Drop Shot Length, Weight, and Bait Testing | Underwater Bass Fishing Rig Test

what's up y'all welcome back fish the moment today we're doing another underwater testing video this time on the drop shot we're testing different weights baits and leader lengths comparing the actions so you guys know what to throw when you're fishing offshore for bass so that's gonna do it [Music] so before we jump into the footage I want to explain the concept for this video as always what we're doing is casting fishing lures into the deep end of an Olympic sized swimming pool to replicate the conditions of making a long cast on offshore structure that means we're casting the bait into 13 feet of water and making a 30-yard cast that way we can simulate what these baits look like when you're working them down they're really deep and so in this video we're testing the drop shot and a lot of guys fish drop shots both by making long casts offshore and also by fishing vertically right beside the boat and so we're gonna be testing both types of trees in this video and we have a lot of different baits where we testing from your traditional plastic baits like a Robo worm to some floating baits like this elaztech warm from Strike King or from z-man and then also some small finesse swim baits like this Kai Tak and again we're testing it with different size weights from 3/16 ounce all the way up to 3/8 ounce and I'm doing all these tests with a 7-foot to medium light action spinning rod six pound leader line and then ten pound braided line main line and again testing different size leaders with that fluorocarbon and I am hooking all these hooks with a size six VMC nikko hook and so I'll link all of the equipment that I'm using this video down in the description below so you guys can check it all out this is my standard setup for the drop shot and so now that we kind of know the testing procedure I want to jump straight in the footage and start talking about how all these baits looked underwater so for the first test we wanted to start with a very standard setup for a drop shot which is just a six-inch Robo worm on that size six VMC nikka hook and we nose rigged it and then we put it with a 3/16 sounds drop shot weight and then a 12-inch litre between the weight and the hook and we cast that bait down deep water and as you can probably see from this footage this is not professional underwater camera work I am working on trying to improve how we film these videos but I think we got some pretty good footage for two guys who taped a GoPro to a metal pole and then tried to follow the bait in their water but we will get the footage to be a little bit better in the future but hopefully this will do for right now and so as you take a look at this bait moving through the water this bait has a really good action in the setup as we move the bait you can see that is swimming through the water and has a pretty lifelike action and then when you stop the bait it has that slow natural fall almost like a cinco when you fish it up in shallow water and I didn't really expect that this drop shot would have this action when you cast it 30 yards from the boat I kind of had this impression that the bait would sit either right on the bottom or it would sits 12 inches right off the bottom and kind of stay stationary 12 inches off the bottom almost suspending and so it was really cool to see that this bait has that consistent rise and then fall to it and this is something that I really need to take advantage of when I get to the lake because I never thought about my drop shot looking like that underwater and I feel like that could trigger a lot strike especially if you ensured that bait comes all the way up to the top of the liter 12 inches and then you give it time to fall back down the bottom which might take six seven eight seconds and so knowing this I should be able to retrieve the bait a lot better in the future and so that was the first test with the three 16 sounds wait and so before we change up anything I want to rig the bait a little bit differently and that's wacky rigging it which is basically taking the hooking putting it's through the middle of the worm and one thing that I thought was really interesting in this test is that I assume that that bait would fall very much horizontally down to the bottom and the bait would almost be parallel to the surface of the bottom but instead that bait stood straight up with the nose of the bait pointing towards the pool and that's probably how I rigged the bait there was probably a little bit more of the nose of the bait as opposed to tail the bait on one side of the worm or the other and what that's going to do is cause that bait to sink nose first and so on like my expectations were that they would stay perfectly horizontal to the bottom it was now perpendicular to the bottom and it is going to look a lot different underwater so it does still have a pretty good action when you're moving that bait and you can see the kind of tails will go in and out and pulsate which is kind of what I was expecting but I wasn't expecting that nose-down look to that wacky rig worm and so I really like that look as well it's something different and I do want to make sure that I test in the future where exactly you need to be rigging these worms in the center to make sure that they are no parallel to the surface at the bottom and we'll look at that in future videos but that's kind of test for your traditional hand poured six inch drop shot worm and again there's a ton of different worms on the market you can use this just the one I use and so next up before we change up any of the weights or leader links I just want to try some other baits and the first one was a floating worm and this is just a methylate floating worm that's striking use to make seven inch finesse worm they still make this worm and also z-man makes other floating finesse worms as well and when I put this floating worm on the drop shot hook first off you can see it's a little hard to see this pink worm in the pool I'll make sure to use more solid dark colors in the future but what you'll find is that that bait will actually sit perfectly still and suspend at the top of that 12 inch leader and this is kind of what I was expecting the bait to look like for whatever reason when I was using the standard plastic worm and this is really cool because I now know that if I want to target those suspended bass with a drop shot and want to keep it there in further face I need to be using a floating worm on that drop shot and really that bait will stay right there in that you know one foot off the bottom area when using that 3/16 ounce weight now going to heavier weights will change this in the future and so we'll take a look at that but for now this bait looks really good when you just put it on you know nose hook rig and it worked down there on the bottom now I did try to whack your eggs warm but for whatever reason they got tangled up and the one shoot I did I didn't notice so I don't have the wacky rig look for the floating worm apologize there but one more thing I want to try was actually a small 3-inch swim bait from Kai Tech and this is just the kite Eck swing impact four inch such a 4 inch swim bait and I just knows hooked it on that drop shot and it had a pretty interesting action when I was working it down there though it didn't have as much of that lifelike motion as the other two worms did and I also try to just cast that bait out there let think the bottom and then slowly reel it in and you can see how I'm reeling it in with my spinning reel here and for whatever reason that bait just didn't have that great action with that light drop shot wait and I really probably wouldn't try to cast that drop shot and slowly reel it in like this in the future with that real light weight but again as we change up the weights and the leader lengths it might look a little bit better so now that we've taken a look at all the different worms I want to switch up and start taking a look at the different weights still with that 12 inch leader so again for those first test we're using a 3/16 sounds drop shot weight but now I want to jump up to a quarter ounce drop shot weight and then we'll also use a 3/8 ounce weight and I want to see what these different weights will do to the bait when you're casting it into deep water and so as we jump up from the 316 to the quarter ounce weight the first thing I noticed is that the baits are all staying closer to the bottom which kind of surprised me if we take a look at our traditional plastic Robo worm what it seems like is that when I'm moving that bait through the water that quarter ounce weight is weighing down that bait or that line and pulling that bait closer to the bottom and almost pulling it down quickly to the bottom and this is super fascinating to me because I would never thought that the weight of this drop shot weight would have that big of an impact on how that bait moves through the water because that weight is trailing the bait not in front of it but it seems to make sense now when you're dragging that weight that that bait might stay a little bit more tight to the bottom and closer to the bottom because you pull that bait up the resistance from a heavier weight is pulling the bait down and you'll notice that that happens with the plastic worm which keeps it tighter to the bottom doesn't make it go as high off the bottom but also with a floating worm and we'll put the floating worm on there it almost causes that bait to have somewhat of a recoil effect where you pull that worm it gets pulled down towards the bottom then recoils back up as it rises up and so it actually gives us bait kind of a cool action in the fact that the bait will dive down into the water and then rise back up up almost like a floating crank bait and so this could be a really interesting technique to use when those fish are maybe a little more aggressive and you want to bring that bait up and down the water column just a little bit and get those more aggressive fish to feed and so the lighter weight didn't cause these baits to sink towards the bottom or pull them towards the bottom as much as the quarter ounce weight and you know as we then put them on swim bait as well what I notice is that the swim bait will actually swim a little bit better when I'm reeling it on that steady retrieve with that quarter ounce weight because it is kind of weighing that bait down a little bit more giving it more resistance allowing me to real the real a little bit quicker giving the swim bait more action and so in general what this heavier drop show weight was doing was keeping the baits deeper and also giving that bait a little bit more action and making a little more erratic so that was really interesting and then I also up size from the quarter ounce to the 3/8 ounce and the 3/8 ounce basically just magnified the effects and made the baits stay even closer to the bottom and then it made the swim bait action even a little bit better and so when I was reeling that swim bait the swim bait would kick a little bit more and then you get more rebound effects from this floating worm where it would dive down even a little bit deeper and then rise back up and then with the regular Robo worm it was keeping it even closer to the bottom and so from all these tests what I'm basically seeing is that if you're trying to be very subtle and present a very natural looking bait too lethargic bass I would go with that 3/16 sounds weight and even though it might take a while for that bait to get down there and you have to move it slower it's going to give the most natural something that's very slow and methodical and again maybe more natural but if the fish are very aggressive and they want something is darting or moving maybe in the summertime or different times of the year go into that heavier quarter ounce or the 3/8 ounce weight might get you some extra strikes and also that heavier weight works better with the swim baits so that's just some really interesting results I wasn't expecting and I think that that's going to be really helpful as I start fishing the drop shot more this year now the other thing I want to test is the actual leader length to this drop shot and so what I did is test the bait on a 12 inch leader with a quarter ounce weight and then with a 6 inch leader with a quarter ounce weight and then a four-foot leader with the quarry round swayed so all over with a quarter ounce weight and if we take a look at the different leader lengths here's the standard twelve inch leader which we were just looking out for a while and then here is what the bait looks like with a six-inch leader and you can see it first with the Robo worm their standard plastic worm and this is a really really cool look to this worm really it keeps that bait tired to the bottom and it kind of dulls the falling action when you're throwing this regular plastic worm so that bait isn't really having a long time to fall but it's also keeping it closer to the bottom and so those fish are locked in on the bottom it may not be a bad way to get those fish to react just shortening that leader and this also might work better if you're fishing in shallow water where those fish are only maybe let's say eight or ten feet deep and then if we put that six-inch leader with the floating worm this has awesome action really that bait just sits right in front of those fish six inches off the bottom and if I was going to be fishing this floating worm I would probably go with a six or an eight inch leader a lot of the times because it will just float that bait right above their eye line and get those fish to go crazy and so you know you can definitely get away with the 12-inch leader but that's six inch leader may have its place and the bait did have pretty good action too with that short leader with the swim bait and it swam pretty well as well so it was really nice to test out that shorter leader and something I need to experiment with in the lake to see how the fish react to the short earlier verse the longer leader it's hard to say just by looking at in a pool but again I'm gonna be doing a lot of on the water testing to follow up all these underwater testing videos so that you can see what happens in the pool and how it affects fish and actually works on the lake and so be on the lookout for those videos on my channel and subscribe the channel if you want to be notified of those videos make sure you don't miss any of them posting every Monday Wednesday Friday on the channel guys so you'll be able to see all these videos and so that was a six-inch leader next up we went to a four-foot leader and a four-foot leader was super long but it gave the bait amazing action if we take a look at the 4-foot leader with the Robo worm you can see if that bait is going to have a really slow long fall and I feel like when fish are super pressured it's almost like fishing a weightless worm but you can fish it in 20-30 feet of water and what you can do is cast that bait out there raise your bait up all the way up to the top of that 4-foot leader and then wait that 10 or 15 seconds for a bait to glide all the way down to the bottom and I think that this again could be a great way to get those lethargic fish to bite and something I definitely have to try what he got in the lake and I might even try that up this upcoming weekend in my Beaver Lake term I'll be fishing and so that was awesome I love that look of that worm falling on that super long leader and one thing I did notice too is when you went to those heavier weights on that long leader that baits stayed pretty close to the bottom because it would pull that bait down so if I was going to go for that super long leader I'd be using a 3/16 ounce weight just to make sure my approach is as natural as possible and then I also tried the floating worm on that four-foot leader and again this bait looks awesome it floats 4 foot off the bottom and it's gonna sit right in front of those fish and it's a great opportunity are suspended in a very specific depth like cysts let's say 4 or 5 feet off the bottom and kind of like that Carolina rig I did in my last underwater testing video where I was using the lizard and the French fry to sit in front of those fish's face you do the same thing with a drop shot and it might even be better because you can use that lighter which may make those fish a little bit less spooky and so just some different applications freeze floating baits I find interesting and you know the only other thing I tested and the pool guys is testing the motion of these baits when I am fishing this bait vertically and so I did is basically just drop the bait right vertically down straight in front of me into the pool you know not even casting it anywhere just dropping it in the pool and I wanted to see what the Robo worm and the floating worm looked like when I fished them vertically and this is an artist that really surprised me because what I found is that with the traditional Robo worm that bait would basically sit tail down as I was shaking it and the tail would just fall and it would basically be sitting perfectly vertical up and down and then with the floating worm it was the exact opposite and some of the tail going down towards the bottom the tail floated straight up towards the surface but in both cases these worms are sitting perfectly perpendicular to the bottom of the lake or basically sitting straight up and down and one thing I do a lot when I'm fishing offshore for spotted bass and I'm video game fishing or fishing vertically with my graph is actually wacky rig these Robo worms and I can see now why that wacky rig might be useful because what a duck does is it will present that bait parallel to the bottom or basically it'll sit horizontally in the water and what that will do is get that bait to maybe look more like a bait fish or a bluegill because there's not that many baitfish er to be sitting straight up in the water up and down they're gonna be sitting more horizontally and so that might be why I get a lot more bites when I whack your rig my worm when I'm fishing video game fishing and fishing vertically and if you guys do want to learn how to fish with your electronics with a drop shot vertically check out this video that's on my channel it's a complete guide to video game fishing it's like 40 minutes long I spend that you spent like 30 or 40 hours making that video guys it took a lot of effort and so definitely check that video out because it is the best guide on the internet for video game fishing or vertical fishing with your electronics so that's basically it guys that's all of the different tests I did with the drop shot I was at the pool for only about 45 minutes because we were testing out different filming techniques so I wasn't able to test everything I wanted to do with all different baits but I think this is a good starting point and I do want to hear your feedback in the comments you guys have great suggestions on different ways I can set up my rigs things that you've done in the past and successful things I should test in the future and so a couple things I'm going to do in upcoming videos are take your suggestions to either film a brand new video about drop-shotting and all the things you want me to test or just kind of compile all of your cool ideas into one video and say you know top 10 ideas from underwater testing videos something like that so definitely leave comments I will take note of all of them even if I don't have a chance to respond to every single one of them and we will use those in future videos and one other thing you guys can do that will really help me out is to leave a like on this video every video so far in the Sun of our testing series has had over a thousand likes and it's cause the videos do really well which allows me to continue to make them if I can get 20 to 30,000 views in every video I can justify the cost of renting out the pool and getting all the baits everything for these tests but if I'm not getting that view mark I'm not gonna be able to keep doing these tests and I love doing them so please leave a like it's super simple just go down there press the thumbs up and it'll ensure that I can keep making all of these underwater testing videos so really appreciate that and if you haven't subscribe to the channel as I mentioned earlier please do that as well so you can see these videos I'll be making them every single week going forward and so you'll be able to see a lot of cool tests based on your suggestions and stuff that I've thought of as well so thanks again for checking out the video guys hope you enjoyed and I'll see you all next one [Music]

Channel: Fish the Moment

Views: 147,840

Keywords: Bass fishing, bass fishing tips, Fish the Moment, Jonny Schultz, bass fishing videos, underwater bass, fishing lures underwater, underwater fishing footage, underwater fishing camera, underwater fishing camera bass, underwater lure, underwater lure footage, underwater lure action, Drop Shot retrieve, drop shot for bass, Drop Shot tips, drop shot bass fishing, drop shot, drop shot setup, drop shot underwater, drop shot rig for bass, drop shot rig underwater

Id: fDr2IsatWLg

Length: 19min 33sec (1173 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2020