By David A. Brown
Special to BassFan
It’s one of the most versatile rigs the bass world has ever produced, but the dropshot is only as good as it application. Of course, the spectrum of possibilities is broad and diverse, but a handful of tactical tips will help you squeeze the maximum out of the finesse phenom.
Get In-Line
No worries if you like the traditional setup with a Palomar knot’s tag end passed downward through the hook’s eye, but simplicity, efficiency and bait mobility await in various all-in-one terminal tackle items such as the VMC Spinshot and Gamakatsu’s G-Finesse Swivel Shot.
Essentially wire stems with tie points at either end and a free-swinging hook in the middle, these items streamline the rigging process and hold your bait in horizontal form, while allowing it freedom of movement.
“This makes the bait look more realistic,” said Shin Fukae, a dropshot expert who'll debut on the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2018 after a long stint on the FLW Tour.
Helpful Hooks
There’s no one-size-fits all hook for dropshotting, so invest in a selection that allows you presentation diversity. Bolstering the traditional nose-latching dropshot hook, you’ll also want to consider a Neko hook for hybrid presentations, a worm hook for Texas-rigging and wide-gap styles for dropping beefier baits.
Fukae recently helped Gamakatsu design a Swivel Shot version with a straight shank worm hook. A custom bait-keeper made of tin prevents bait slippage without overweighting the rig.
Pairing this rig with a short leader allows him to fish a 3-inch Yamamoto Fat Senko weedless around brush piles, grass or timber with a look similar to the popular Ned rig, only without the snagging hazard of an exposed hook.
What About Weights
This one is often dismissed as personal preference, but drophot guru Aaron Martens isn’t buying that. He follows a few particular guidelines for selecting his sinkers.
The slender profile of a cylindrical dropshot weight is best for traversing bottom structure with a lot of entanglements.
First, lead will save you some dough, but tungsten’s density allows you to use smaller profiles for the desired weight. Also, Martens notes that a denser weight creates a sharper impact with bottom contact to deliver constant “reads.”
Martens likes a cylinder weight when he’s fishing a dropshot across any type of entangling bottom like brush, wood, etc., as the slender profile better traverses tight spots. He’s partial to a teardrop weight when he needs to interpret the bottom to detect key changes. The round bottom’s greater surface area combines with tungsten’s sensitive composition for a clear message of what he’s fishing.
“The rounded edge of a teardrop weight rolls well and it transfers signals well from the bottom,” Martens said. “That tells you if you’re coming through mud or rock or over wood.”
The cylinder weight also gets the nod when Martens is vertically fishing his dropshot in deeper water. Here, the streamlined form experiences less water drag and therefore reaches bottom more quickly.
With any weight shape, consider the convenience of pinch-clip designs, which rely on tension rather than knots, to hold on to your leader. More likely to release and save the rest of your rig when snagged, the pinch clips also allow you to quickly change leader length, size and weight by swapping out premade setups.
Rod Preferences
Don’t sweat those “fairy wand” or “sissy stick” jabs from those who disdain spinning gear. Fact is dropshotting and light outfits are not necessarily the assumption.
Proving this, Elite pro John Crews helped Cashion Rods design a 7-foot, 4-inch medium-heavy spinning outfit that quickly tames big fish and minimizes their chances of pulling a Houdini.
“We designed the rod with 3 ounces of counterbalancing weight in the butt section,” Crews said. “When you hold the handle, the tip wants to stay up and that makes the rod very light, so you’ll detect every bite.”
With the proper set-up, dropshot rigs can be pitched into almost any type of cover.
The nature of a dropshot’s design creates a tangling, rod-chipping hazard when weights are left unmanaged. Technique-specific rods like the one Crews uses include keepers on the butt end. Lacking such features, rubber bands, hair scrunchies, or even Velcro bands will manage your leader between uses.
The Great Bait Debate
Dainty hand-poured worms may be the face of dropshotting, but the team has plenty of skill players. The YUM Warning Shot, Missile Baits Fuse, Yamamoto Shad Shaped Worms, XZone Slammers, Z-Mans HogZ — when the old standbys fail to impress, vary the menu.
On Louisiana toad farm Toledo Bend, local guide Darold Gleason generally uses a V&M Drop Shad for baitfish imitations and a V&M Pork Pin for his baitfish and worm profiles. But if he’s fishing for a kicker, he’ll often show the fish a chunkier profile with the V&M Trickster.
For a bolder look — especially around hydrilla edges, reeds, etc. — try a craw-style bait. This beefy profile is particularly effective during winter and early spring when crustaceans make up a significant portion of the bass diet. And, if you’ve ever held a lizard in front of a bed-fish’s face, you know they don’t handle such intrusions well.
Whatever bait you prefer, dying the tail chartreuse or orange can bolster the visual appeal for dimmer days, or simply push an indecisive fish over the edge.
Presentation Styles
For the standard vertical drop, Fukae likes YGK G-Soul SS112 — a sinking braid that hastens his rig’s fall. He suggests a high-visibility main line (he likes yellow), which improves subtle bite detection, but he has been working with YGK’s banded line, which includes a pink stripe every yard. This not only helps with strike detection in low light conditions, it also provides a reference for counting down a dropshot.
And for those who simply cannot embrace the downsized, finessy nature of traditional dropshotting, grab a baitcaster spooled with heavy braid, Texas-rig a 7- to 10-inch worm on a stout hook, slip on a 10- to 14-pound fluorocarbon leader and pitch your Bubba shot (some say “power shot”) at laydowns, logs, docks and anywhere else big fish may hide.
And for a more aggressive technique, try “drop swimming,” where you cast your dropshot and then reel it back at a moderate pace. The key is maintaining bottom contact with the weight and retrieving something like a football head
However you fish a dropshot, Fukae suggests a measured hook set. No sharp jabs; rather, a steady pull.
Designs, details and presentations may vary, but across the board, one thing remains constant: The dropshot remains one of the most versatile tools in your angling arsenal.
