I Tried Drop Shot Fishing , How Do You Avoid Gut Hooked Fish?

[jimmykm21]

I went out Monday and tried drop shot fishing , used an 1/0 hook and a 4 " senko and 10 # mono

on a spinning reel.

 

It worked well and caught 5 large mouth in a fairly short time but 2 were gut hooked. I was carefully able to push the hook out with no

damage to either fish.  Now I read here that you aren't suppose to set the hook when drop shot fishing  , just raise the rod tip and reel.

 

So that's what I was doing when I felt a bite . My question to you guys is it fairly common to gut hook fish when using this technique ?

 

Or was I doing something wrong in my fishing?

 

thanks

 

[ec1]

How are you fishing the dropshot? Casting it or vertical?

 

My first guess is that you are leaving out too much slack line to begin with in your presentation, and then not knowing when the hit happened. I don't want to assume that you are letting these fish hit for like 10 seconds before you realize that you have a fish on. Really not too much you can do about it though, there's some days where fish are just wanting to choke down whatever plastic you throw at them. Possibly you can change your line to straight fluoro, or braid with a fluoro leader for a bit better feel vs mono. (not necessary)

 

Keep at it, you'll get a better feel for everything.

[jimmykm21]

I'm casting and slowly working it back to the boat. It was a choppy day so my boat was moving a lot .

Vertical fishing would have been pretty hard unless I anchored , fishing out of an 14 foot grizzly.

 

I waited until I felt the bite or saw my line move like wacky rigging. It was tough though to tell on a couple of the bites.

Maybe I waited too long before reeling.

[Kevin22]

My suggestion is that if you do not feel the tap tap tap of a fish hitting it then you are not fishing it correctly. You should be able to feel the fish suck it in and start to swim off. Drop shotting is a tight line game, at the very least semi-slack with braid. 

 

My guess is that the fish hit your senko on the initial drop and by the time you got tight and went to fish it they had sucked it down. If they are feeding that aggressively there is no need for a drop-shot, rig that sucker up on a 3/0 hook and start casting. 

[WRB]

Active bass will engulf the small 4" Senko in a heart beat. That fact you were casting creates slack in the line in the wind. You have 2 choices; go up in Senko size 5" or 6" and/ or used a heavier weight to reduce the slack in the line. Good first outing with the drop shot rig. You will get the timing down with practice

Tom

[Crestliner2008]

I'm casting and slowly working it back to the boat. It was a choppy day so my boat was moving a lot .

Vertical fishing would have been pretty hard unless I anchored , fishing out of an 14 foot grizzly.

 

I waited until I felt the bite or saw my line move like wacky rigging. It was tough though to tell on a couple of the bites.

Maybe I waited too long before reeling.

Two things, first off, if you are casting with a Senko, odds are you are not going feel anything before the bass swallows the bait. Just the nature of the beast. Senkos have a taste and texture so good to the bass that they immediately want to swallow it, instead of just striking it.  Try a worm instead, such as a Zoom Trick worm. They will produce just fine for you and the bass MAY not be so inclined to swallow it.

 

Second thing is, why do you not want to anchor? This is certainly a viable technique of boat control. Especially if you locate a particular structure where there is a high probability of having fish on it. Then you can vertical present your drop shot with a regular drop shot hook and nose hooking, vs. Texas rigging. If you use the Gamakatsu Split Shot/Drop Shot hooks instead, I can almost guarantee that you will nose hook 99% of your takes. 

[loudcherokee]

I tried drop shotting for the first time this weekend too. I used 30# power pro in moss green in stained water with no leader, a 3/0 offset worm hook, a wacky rigged 5" watermelon senko (off brand) and about a 16" drop to my weight from the hook.

I would cast at the edge of the weeds, and as soon as the bait would hit the water I would put slight tension on my line. Not enough to keep it from sinking, but enough to feel the strike. Most hits came within 5-10 seconds of jigging, and I set the hook in a sweeping motion. Never had an issue with gut hooks. The only problem I had was my line somehow wrapping around the senko and cutting it in half each time.

LC

[PABASS]

I would say that there is a few exceptions to not setting the hook on a drop shot, one is bed fishing, the other is weedless hooks.  This year the drop shot technique really came into play for me, I have read about and watched videos on it and most of the time with open hooks no need to set the hook, just a reel set should do.  However when bed fishing the fish are not taking the bait as they normally would, I kept missing them with the reel set that is until I saw them take it and set the hook on em, problem went away.  Weedless hooks you need to set the hook as well.  I haven't personally had any issues with gutting a bass and for me I don't typically use a drop shop to just drop on the fish I use it as a search tool and the fish normally hook them selves, just make sure you have as little slack in the line as you can and make sure to watch you line as well..

[Loop_Dad]

Weight needs to be adjusted depending on the condition. Wind with rocking boat needs more weight so that you can feel the bait. I would suggest first you start off with heavier weight than you need to have solid feel of the bait. Once you get used to it, then start lighten up from there as you wish. Hope this helps.

[lmbfisherman]

Active bass will engulf the small 4" Senko in a heart beat. That fact you were casting creates slack in the line in the wind. You have 2 choices; go up in Senko size 5" or 6" and/ or used a heavier weight to reduce the slack in the line. Good first outing with the drop shot rig. You will get the timing down with practice

Tom

What he said.

[Christian M]

I think the main reason you are gut hooking fish and having a hard time detecting strikes is that you're using 10# mono. Mono floats, and has a lot of stretch, so you're always going to have slack in the line whether casting or drop shotting right on top of a spot.

 

Try going down to 6#-8# FLOURO. This way it'll be much easier to keep your line tight, you'll have much better bottom contact, and you'll have much more line sensitivity making it easier to feel the "tap tap tap" and set the hook at the right time without line stretch.

 

Also, if you're using a 4" senko you can probably use a smaller hook, instead of a 1/0 try a size 1 hook. Finesse is the name of the game, if you have the right rod and a smooth drag on your reel, this should improve your game big time.

 

I've caught bass over 5lbs in over 20' of water using light flouro and smaller hooks.

[ChrisAW]

My co-angler gut hooked two fish Wednesday. Its a mix of leaving slack line and the mono not being sensitive enough to feel the bite. Even braid can have this problem in deep water. I watched him on the one fish. He had the line tight and either the fish hit REALLY softly, or the braid had too much of a bow in it from wanting to float up. The second was while waiting for his bait to hit the bottom. He tossed out and after feeding about 30 feet of line out, he asked how deep we are. I said 21 feet. He gave me a look and reeled up to find a fish had been swimming away with it for a bit. I hadn't been a good enough teacher that day to mention to watch for a jump on the fall.

[detroit1]

I've caught hundreds of fish on a drop shot and have never gut - hooked one yet. I used to use an open hook but for the last 2 yrs. I've gone to an ewg hook.

[Hattrick7]

Try using a smaller circle hook like a size 4 with that line you're using.

Circle hooks are designed to not gut hook fish. You don't set the hook using them. When you get bit you start reeling in line and maybe lift your rod a little but the fish will automatically hook itself usually on the corner of its mouth.

In theory even if the fish swallows the bait and because the hook is 90 degrees to the shank it should lift from the fish and then hook itself onto the corner of its mouth. If you try and set the hook, the hook will usually come flying out and you've lost the fish.

There's lots of vids on them that will give you a good idea of how they hook the fish.

Also if you're C&R them I'd crush the barbs down so if you do gut hook one its easier to remove the hook without the barb ripping out its gut.

[Dave P]

Also, do not be afraid to let it more or less straight down over the side when it's windy like that and just let it tick along the bottom as the wind takes you. It can be very effective.