Dropshotting with a new Twist! By Rick Lawrence
Hi guys;
I thought I would share with you a neat new way I found to catch river Smallmouth on a dropshot, but with a NEW twist!
I call it “The Drag the Dropshot" method. I found this method kinda by accident. It was late October and the weather was fair but a cold front had moved in and the water temps were dropping down into the low 50's. I was fishing a tournament a few weeks ago and the Smallies were banging craw crank baits pretty good and we had caught a few nice size fish in the 1 ½ to 3 pounds range when the bite just stopped. I knew the fish were still there, just not biting. So we switched it up and tried a few other things like spinnerbaits, different cranks and tubes, but got no more fish. As we were getting ready to leave to try another area, we went over one of the many big truck size boulders that are in this stretch of the river. The fish finder lit up and showed a ton of fish all around it, so I told my partner why don’t we try dropshoting them. We had pre-fished this stretch the week before and done ok here with cranks, catching just enough fish to figure this was a good starting point.
The water along this bank was a flat that was only about 10 to 14 feet deep, but drops to 25 ft just off the shelf. It has a fairly slow current, but is full of large boulders from about 2 feet to 10 feet across. It had just enough color that you could just see some of the bigger boulders and make out some of the bottom. So we cast out and let the boat drift with the current like we had been when throwing cranks here earlier in the day and we both nailed a fish within the first minute of that drag! Well we loaded the boat this way and I quickly perfected the technique.
You need a slow current with a rocky or gravel bottom. Just drop the bait over the edge of the boat, don’t try to cast, as that will only get you hung-up. I learned right away that you need to put on a large enough weight so the bait will stay almost right under the boat and not drag back, then put out just enough line to reach the bottom. Let the boat drift in the current and watch your rod as the weight bounces along the rocks. If you keep the line right under the boat the hang-ups are few and the fishing can be fantastic. Bites can be very light though and it is hard to tell what’s bottom and what’s a fish sometimes, so you have to lift on the rod to feel for weight if the rod tip does something odd.
We ended up finishing 3rd and 4th with 10 and 10 ¼ pounds in the tourney. Only Four hundreds of a pound from 2nd place, on water I didn't know all that well. So it was a good day.
I have been out about 6 times since then and have done my “Drag the Drop Shot” method with GREAT success every time, even on different sections of the river. This even worked on the lake where there is no current, just a breeze to move the boat along. As long as you can drag the bait slowly with the boat and not with the rod it seems to work just as well on a river or the lakes. You needto have bottom that is close to the same depth for this to work in a lake though and a clean bottom.
I tie this rig up a little differently for this method and it has proven to be a fish killer. Here’s how I do it. I tie on a 1/0 Gammy red finesse hook using a double Palomar knot (because it is stronger and holds the hook out better). With the hook pointing up, run the line down threw the hook eye then back up and tie the knot making sure you leave about a 30" tag end. Then run the tag end back down through the hook eye. That will keep the hook pointing straight out. Then I run a bullet or egg sinker weight up the line and pinch it in place with a pair of pliers. That does two things, it makes it easy to adjust the height of the bait off the bottom (I like mine about 12" to 24" off a hard bottom and about 30” off a weedy bottom) and if (or should I say when) you get hung up the weight will just slide off and you won’t lose the whole rig. Plus these weights very cheap to replace, just slide on a new weight, pinch it in place and you’re good to go. I've been using the tails off my Chartreuse Sink-N-Fool baits on this rig and it has been killer. I just cut off about 2 1/2 " of the tail of one of my used baits and nose hook it. It has turned out to be one of the best dropshot baits I’ve ever fished.
Although this worked great on the hard to catch cold front Smallies, I think it would work just as well on active fish earlier in the year. I plan to put it to the test next spring!!!
Here is a diagram of how I tie up my dropshot. Give it a try I think you'll like it!!!!!
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