Drop Shot Depth For Suspended Smalljaws?

[drodriguez]

Hi all. I have a couple questions for you. 1)Last year a buddy and I were out fishin a deep lake here in southern or. The water was 40 or so feet deep (emigrant lake gets to 300) and his electronics were pickin up fish suspended at 20 feet. My question is how do you fish suspended bass in this situation with a drop shot? Are there any tricks to figuring out how deep your lure is?

2) A buddy just gave me a few bags of sluggos (sp?). I know enough about them by talkin to him that they were the predecessor of senkos and flukes and the like. My second question is is with these bein closer to 7 inches long and heavier than senkos and flukes is there a way that is better for fishin them? What situations do they shine in the most? Thanks in advance.

Devin.

[Tim Kelly]

Mark your line!

 

You can measure it out fairly accurately as you know how long your rod is, so measure off against your rod and mark the line with a sharpie, or even put a bobber stop on the line if the sharpie doesn't work well (it does on braid but haven't tried it on mono or fluoro). Very good way of being super accurate with your vertical presentation.

[Jig Man]

If you fish in the "cone" of your depth finder you can see the fish and your bait.  You can raise or lower it to exactly where the fish are.  You can even see them move to take it.

[Jar11591]

A 7" bait is very big for smallmouth. Maybe try a 4" Roboworm? I would think it would dance better than a Slug-O on a dropshot also. The Slug-O you could fish weightless wacky rigged. It sinks slowly so it would spend a good amount of time in the strike zone of the suspended bass.

[drodriguez]

I'm not lookin at fishin smallies with slug-os. I should have been more specific. Markin the line sounds like a good idea. Thanks for that. Back to slug-os. Where do they shine? Same place a fluke or Senko do? Do you fish em any different? I'm just a little "scared" of em cause there so stiff. Any answered would be great. I know there not a drop shot bait.

[WIGuide]

If fish are suspended in that 20 foot range, the best way is to track it on your locator. Get right over the fish, turn the sensitivity up on your locator and track your drop shot right down to them. If done right, you can actually watch the fish come up and hit your bait. 

[smalljaw67]

Jigging spoons and jigging lipless cranks along with blade baits like the silver buddy or the Heddon Sonar, those are what I would and I would vertical jig. Truth be told, I would probably look elsewhere on the lake, the reason being is when you see fish suspended in the middle of the water column they aren't active and often will not bite, I find that fish that are suspended 10' or so off the bottom in deep water can be caught with the drop shot and vertical jigging but the middle is tough. The other thing to try is a count down minnow, they will sometimes work on suspended fish like that but they are hard to make bite and I won't use an umbrella rig but that may help you in that situation.