By David A. Brown
Special to BassFan


It’s one of bass fishing’s most popular and productive rigs. Made for precision, stealth and persistence, the dropshot is also one of the most user-friendly options available to the modern tournament angler. But despite its simplicity, the dropshot can be made even more productive when paired with strategic thought.

Several good examples of this premise arose during the Rayovac FLW Series event on Lake Erie in late August. Known for its smallmouth abundance, the Great Lake wasn’t in prime form, at least partially due to a persistent algae bloom, yet it still showed its potential

Here are a handful of strategy points from some of the Top-10 finishers.

> Snag and Bag: Ohio's Jared Rhode led the tournament on day 1 and was tied with veteran tour pro and Erie stick Dave Lefebre on the second day. Ending up 2nd, Rhode explained that one of his more productive tactics was the equivalent of dead-sticking a worm.

“As I would drag my dropshot slowly across the rocks, sometimes I would let the sinker sit in one spot and almost intentionally try to get the sinker stuck,” he said. “You had to be really subtle so you had to be really patient.”

> Stealth Delivers: A devout finesse fisherman, Matt Vermilyea took 5th place, thanks in no small degree to his patient approaches. Fishing fairly shallow water, he figured out during practice that the key to maximizing his spot was to get in and get his business done without disturbing the fish. Sitting over top of them was not in the script, so Vermilyea sat back as far as he felt comfortable casting and slipped his dropshot into the target zone.

> Position/Speed Control: Power-Poles are probably less common in discussions of dropshotting than, say, bed-fishing or laydown flipping. Nevertheless, working shallow reefs around the outskirts of Pelee Island often put anglers in water shallow enough for 10-foot Power-Poles to reach the bottom.

In the deeper water, Lefebre found his new Power-Pole Drift Paddles provided a significant advantage by slowing his drift and allowing him to sweep across key areas with effective presentations.

Vermilyea added his praise for MotorGuide's xi5. The Anchor Mode enabled him to hold steady on his spot while he diligently picked away from that safe distance.

“Once I found them, I could sit there and make my long casts to the fish,” he said. “I told my co-angler on the second day ‘I don’t want you to get stressed out; this is what I have to do. But he got in there and got his fish, too.”

> Total Coverage: Tournament winner David Matual got the job done primarily by dropshotting a Jackall Cross Tail Shad and a Berkley Gulp Minnow. Finding a spot with a massive baitfish influx was important, but so was an air-tight approach.

Not only did Matual alternate between ends of his reefs to spread out the fishing pressure, he did his best to paint every square foot of the structure.

“It got so busy that I forgot to erase my trails and by the end of the third day, I had to lean in close to my screen just to make out the structure – it was almost completely covered,” he said.

> Work the Angle: Joe Balog, who placed 7th, fished a dropshot with a Jackall Crosstail Shad, a Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm and a fluke-style bait. Although attention to rig detail certainly matters, Balog said he’s confident there’s more to the picture.

“I think a lot of times, it’s more about the presentation and, specifically, the angle,” he said. “On a lot of the deeper stuff I fished you had to pull your bait a certain way – against the wind or against the waves. You kind of have to mill around and figure out how to get them to bite.”

> Lighten Up: Lefebre’s no stranger to big Erie smallmouth, so he knows the value of doing whatever he can to slip under their radar. One of the key elements of his presentation was 8-pound Suffix Nanobraid main line and 20 feet of 6-pound Suffix Fluorocarbon leader.

“The Nanobraid is the smoothest, strongest, lightest little line – it’s like trout line,” Lefebre said. “I was also using a smaller hook than most were using – a No. 4.

“That’s tiny stuff and it’s a little nerve-racking. But I only lost two fish in 3 days.”

> Grabbin’ Lips: And on the aesthetic side, 10th-place finisher Mike Oberski complemented his black Berkley Leech with a red No. 2 Gamakatsu Octopus hook. A subtle detail, but perhaps the bleeding-bait look triggered a couple more bites.

And isn’t that what drives us to analyze, ponder, reach? Dropshots, like all bass rigs, provide a canvas upon which to paint with the colors of creativity. They’re not all going to be masterpieces, but a bent rod – yeah, that’ll work.