Trying Out Dropshot From Shore Tomorrow For First Time

[Daniel Lin]

I'm planning on trying out dropshotting (from shore) highly pressured water tomorrow after work, and I'm taking the time now to prep my plastics and such. I'll be fishing water that at its deepest is maybe 7-8 feet, but most of it is around 3-5. The clarity is usually surprisingly clear for the area, but has a very weedy/scummy bottom, hence the desire to dropshot.

 

I picked up some VMC Spinshot hooks thinking that since it's got a connection point on both sides of the swivel, I could premake some weight rigs of varying lengths and rigs and use these too-small duolock snaps I mistakenly bought to clip them to the lower eye. The idea is that this should allow me to rapidly change up my dropshot depths without having to totally retie. So far, I've put together three: 12" with a 1/8oz, 20" with a clip on the end, currently carrying a 1/4oz, and a 24" with a 1/4oz. I read somewhere that a somewhat longer length is generally desirable when fishing from shore, doubly so when fishing shallow bodies of water, as the line often flattens out to nearly horizontal. Somebody say something if I'm totally off my rocker with this whole idea.

 

So with those made, I'm picking out some soft plastics to try now. I quickly went for the more traditional dropshot-sized baits, which didn't take very long as I don't have many too downsized baits. So far, I've pulled Zoom Super Fluke Jrs in White Pearl and Arkansas Shiner, 4" Yum Dingers (which were $1 sample 5-packs from Walmart) in shad/pearl laminate, baby bass and watermelon red flake, Strike King Bitsy Tubes in Green Pumpkin and these two packs of handpoured reapers made locally in ghost/black flake and watermelon red flake. I'm also looking at these Finesse Worms I have in watermelon seed to round out the larger end of the spectrum.

 

First question: I assume reapers should be rigged so that the "leaf" is horizontal to slow the fall of the bait? I really can't find much information on how to use them other than they used to be a very popular finesse bait in the pre-internet era, but have mostly fallen out of favor.

 

Second question: I'm thinking about cannibalizing some of my better-stocked plastics for use as a smaller dropshot bait. I'm particularly looking at cutting most, if not all of the tail off of some Zoom U-Tales, and cutting Trick Worms in half to make two dropshot baits out of one full-size worm. I also have some Strike King Elaztech 7" finesse worms I'm thinking about cutting in half to harness some of their buoyancy. Some of the crazier ideas i'm playing with are cutting a beaver-type straight down the middle to make two smaller-profile baits, and even just using a Zoom Split-Tail spinnerbait trailer nose-hooked.

 

Total mad-scientist mode here. Any other input on my rigging or plastics choices?

[Bluebasser86]

Don't forget to try a wacky rigged bait on a drop shot, that can be a killer at times.

[ChrisD46]

I would simply start out with a Roboworm or Zoom Meathead 4 inch worm and a 18 inch leader length : Cast , slowly  lift / gentle twitch , drag a foot , slowly lift / gentle twitch , drag a foot ...

[Dark3]

Im gonna be the voice of reason right now and just say dont use a tungsten weight unless you got money to throw into the lake. When you drag that weight uphill its boumd to get hung up

[Dark3]

And the best DS bait ive ever used is a roboworm straight tail worm or alive shad in Aarons magic. I live in upstate NY if that speaks to anything

[MikeinFresno]

cutting Trick  worms how? Length wise or cut across?? Length wise may work better, but I don't think cross cut would work as well. The drop shot bait needs to have the limber, swimming motion to work the best, so a long thin worm, not thick and short...BUT, I too will rig a 3" or 4" senko wacky at times and it works too. Try it all...........

[Daniel Lin]

Update: dropshotting today was an epic failure. After about 20 casts I had a big enough pile of weeds at my feet to take to the farmer's market, all drug up by my weight. There's just too much vegetation to let anything I throw into this pond make any bottom contact whatsoever. 

 

Threw some flukes and spinnerbaits for a while to no avail, but decided to stay a little longer and try out the night buzzbait bite. Success!

 

[BasshunterJGH]

I'm a big roboworm fan but I recently tried jackall cross tail shads and I love them! Plus I got them on sale at my local tackle shop for $2! Can't beat that! I texas rig them on an owner #1 down shot offset worm hooks with a 1/8 oz weight. They're very soft and salty, they're also pretty small at 3 inches the bluegill and crappie love them on 6 lb test! Btw I've fished dropshots in extremely weedy farm ponds in nebraska and colorado I've found that shortening the length between the hook and the weight and t-rigging the bait with the down shot hooks helped make the rig more weedless. I managed to catch a few in ne with this setup, but nothing keeper size:(.

[EmersonFish]

I drop shot from the bank a lot. Works great, but weeds and moss can be an issue since you are not able to fish as vertically. Try fishing a finesse worm, weightless with a light wire hook over the top of the weeds and see how that works. You'll give the fish a fairly similar look as the drop shot without as many issues. It takes patience to fish that way, but it's fun. You can always throw a split shot on if you need to speed up the presentation.

[Hattrick7]

Straight tail roboworms in 4 & 6" should be a staple for dropshotting. Aaron's magic, bold bluegill, oxblood can't go wrong.

It's the simplest bait to rig up. Nose hook it about a 1/4 inch or so, twitch and get ready to get bit. I would have your weight about 4-6 inches from your bait to start. Might be less or more and you'll find that out pretty quickly.