Harold Stark was having a tough day of fishing when he discovered a new way to present his drop shot rig.
“I had been out fishing deep, and there wasn't anything biting anywhere, so I thought I would go check out some shallow stuff and just go fishing," Stark says. Since the tournament veteran had been fishing deep, he already had a rod with a drop shot rig on his front deck when he headed for the shallows. He didn't have a rod set up with a Texas-rigged plastic worm on his deck, so he picked up the rod with the drop shot rig instead and tossed the rig to a small log jam.
“It was like a lights-out kind of deal,” Stark says. “A light bulb just popped on because bass just started biting it and they wouldn’t bite anything else.” His drop shot rig kept producing keeper-size bass, but the fish kept ignoring his offering every time he tried pitching a jig into the logs to catch bigger bass. So he stuck with the drop shot and kept catching bass from the logs. He estimated his best five keepers probably weighed in the "upper teens."
The Missouri angler believes the drop shot rig produces in shallow water because he can keep his lure in the strike zone throughout his retrieve. "What I realized was the drop shot was keeping the bait up off the bottom to where the bass could see it," he says. "I think there are times when the bass are on the bottom, and 90 percent of the time, the fish are looking up, so keeping that bait up off the bottom just gets their attention."
The shallow drop shot rig pattern produces best for Stark when he targets flats or small pockets littered with blown-in logs, laydowns along the banks or boat docks in depths of less than 7 feet. Stark claims he has caught bass as shallow as 15 inches on his drop shot. “Most laydowns have a little deep spot on it where the current or whatever washes in and around,” he says. “You might be on a spot that is only a foot deep but around that laydown on one side or another it will be a little deeper—about 15 inches or 2 feet deep.”
Stark describes the shallow drop shot pattern as the “perfect finesse situation” because it slowly presents a small bait to shallow bass in clear water. The tactic triggers strikes for Stark from spring through fall. “It is for just anytime you are not able to get a bite," says Stark, who notes the tactic has worked whether it's cloudy, rainy, or sunny weather.
The regional tournament competitor suggests that fishing pressure is the main factor that makes the pattern so effective. He also notices boat traffic, such as jet skiers running around in the shallows, which helps the pattern because the wave action drives bass into the cover. Stark recalls that on the day he first caught bass on the shallow drop shot pattern, three jet skis circled the area where he was fishing.
Stark’s shallow drop shotting works best with two spinning outfits: St. Croix and Bass Pro Shops 7-foot medium and medium-heavy spinning rods and Pflueger #3 spinning reels filled with a main line of 15-pound braid and a 6- to 12-foot leader of 12- or 15-pound fluorocarbon.
His favorite lures for drop-shotting in shallow cover are 4.5- or 6-inch Roboworm Straight Tail Worms and XCite Baits 6 1/4-inch Slim-X floating worms (both in the morning dawn hue. “There are days when bass want that floating worm with the tail sticking up or having the worm stay up in the (strike) zone a little bit better,” Stark says. There are also times in the fall when bigger bass are in the shallow cover, so he will switch to a “Bubba shot” rig with a small creature or beaver bait. He pitches the Bubba rig with a 7 1/2-foot flipping stick and baitcast reel filled with 15-pound fluorocarbon. Stark favors darker colors such as green pumpkin, black blue, and June bug for those baits, except he will switch to a white lure if lots of shad are present.
Stark’s drop shot lures are Texas-rigged on a 1/0 Gamakatsu Stinger Hook and weighted with a 3/16- or 1/4-ounce round sinker. He relies on more of a horizontal rather than vertical presentation for his rig, so Stark leaves about a 15- to 20-inch drop line from the hook to the sinker. “The longer the drop, the better chance I have of keeping the bait up in the strike zone and off the bottom,” Stark says.
A practically do-nothing retrieve produces best for Stark’s shallow drop-shotting. "The biggest deal is not to work it too much,” he says. “Put it in the cover, hold it up to where the bass can see it, and let the waves and water do the work on the action to the bait. I catch myself shaking it too much, and I don't have to do that." He slowly drags it along the length of the log, keeping the weight on the bottom and the lure off the bottom.
Multiple presentations of the drop shot to the same log often produce more than one bass. "Many times, there can be four or five fish in the exact same spot," he says. If Stark catches one, he keeps pitching to the same spot until he stops getting bit. Then, he presents the rig at different angles to the same log.
The drop shot rig has always been an effective deep open water tactic, but Harold Stark has proven it can also be deadly in shallow cover.
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