Advice on fishing a horizontal drop shot

[BassinCali]

Hey guys I am fishing 90 percent of the time from the bank and was wondering if you guys have any tips or tricks for this style of drop shot.

[Montanaro]

Just slow drag and occasionally stop and hold it.  Not much to it

[SWVABass]

This is how I take my son fishing and he's 3 and it works awesome. Drop shot any bait you want but we use roboworms, pro worms reapers, and Berkley gulp minnows. I try and fish it at the end of points in rocks, and in or near any cover I can find. I use a 1/4 Oz weight, #1 drop shot hook, 14 in tag end 10lb yozuri hybrid line on the Abu Garcia Ike d.s. rod with a lews reel. Pitch it out pick up the slack and slowly drag it around if you don't get bit right away.

[J Francho]

Use an Owner Down Shot weedless hook.  Gently pull it into weeds, then jiggle it so it pops off the weeds, and drops.  You can trigger bites right then.  Otherwise, just use a bit longer dropper, around 24".  The other thing you can do from shore is bubba shot, with a heavy cover rod, and a one ounce pencil weight.  Try you favorite worm/creature on your favorite hook.  Throw it into the slop.

 

[WRB]

Slip shot-finesse C-rig-mojo rigs are all good alternatives when casting and retreiving.

Tom

[BassinCali]

On 9/20/2016 at 8:42 AM, WRB said:

Slip shot-finesse C-rig-mojo rigs are all good alternatives when casting and retreiving.

Tom

Yeah im trying this out at my local pond hopefully i master it pretty soon

[BobP]

All good advice.  If you're going to be dragging dropshots through cover, I like to use thinner cylindrical shaped weights because they hang up less than other style  weights.  You want to use a longer hook to weight tail because the line will be at an acute angle and needs more length to keep the bait up off the bottom.

[Ktho]

Well I pretty much never fish a drop shot vertically, didn't know that was a thing until recently. My tips are light sinker, like 1/8oz. Also I prefer to have the bait a good 9"+ away from the sinker, which I've also found out is a lot longer than many people recommend but it's so killer.

For the actual retrieve I cast it out let it hit bottom. Wind in most of the slack and then shake the slack barely just trying to shake the plastic but not move it. Then I'll just drag it slowly to move it and repeat. Whether from shore or on a boat casting it like that is money.

[blckshirt98]

100% shore guy here too and I dropshot 75% of the time - BobP is right where you don't want to be shy about having a long length of line between your hook and the dropshot weight because your line will be angled sharply so a 12" distance may only end up being about 4" off the bottom because of the line and upward slope of the bank.  Also any bait you use, drop it in the water in front of you and see how much action you can impart on the lure with a twitch or tap of the rod - you should notice that *barely* twitching the rod will make your bait dart around, so keep that in mind and don't overwork the bait.

[BassinCali]

19 hours ago, Ktho said:

Well I pretty much never fish a drop shot vertically, didn't know that was a thing until recently. My tips are light sinker, like 1/8oz. Also I prefer to have the bait a good 9"+ away from the sinker, which I've also found out is a lot longer than many people recommend but it's so killer.

For the actual retrieve I cast it out let it hit bottom. Wind in most of the slack and then shake the slack barely just trying to shake the plastic but not move it. Then I'll just drag it slowly to move it and repeat. Whether from shore or on a boat casting it like that is money.

So you only do a tag of nine inches? What depth are you fishing 

[J Francho]

25 minutes ago, BassinCali said:

Also I prefer to have the bait a good 9"+ away from the sinker, which I've also found out is a lot longer than many people

Actually, 9" is much shorter than most use.  Usually I go 8-24", sometimes even longer.

[Ktho]

1 hour ago, BassinCali said:

So you only do a tag of nine inches? What depth are you fishing 

I don't measure it or anything but yeah I like it around 9" and I'll fish it in any depth. It's just one of the things that's worked really well for me in all kinds of different places here in Socal.

1 hour ago, J Francho said:

Actually, 9" is much shorter than most use.  Usually I go 8-24", sometimes even longer.

Shows how much I know about others I guess. I've just seen a lot of stuff about the tag being just longer then the length of the worm and when fishing with  guides they liked it real short like 4"-5". Maybe it's a regional difference or something.

[J Francho]

16 minutes ago, Ktho said:

Maybe it's a regional difference or something.

COuld be.  You have to go about 15" to get above the "goby zone" up here.

[William Rossi]

Be prepared to lose alot of rigs.

[J Francho]

3 minutes ago, William Rossi said:

Be prepared to lose alot of rigs.

Never found this to be true at all.

[William Rossi]

6 hours ago, J Francho said:

Never found this to be true at all.

It's OK we never agree

[J Francho]

LOL, WR.  The basic "drop shot" rig is something we learned to use fishing live bait right off the dock at our cottage, back when we were kids.  We called it "off the bottom," as in the bait was off the bottom.  "On the bottom" was split shot rig, or egg sinker before a swivel and a snelled hook.  Sounds like a Carolina rig?  Anyway, we lost a lot of the on the bottom rigs, but not too many off the bottom rigs.  That seems to hold true today.  I often fish a DS from shore, still, and when the usual pond baits - topwater, spinnerbait, square bill - don't work, the DS does.