Drop Shotting Walleyes | A Modern Approach with Plastics

there's a good one [Music] there we go you know this is a bait that we don't talk a lot about in what we're doing today is we're actually drop shotting and the cool thing you know this isn't a big fish but just an awesome little representation of what devil lake has but the drop shot's highly overlooked for walleyes and one of the reasons why i think it's overlooked is you know the strike zone for a walleye is anywhere from eight inches to like a foot and a half that's typically where you find those fish and the cool thing about a drop shot is it keeps that bait in that strike zone all the time now we could pitch a jig or live bait but the cool thing is you know like today i'm actually running the four-inch gulp crawler and this is a new color this year it's called opening night and i think it represents so many different bait fish and the reason being it's got that purple hue and if you look at a perch if you look at a white bass if you look at a crappie every one of those fish has that purple hue under their throat latch and that's when a fish is coming from down below that's what they see and this bait just represents that really well so you know a drop shot a great opportunity to catch more walleyes and it keeps that bait in the strike zone at all times and there's a couple different ways to move it and you really have to do it and and see how the fish react to it you know i've been in the situation where all the fish want is just a drag and then i've been in the situation where a fish wants it really aggressive and they want that bait moving around but the cool thing is about the drop shot is i can actually leave it in one location and basically just shake that bait right in their face when i see a target coming to the bait all i do is just literally sit there and shake it and i'm creating the action i'm i'm creating the live look to that bait so a lot of times you know i'll just give it a little bit of slack line and that bait will kind of fall in their face and then i'll pop it up and i'm not moving the bait i'm just moving it in that little zone right there so it's no different than if you watch on tv the guys bass fishing and things like that it's no different but the cool thing about it is it's staying in that strike zone at all times and you know one of the things in like walleye fishing we use a lot of scented plastics today we're using gulp you can use power bait but the cool thing about it is actually creating that scent trail and gulp is the best at it and walleye's smallmouth a lot of fish react to gulp really well and one of the things i've found um is that gulp works year-round but it really works in a cold water situation when those fish are lethargic i think that sense just one more situation where it triggers that bite we're using the four inch crawler today and i really believe like the four-inch crawler just imitates a mental bait so well whether you talk about perch whether you talk about smelt a lot of different forage that four inch crawler really relates to you know here's one of the things that we talked about you know watching both our sonar and our live so right here if you look at my sonar i've got a really good arc right here good walleye and then if i transition that up to the live i can see that fish right here you'll see them kind of come in and out but that's a prime example of using your sonar to your advantage at all times and paying attention to what's going on so i'm using both my 2d which is something i rely on all the time i'm using my map i put a waypoint down here where i marked those fish when i came over them with my 2d and my side imaging when i came in and then i'm paying attention to my live and using those in combination will get you more bites throughout the day there we go there we go hey every time they're getting bigger you know one of the things that you're seeing a lot of in the walleye industry is is a transition from live bait to artificials and there's a lot of reasons for that whether we talk about you know the the problems with transporting bait getting bait that's another thing you know like right now i'm using a fusion 19 number one worm hook there you go another awesome walleye on the drop shot so as i said i'm using a number one and i'll go through on how i rig this up but literally it's a number one fusion 19 worm hook and all i'm going to do is take this gulp crawler i'm going to insert it about a half inch into the bait come out slide it up on that collar which is actually going to hold that bait in place take that bait give it a little bend run that hook in and all we're going to do is just back that worm down that way it's weedless if i'm working around the edge of the weeds or if i'm working around structure timber things like that and that bait's going to sit straight right on that hook simple and easy you know i get a lot of questions on what rods i like to use for drop shot and it's real simple you know it's it's probably a similar rod to what you'd typically use for jigging walleyes i like longer rods so for me it's a seven foot medium medium light action rod depending on the weights today i'm using a half ounce i'm fishing you know 17 to 25 foot of water so i want that half ounce and the cool thing about drop shotting is you know you can get by with a little bit of heavier weight and it keeps it in that spot a lot better you know you can downsize the weight if you want to move it a little bit faster and move it around a little bit but one of the things i i think and the reason why i think it's so good for walleyes is walleyes are really sound activated so i'm using a tungsten weight right now and there's actually some gravel down here so that ticking of that tungsten down there a lot of times i think it it makes those walleyes react to it or if i'm in a mud bottom that puff of the mud a lot of times walleyes react to that because they think it's some type of bait down there and then all of a sudden they get over there and here's this bait sitting in their face and a lot of times i think that's what triggers the bite as i said earlier seven foot rod anywhere from six six to seven six rod size 20 size 30 reel line setup pretty basic i'm running a 10 pound ultra 8 braided line down to either a eight or a ten pound floor 100 percent trilene fluorocarbon leader uh i like the fluorocarbon leader it works in a lot of different situations it's a no stretch and what that allows me to do is know what the bottom is make sure i'm in contact with the bottom at all time and when a fish strikes i'm instant contact with that fish a light drag i mean just just ease the hook into it those fusion 19s are super super sharp so i don't have to worry about that and all i'm doing is just loading the rod and start reeling um it's not a real aggressive hook set anything like that and but staying in contact keeping that that weight in one location and just moving that bait around that light line combination definitely helps in that situation you know a lot of times with the drop shot i'm not making those real super super long casts maybe in a situation where it's a gravel flat or something like that and i've located a school of fish or if i'm cast into a certain target like a brush pile or something you know flooded timber things like that because i can work this bait up and over it but most of the time with the drop shot i'm i'm looking at my electronics or i'm looking at that piece of structure and i'm picking little targets whether it's a hole in the weeds or whether it's a point on a weed bed or if i'm looking at it and i've got a target right here i'm basically just making short cast and paying attention to how that fish is reacting to that bait at all times and just basically keeping it right in their face you know the drop shot's such a versatile bait and you can throw it in a lot of different situations but a few that i really like number one is on a mud flat a lot of times you see those fish they're suspended up on those mud flats if you look at like central minnesota areas like that but the other thing that i other place there we go the other place i really like to use them is around structure and when we talk about structure there's a lot of different places and things that relate to structure another nice little walleye rocks um where you can find that transition between the rocks and the gravel or rocks and sand that transition area a lot of times those fish will use that as a feeding corridor the other place that i really find it beneficial especially the way we're rigging this today with like a texas rig is around weeds i think walleyes are highly overlooked fishing them in the weeds and this presentation works all the time in weeds it's it's just a great presentation it's weedless i can look for those pockets in the cabbage or i can look for those inside turns i can actually pitch this bait into the cover and work it out and a lot of times that's where you're going to get that strike so paying attention your electronics looking at 360 looking at a lot of different things to to know those little pinch points or those little ambush points that the walleyes are using and the drop shot's such a versatile bait that i can use it in all those locations

Channel: Wired2Fish

Views: 51,888

Keywords: drop shot walleyes, how to drop shot walleye, walleye drop shot rig, berkley gulp walleye, berkley gulp nightcrawler, wired2fish walleye

Id: ovfp4rFDqOM

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021