Questions for you drop shot experts

I do catch fish drop shotting. I catch them on a number of different baits, nose hooked or wacky style. But there are some fish I miss or lose that I feel I should have hooked or landed. Perhaps missing some and losing some is inherent with this style of fishing, but I feel I can do better.

Two questions:

1 - Do you set the hook as soon as you feel them, or do you wait untill you know they have taken the bait. Currently I set the hook as soon as I feel something different, but wonder if sometimes I set it too early.

2 - When I set the hook with my 5/0 hook wacky style, when I feel something, I lower my rod tip, wind any slack in, then do an exaggerated hook set and that works well. I do not find that method works as well for a 1/0 to 3/0 hook on a nosed hook bait. I watched a video where the gentleman simply lifted his rod and wound in. I tried that today and landed fish, but also lost fish.

Any tips?

Thanks

Gary

They don't have hands.

If you feel them, it's already been in their mouth a while.

If I Texas rig I will let them have it a second when they pick it up off the bottom. If they hit it falling, I set the hook then.

This is interesting narrative from a website: http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/dr...-hotshot.shtml

[COLOR=#000000]Most of the time, I nose hook baits. I nose hook only two ribs back as I do not like to have the nose of the bait stick out so much that it gets in the way of the hook point. This is important since the way to hook a drop shot fish is to literally pull the bait out of its mouth until the point barely catches behind the shut upper lip. If the nose of the plastic sticks out too far, it serves as a bumper to push the hook away from penetrating the lip. So make sure the hook point is free and clear of plastic that could clog it.
[COLOR=#000000]Hooking drop shot bass is begun with gentle rod pressure after detecting a bite or a bass down below on the line. Use gentle reeling and rod pressure as if to pull the bait and hook slowly out of its mouth. This will only make the bass more determined to clamp down and hold onto its prize. The hook will slip until it catches like a splinter that barely sticks behind the upper lip. Then the upper 25% of the rod tip will continue to bend and load under pressure as you reel in slack moderately slowly. All this takes a few seconds. The fish should often start to swim away (hopefully not at you) which serves to set the hook beyond the barb as you sweep the rod back in a confident controlled manner while you reel down until full pressure of the fish's weight is on the line.
[COLOR=#000000]Think of the hook set as a two step process. Actually, three steps as follows:

1. First come the "preliminaries." When you detect a bite or a bass on the line below, you must first wait until you sense the bass has the bait and hook in its mouth. Sometimes this happens instantly, and some days it seems to take a long while. Fortunately, most bass will act the same way on any given day. So if you figure one out, you can apply the same successful chess move to others.
2. Second, we've already described above how to pull the line, reel slowly and load the rod tip until the hook point pricks behind the lip. The upper 25% of the rod tip should bend over and load.
3. Once the tip is loaded down, sweep the rod up as you reel to sink the hook home. In this way, visualize that the hook is being driven by the spot on the rod that's 25% down from the tip where the backbone begins. The hook is not driven home in a jerk like you would set the hook with a jig or Texas rig for instance.

Hi Gerry, I am no means a drop shot expert, however, over the years I have learned a few things. Drop shotting was designed to be used with light line and fine wire hooks. This also means having the prober rod And hook set. It sounds like you may be using too heavy of line and to stiff of a rod. I'll tell you what my set up is and I keep fish hooked up well. Very important the hook is facing "up" and the bait lays 90 degrees to the main line. I have a 6'9" med-light action extra fast tip spinning rod paired with a 2500 size reel. I use 20# braid with a 6 foot 8# leader. What I do, when I detect a strike is just hold my rod at a 45 and just start reeling. With the light line, light wire hook and extra fast tip there is no need for those jaw ripping hook sets like I would use flipping a jig. Try any combo of these things and see if it works..

joe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skypilot

They don't have hands.

If you feel them, it's already been in their mouth a while.

If I Texas rig I will let them have it a second when they pick it up off the bottom. If they hit it falling, I set the hook then.

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Well, they may not have the hook in their mouths when you feel them. If its a large bait theres a lot of lures which doesnt have a hook in it

Thanks for the replies. I had a lot more success today. Joe, coincidently I tried a few things that you suggested today. I switched to lighter line, 6 lb, but I lost one good bass because I forgot to readjust my drag to the lighter line. My hook sets were better by doing just what you suggested. I wound in when I felt a bite and when I really felt the weight of the fish, I would raise my rod. I broke my rod tip on my "official" drop shot rod and while waiting for the glue to dry on the new tip, I used my ultralight rod and it actually was a little more sensitive and I rarely missed a fish. One thing I eventually have to bite the bullet and do is to change to the braid with the fluoro leader. If I stick with mono, I will move up to 8 or 10# Trilene Sensation. I was attracting them when I was using the 14# before. The Strike King Dreamshot works extremely well. I caught well over 30 fish today, although admittedly they were not giants, but the winds kept me off the main points.

Joe, why have the braid at all, other than to prevent line twist, why not a reel full of what you use for your leader?

GARY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blasted_saber

Well, they may not have the hook in their mouths when you feel them. If its a large bait theres a lot of lures which doesnt have a hook in it

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I suppose.

I just never use a large bait when finesse fishing using a drop shot rig. Light line, small lures, etc. or fishing a floating worm have always been successful for finicky bass especially on bright blue bird days.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swingpure

Joe, why have the braid at all, other than to prevent line twist, why not a reel full of what you use for your leader?

GARY

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Line twist is the main reason. The floro twists really bad with on a drop shot for some reson. I fine the bread doesn't. The braid has zero stretch and super sensative so you can detect the bite instantly and when you use that reel up rod tip hook set you will hook the fish every time. I only use floro on my reaction baits, jerk bait crank bait spinner bait. Top water has mono and everything else has braid. Oh sorry my flipn jig had floro but my bunch rod has 65# bread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by One_Tracc_Mind

Line twist is the main reason. The floro twists really bad with on a drop shot for some reson. I fine the bread doesn't. The braid has zero stretch and super sensative so you can detect the bite instantly and when you use that reel up rod tip hook set you will hook the fish every time. I only use floro on my reaction baits, jerk bait crank bait spinner bait. Top water has mono and everything else has braid. Oh sorry my flipn jig had floro but my bunch rod has 65# bread.

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Ha ha.. that's funny... I'm opposite. Braid on topwater and crank baits, mono for drop shot and no floro - only leader on some rigs. Maybe I'm all wrong, but for me it just felt right.

As for the 'nibbling' of a dropshot - I use light line, fine hooks and smaller baits... and it's usually a last resort. Don't count out the fact that some of what you feel can be those little fish (perch, rock bass, panfish...) just tearing at the tail of your bait.

If the Bass wouldn't eat anything else, I want something that will just sit in front of their yap for a while with just a little wiggle. I've had good success with live bait - worms, on the drop shot. If they are picky, thats what I reach for. Best of luck Gary, and hey - don't sweat losing a fish too much! It's just another excuse to get the line back in the water!

Ya, everyone has their style. I found braid on my cranking rod was just too much, kept loosing fish because of pulling out hooks, same with my jerk bait set up. The mono had too much stretch and fish kept spitting it out. Floro had that perfect combo. I like the mono for top water cause it floats and gives those top water baits a little better action. Works for me I guess. Trial and error.

I am definatley not an expert but I do a good amount of drop shotting, I use a small size 2 hook with a nose hooked 4 inch trick/drop shot worm or for a less finesse approach I'll use a 1/0 or 2/0 hook with a wacky rigged senko. Lots of the time like Frederick said I will get tons of panfish playing with my bait. Sometimes when I feel tension I instantly know a fishing is on so I just reel up fast and do a somewhat like hook set which is just enough to get the fish hooked well. Where other times I've waited for 10 second feeling the tension just to make sure the bass had it well and then set the hook. That's what I do, good luck next time out!
Josh

5/0 hook is rediculously big for drop shotting, use braid for your main line and flouro for your leader, set the hook when you feel anything, don't reel down then set because 8 out of ten times the fish already had it in their mouth and spit it. Drop shotting bass I use 10lb braid and 10lb floro with proper drop shot hooks.

Dropshot is a very fun way to catch fish in Deep, Shallow and around docks. Usually with a dropshot rig you don’t need to set the hook. The majority of the time the fish will set the hook for you and you just keep pressure to drive the hook home. Lowering your rod tip to set the hook will lower your percentage of hook sets. You will find fish have a tendency to feel pressure from the bait fish they are eating and makes them hang on the bait longer. Removing pressure from the hook will send a red flag and the fish could spit the hook out.


A proper rod setup will allow the bend of the rod do most of the work when lifting the rod. Again you still want to put pressure on the rod when lifting but the hook set should’t be as exaggerated as setting the hook on a fish in the pads.


Hope this helps

Cheers Henry

I'm not really an expert.....just some guy that spent a lot of time fishing lakes and rivers trying different baits, hooks, lines, leaders and a few rods and along the way have become amazed at how versatile dropshoting truly is.

Look at dropshotting more as a bait delivery system for your particular fishing situations.


Most people consider dropshotting a finesse presentation only, and that’s wrong. Generally smallies are the main target of the finesse crowd, me included. My finesse rig is a Dobyns Extreme HP 742SF& a 3000 Shimano Ci4 spooled with 10lb Sufix 832 with 5lb or 7lb Sufix fluorocarbon leader.


What about largemouth? No problem. Beef up the rod, line, weight, hook and bait and work those mid-summer deep weedlines.


With balanced tackle there really isn’t anywhere that can’t be successfully dropshot.


Experiment & have some fun.
Good luck,
Drop

A little late replying to my own thread, but I became pretty successful in my hookups. Part of it was better identifying what was a fish, vs rock, vs weeds, but the biggest part was I just kept the image of the fish taking it and closing it's lips closed tight to keep it's "meal" in. I simply wound the line until I felt the weight of the fish, then I would raise the rod, while still winding.

As mentioned sometimes they set the hook on their own.

Funny with the wacky worm or tube jig, I would do a big hook set, but the drop shot I found no real hook set was necessary, just wind the hook into the closed lips.

The KVD dreamshot and the Set the Hook crushworm were great baits. The Gary Yamamoto pro senko and California roll worms were also very good. Friend had a lot of success with the Gulp 3" leech.

I forgot to mentioned, I went with 10 lb Trilene Sensation monofilament line for my dropshot rig. It worked well in the stained waters where I fished. I also went with a #2 size dropshot hook.