challenging scenario. It will test your boat control skills just as much as your fishing skills, and you still may not get a bite. These fish are notoriously finicky. As Quillback said, I'd prefer to find fish relating to the bottom more. In my opinion you utilize more of the dropshots capabilities this way. Once the weight is on the bottom and you give slack the bait with flutter/glide/fall down nearly weightlessly. Essentially you can mimic the fish-catching qualities of a senko/slow fall lure but you can do it on the bottom in deep water. Anyway, sometimes if that 80 ft is next to a break/drop, you can follow it up and you will see that there are fish on the break relating to bottom at a similar depth that the suspended fish are out over the basin. In this example the fish are on a deep break relating to 35-40 ft just like the suspended fish over 80.

From my drop shotting experience as well as ice fishing experience, you almost never want to drop directly into the school you see on your graph. The fish are looking up in this scenario so that is where you want your bait to be in relation to the fish. If you can get them to rise a ways to eat your bait you can get those fish to bite something IMO. May not be the color or lure you have on right now but its probably close if they came up to take a peek. If you can get one to commit the next couple should be easier as it gets them more riled up similar to how one might get a school fired up on the ledges on Pickwick. I think what everyone said about not giving too much action is spot on. In my simple way of thinking here is what I envision: if there is bait involved, all of the bait is moving freely and naturally swimming around, so when you drop your dropshot in there and it has a duller/slower action this presents itself as a weak/dying/injured baitfish. Not to say you wont catch any shaking the crap out of it cause both have their place. No different than sometimes they want the jerkbait/topwater paused longer or worked faster, its not my place to tell the fish what they want.

Got a little wordy there, hope something in there is helpful.

I'm using Sunline Pro 12lb Fluor, I may go to 10-8lbs leader.

[jign4pigs]

I'm using Sunline Pro 12lb Fluor, I may go to 10-8lbs leader.

Personally, I use 8 lb Seaguar InvizX or Tatsu. I have been intrigued by some of the 7 lb offerings such as FC Sniper, but haven't tried them yet.

[Ben Danbleume]

Personally, I use 8 lb Seaguar InvizX or Tatsu. I have been intrigued by some of the 7 lb offerings such as FC Sniper, but haven't tried them yet.

I've been using 7lb sniper for around ten years, no unmanageable problems. Biggest fish I've caught was around a ten pound flat head that was in a tree.

[DaveBrabec]

Dead stick it sometimes shaking it works but the more i get people to slow down the more fish they catch

[DrewFlu33]

I'm using Sunline Pro 12lb Fluor, I may go to 10-8lbs leader.

That's really heavy for a drop shot in my mind. I don't think it's fish being line shy, but as others have suggested, I think it makes your bait look a lot less natural. I suspect your success will increase substantially if you drop down to something lighter.

The 7 lb Sniper continues to shock me with it's tensile strength. Short of pike teeth, outright laziness from not retying when it gets frayed, or really really horsing fish it just doesn't break on a drop shot. I've hung it up before and actually pulled my boat sideways trying to break it. Unreal. I also spent a day out for fun last year where I was really horsing fish just to get an idea of how much pressure I could put on them when fishing weed edges to keep them from burying up in thick coontail. I had been fishing with it quite a lot up to that point, and it still surprised me just how much pressure I could put on a 3+ lb fish without busting it off.

It's worth mentioning that Sniper is not the most abrasion resistant option out there, but you don't need abrasion resistance with a drop shot since the area of line you need to be strong (hook to reel) isn't really ever rubbing on anything that causes abrasion. This isn't to say it has poor abrasion resistance...I throw it on all my spinning rod applications and all my moving bait applications...but if I'm dragging something through rocks like a football jig, Carolina rig, or swing head, Shooter holds up a little better. Shooter is also a lot more stiff, so it's not really surprising.

Either way, if you're worried about it, tie something lighter up on a day you're out for fun and just put it through its paces. I think you'll be really surprised at how well it holds up.

Personally, I use 8 lb Seaguar InvizX or Tatsu. I have been intrigued by some of the 7 lb offerings such as FC Sniper, but haven't tried them yet.

I've heard so many good things about Tatsu and haven't tried it myself, but I can say that the 7 lb Sniper seems to hold up quite a bit better than the 8 lb Invisx. It also doesn't help that 1 out of the 2 spools of Invisx I've bought was bad right off the shelf...12 lb I could just snap between my hands. The 8 lb spool was OK, but was more unruly and didn't hold up as well as the Sniper. It's also cheaper than Sniper, so it's all relative. Everyone has different luck with different brands though; I've heard of people getting bad spools of Sniper too. Ford vs. Chevy, maybe!

[BassVoodoo]

I actually drop the tip on the rod and let the bait fall/flutter down and quick snap up the slack in the line (as if the bait if chasing something upwards) and then jiggle it not moving the weight at all...I use that combination most often...it works.

[Ranger519VS]

I use FC Sniper #7 almost exclusively for my drop shotting up here on the Great Lakes. I drop shot for 90% of my fishing and its almost too easy. Times when they won't bite it a ned rig will usually trigger them. And like others have said less action is more. I tell my clients to not move the bait at all and it catches way more fish. When they are being reluctant sometimes shaking the rod without move the sinker then stop and keep a tight line.

[jign4pigs]

I've heard so many good things about Tatsu and haven't tried it myself, but I can say that the 7 lb Sniper seems to hold up quite a bit better than the 8 lb Invisx. It also doesn't help that 1 out of the 2 spools of Invisx I've bought was bad right off the shelf...12 lb I could just snap between my hands. The 8 lb spool was OK, but was more unruly and didn't hold up as well as the Sniper. It's also cheaper than Sniper, so it's all relative. Everyone has different luck with different brands though; I've heard of people getting bad spools of Sniper too. Ford vs. Chevy, maybe!

I believe it. I have experienced the same problem with some InvisX in the past. I used to use it for main line for some applications and got so disappointed with it I got some new spools and limited it to just leaders. Mostly finesse applications in open water, so not many problems with it in that regard with proper drag setting.