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Bottom Fishing? Drop-Shotting Is A Good Choice

Mark Burgess has no opposition to traditional drop-shotting. A bass pro from Norton, Mass., Burgess gets plenty of opportunity to jiggle little worms over open-water rockpiles for clear-water smallmouth bass. He also knows of no finer tool for the task when the fish get finicky.

However, Burgess believes anglers severely limit a drop-shot rig's potential if they fish it exclusively on lightweight gear with tiny baits and only in classic drop-shot situations.

For the sake of definition, a drop-shot rig is any rig that is weighted at the tag end and has a hook tied in-line above the weight, usually with a polymer knot, with a soft-plastic offering strung on the hook. Traditional rigs use specialized drop-shot weights of 1/2 ounce or less, small rounded hooks, finesse-type soft-plastic lures and very light line. Following are some non-traditional methods of drop-shotting.

Bigger Can Be Better
Burgess spends a lot of time fishing tidal waters in big coastal rivers like the Hudson. Seawalls border canals all along these rivers, and bass lie along the walls waiting for meals to get washed past them in the current. They hold behind steps, dock posts, brush, weed clumps or near anything else that creates an eddy.

Burgess targets these bass with a technique he likens to trout fishing. He holds the boat close to the seawall, pitches or casts his offering straight upstream and lets the current work his bait back to him, right along the wall. By keeping his rod high and line tight and twitching the rod tip ever so slightly as he takes up line, he can keep a drop-shot weight slowly sliding along the bottom with his offering dancing in the current just above it.

A drop-shot rig is ideal because the bait stays just off the bottom, where bass that are holding behind cover can see it well. Also, the slight drag of the weight keeps the current pushing the bait, bringing it to life. Burgess doesn't add any action. The current does it all for him. The rig, however, has to be heavier than a traditional drop-shot rig.

"We have a lot of nasty, abrasive cover up here along big rivers like the Hudson," Burgess says. "Seawalls are rough, with broken concrete and all sorts of other cover."

To contend with the cover, Burgess uses baitcasting gear and 12- or 14-pound test Silver Thread fluorocarbon. He anchors the rigs with a 1/2-ounce Excalibur Tx3 Tungsten Tg Drop Shot weight. Bait selections include a Yum Mega Tube, which Burgess hooks weedless on a Tx3 Point hook, and a 4 3/4-inch Houdini Worm, which he nose-hooks with a small drop-shot hook.

Many offshore patterns that develop during summer also lend themselves very well to a beefed-up drop-shot rig. The water isn't always ultra clear, and the fish aren't always finicky when they hold over humps and points in mid-summer. In addition, some of the most productive structural features have far too much scattered brush or other cover atop them for fishing with 6-pound test.

When most anglers find a group of big largemouth bass with a chartreuse deep-diving crankbait, they will turn to a Carolina rig as a soft-plastic back-up for picking up more of those fish. However, when the bass are on a very tightly defined "sweet spot" on a structure, which often is the case, dropping an oversized drop-shot rigged with a 7-inch Berkley Power Worm is a far more efficient way to target those fish than dragging a Carolina rig across the broader area. By fishing directly over the key spot, an angler can keep using a big bait that will get a quality fish's attention.

Go Horizontal
Another popular misconception about a drop-shot rig is that it only can be fished vertically and in deep water. Any drop-shot rig can be cast shallow and worked down a bank. With the bait movement controlled by the rod tip (unlike a Carolina rig) but separated from the weight (unlike a Texas rig), a drop-shot rig offers presentation possibilities that nothing else matches.

Cast-and-retrieve drop-shot fishing is not reserved for a specific type of situation. Truly, applications are as broad as those for Texas-rigging. Any time you want to add action directly to a bait and want to keep the bait just off the bottom as you work it, a drop-shot rig is worth trying.

A classic drop-shot rig, complete with a 4-inch Roboworm Body Shad and 4-pound test, can be worked methodically down a rocky point in a desert lake. Likewise, an 8-inch red shad Culprit Tassel Lizard can be hopped quickly through a stand of shallow, flooded timber. Depending on bait and line size, water depth, wind and current, weights easily can range from 1/8-ounce drop-shot weights to 1-ounce barrel swivels.

Retrieves also can cover the gamut of speeds. Clear water might call for a painfully slow presentation, where baits are jiggled in place in true drop-shot fashion but pulled a foot or two closer to the boat from time to time in order to cover the length of a cast. Working a worm down a bank lined with laydowns, meanwhile, might call for a retrieve not unlike what would be used to fish the same bank with a Texas rig.

Punching The Grass
When Alabama pro and Tennessee River guide Jimmy Mason is flipping thick vegetation and the bass won't quite cooperate, he'll turn his rig upside down by tying up a super-duper drop-shot rig.

"The fish aren't always right on the bottom when they are under the grass mats," Mason explains. "When they are up off the bottom, a drop-shot rig works really well. It also gives the fish a different look, which is helpful when the bass are tentative or when a lot of people are flipping in an area."

Mason's "shot" actually consists of a pair of 1/2- or 3/4-ounce Tg Bullet Weights, which he strings on the line with their wide ends together and then pegs with a bead and a barrel swivel. The double weight forms a great shape for breaking through the grass and provides Mason with a built-in rattle when he jiggles the rig. He ties the rig with 30-pound test Silver Thread fluorocarbon and fishes it on a 7 1/2-foot medium-heavy Kistler rod.

Mason, who does some of his guiding on grass-filled Lake Guntersville, uses a variety of flipping baits for punching grass with a drop-shot rig. Tops on his list is a 5-inch Yum Dinger, which slides through even the thickest vegetation quite easily. He also likes a Yum Sooie and Wooly HawgCraw.

In northeastern rivers, water chestnuts form thick mats on the top, creating great bass habitats. Traditionally, anglers have flipped the mats to catch these fish, but Burgess finds a beefed-up drop-shot to be much more effective.

"The bass are rarely on the bottom under water chestnuts," he says. "They hold right under the vegetation, so for you to catch them by flipping, they have to get the bait on the way down or the way up."

Burgess uses a stretched-out rig for punching grass, wanting to present the bait right in front of the fish. If he's fishing in 5 feet of water, he'll have his bait 3 to 4 feet from his weight. Burgess anchors the rig to a 1-ounce Tg Barrel Weight tied to the end of the line and uses 65-pound test PowerPro braided line with a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader. His bait of choice, more often than not, is a 4-inch Yum Mega Tube.

"With that rig, you can put it down there and really keep it in the zone," Burgess says. "Instead of fishing every tiny spot to find the fish, you can call them over to you. I'll often leave a bait in place for a minute or so, just jiggling it slightly, before I pull it up and put it in another spot."

Sight Fishing
Among the first things that Brad Smith takes note of when he begins "reading" bedding bass are how high the fish are holding in the water column and whether they show a tendency toward pointing their heads down to look at an offering. If a fish is staying high, Smith will immediately abandon his Texas rig and turn to a drop-shot rig.

Drop-shotting keeps the offering exactly where Smith wants it for a long time while imparting a lot of action into the bait. It also allows him to control the level of the bait. After studying where a bass appears to be holding vertically, Smith will set up his drop-shot rig so the bait stays exactly at the right level in the water column.

Again, finesse is not part of the equation. Smith uses baitcasting gear and 25-pound test Silver Thread Excalibur line. He anchors the offering with a 1/2-ounce Tg Drop Shot weight, having found that he can really jiggle an offering with that amount of weight without dragging the weight and moving it out of the bed.

Smith's normal starting bait for drop-shotting over beds is a 5-inch Yum Zellamander. However, if the bass react adversely to a Zellamander, he'll commonly switch to a Yum Crawbug, which has much less action in the water, or a Wooly Hawgtail. If the fish seem extra spooky, he'll pinch the back appendages off the Wooly Hawgtail to reduce its action.