***FOX RAGE TV*** Guide to Drop Shot Fishing

welcome to the Kennedy navin canal today we're going to be trying a method that's really grown in popularity over the last few years drop shot fishing it's very very popular in America and Europe and over the last couple of years it's starting to become more popular in the UK we're going to get down to the canal I'm going to show you the basics of the method and show you why it's great for catching perch well I was just thinking to myself that if you were looking to catch a perch you cannot imagine a more stereotypical spot between these two boats here now boats are a great spot on this time of year especially houseboats because they'll be heating heating up their houseboat a little bit of heat gets passed through the hull into the water attracting prey fish food goes over the side and suing the Predators homed in on it now he's not a huge perch but he's proof that on a freezing cold day when it'd be hard to get a bite from anything drop shotting is a really really valuable method to get it getting a few bites that one's fallen to the micro fry well hooked the sun's come out just in time to light up one of our most beautiful freshwater fish just trying in around this little bridge here I'm just gonna swing this ones hand as it's only a tiddler but another case of really kind of homing in around features where you expect perch to be and we're in the shade here I can tell you it's absolutely freezing cold here today but these little fellas are still falling for these basic drop shot techniques really really effective method will pop this one back we'll move on it's got to be a bigger one out there than this and we're in well we just moved to to a new area first class we've got a fish another small perch but they're all welcomed on a cold day like this grounds a little bit harder here so I won't be putting this one down on the floor lift this one up for you in that the hooks actually drops out in the net there what I'm going to do is pop this one back and what we're going to do is have a look at the rig once I've picked out the net and I'll talk you through to how to set up a basic drop shot rig to go out and catch a few perch we've stopped fishing for a few minutes here on the Kent and Haven canal to have a look at the basics of a drop shot rig and what makes it such an effective method so let me start by just talking you through the very very basics we've got a braided mainline which is zero stretch which gives great bite indication coming down from there we've got about four feet of eight pound fluorocarbon and this is tied directly to a size four power point drop shot hook now what you might notice straight away is that's actually tied into the line and below that is some more eight pound fluoro with our five gram drop shot weight and let me just show you the reason why this rig is so effective unlike other loads where you're constantly battling to keep it at the depth that you want to fish with a drop shot rig the weight is on the bottom of the river can now lake whatever you're fishing and the lure is adjustable in terms of how far you fish it off the bottom and this means that you can keep it in the kill zone exactly how you want to fish it for long periods of time each retrieve now particularly in conditions like today where it's pretty chilly this can be apps vital to success when predatory fish don't want to move too far let's do it step by step and have a look at exactly how you can put this rig together first things first you take your fluorocarbon hooklink material now whenever I'm tying any rig I always cut off a little bit more than you're likely to need in case you need to redo anything so I'm just gonna take it out about the length of an arm and across my chest so probably about four feet or so and just cut that off pop that down out the way now the first thing that we're gonna do is tie the hook into the line it doesn't fish on the hook link he actually sits on the line itself and that's why you get that type of presentation and we're going to use a very basic knot tie it in place and that's a Palomar now as with any type of fishing it's important that you choose a hook that matches the size of the lure that you're going to be using when I'm using little loads of four or five centimeters I'll be using the size four or size two hooks stepping up to a size one when I'm using the seven centimeter or eight centimeter lures so let's start by tying the hook in place I take about forty to fifty centimeters of line first which will form the link below the hook and then all I'm going to do is double the line over to form a little doubled length like that wet it and start by placing it through the bottom and out the top of the eye of the hook so I just show you that there and that simply sat on that doubled over section now the next step is nice and easy and all we're going to do is tie a simple overhand loop in that section so the second part of the knot should leave it looking like so so as you can see it's dead simple now at this point before we pull it down it's important that we wet it and then what I do at this stage is pull it down so it's almost tight make sure that the two parts of the knot go down at the same time so as you can see it's dead simple it's a little overhand loop over the hook and then with this tag end we simply place it over the hook like so and it's really important we remember to do that so if you pull it down as it is like that it won't have any strength we simply place it over the hook and then making sure it's nice and wet we can just take the two loose ends and pull them down evenly to make sure that the knot contracts and with whenever you're tying a Palomar knot always make sure that that little tail sits over the front of the hook and isn't left over the back of the hook because otherwise it'll be a messy knot and it will be won't be pulling against itself correctly so you just pull that down like so if we've tied up hallam or not correctly that's how the hook should sit tight against the line like so to match up with this I've got a seven centimeter hot olive miny fry and the way that we hook them we don't thread them on it's just a case of almost lip hooking them if you will as if you're hooking on a small live bait that's how it should sit and that will give maximum movement there's no point threading them on as you would a jig head you get a lot more movement when it's fished in this way now as I said the tag of the knot will now drop down like so and this is where we'll be attaching our drop shot weight and I'll just show you how to do that now this for those of you that haven't seen it before is a drop shot weight elongated available in various sizes and we've got this section at the top which is much like the eye of a swivel however it's got this stretch section there which we can actually lock the line into now in practice this means that when we're actually fishing we can adjust the depth that the lure fish is off the bottom let me give you an example if we're fishing in quite deep water and we wanted to fish the were suspended quite a way off we simply lock it in like so and as you can see that's in place there and we can fish there we go a couple of feet off the bottom there so that's perfect now on a day like today it seems that the fish are actually closer to the bottom and all we do to change the depth is pull it down like so and then we just lock the wait in position and we can adjust that throughout the session now we end up with quite a long tag there that doesn't matter we can just leave that we don't need to trim it up because that will allow us to adjust the rig during the session a lot of people ask what type of weight you should use and a basic guide that I tend to go for is around a gram of weight for every foot of water you're fishing in so fishing small canals you might start with three and a half grams rivers lakes which are deeper or any flow you can go heavier it's not unusual choose up to 15 or even 20 grams in some situations so as you can see the basic drop shot rig is really easy to tie anyone can do it and this will be perfect for you to get out there and catch a few predators with our rig tied up ready for a spot a drop shot fishing let's have a look at how we attach it to the mainline we've got a 13 pound jig silk mainline and we've got our 8 pound Illusion fluorocarbon now as you can see I've started by doubling over the end of the illusion and I'm going to pass the end of the jig silk through then I'm going to grip it with my thumb and forefinger to hold it in place now having pulled a few inches through like that it's just a case of making 15 tight turns over the two strands of Forough carbon and then gently and neatly push them back down so that it sits as snugly as possible so we'll just make sure of things sitting nicely like so once we've got to that stage we'll take this tag end of the braid and we're going to take it back down the body of the knot and depending on how long the knot is and how well it's sitting we'll do that between three and five times and this is just for added security so end up with this little barrel type knot like so and when we get to this stage where we've gone back up the leader and then back down towards the loop we're going to change our grip to hold these strands in place so I'm just going to now grip the main part like that to expose the loop we're going to take the end of our jig silk place it back through the loop where we started so that's how it should look at this stage now as with any knot it's really important that we wet it like so and then very gently we're just going to tease it down like so and we'll end up as you can see with a very very neat and ultra strong knot now you could use a double Grinner or what's called a back to back runner for this type of thing however you'll find that the knot strength that you get from tying it in this manner is far superior which will be more fish landed less tackle left in the water as well so to finish that we're just going to trim it up of our brave blades which are nice and sharp and we'll have no problem cutting through these materials whatsoever and there's the finished product that'll pass through your rod rings nice and easy ultra-low diameter yeah ultra strong well it's just coming over the top of a few features on the bottom now I think the the wall here might have broken away in the past and any little bit of cover-up that perch absolutely love it this is making camouflage themselves away and ambush anything that comes in over the top and in this case unbeknown to this little fella what was coming in over the top happens to be my little ler you see that there's a nice good hook Colbert just in the corner of the mouth lovely little perch which snapped up our micro fry here at the can it Nathan canal lovely little fish well this swim is proving to be perch soup it's virtually one a chuck and it just goes to show the value of these mobile methods on a cold day at this time of year lots of fish it can be showed up in tight little areas and by moving around and tracking them down you can have a really good bit of fun fishing fishing the drop shot rig is dead simple when you cast it out it's a simple case of letting it go down to the bottom preferably on a tight line because you can get bites on the drop once it hits the bottom you've got to remember the key thing is to keep contact between the drop shot weight and the lake river or canal bed at all times so you don't crank it in as you would with a plug or a spoon or a spinner it's a case of just gently you can work it on the spot just a gentle shakes of the rod tip little lifts and drops and by having a tiny bit of slack in the line that means that any action that you put into the law with little lifts and drops are actually imparted into the ler as opposed to being taken up by just pulling the weight forward along the bottom so you can actually work it on the spot which when you're fishing up two features such as the overhanging tree over my shoulder here all the boats that are positioned behind me that's a really good way of just holding the lure in position to explore a particular area if you're looking to go over a particular area such as under the bridge that we've got here once you feel that you've kept it in place for quite a while and there's nothing there you can just gently bring it back towards you a couple of feet with a gentle turn of the handle and start again so it's just gentle lifts and drops on an ever so slightly slack line you don't it to slack because obviously then you won't be able to see the bites and just gently work it back towards you now once you get back under your feet or if you've got deep water or features at your feet you can fish the rig vertically so I just drop it down so the canal bed up my my feet here and it one little change I make when I'm doing this is just to put the braid over my finger like the reel then that just gives me a little bit more sensitivity in a little bit more feel so by dropping the rig down I come I've got contacts as the weight hits the bottom and then you can just simply walk the rig around the swim whether it's a longer marginal feature wherever it's a long side of boats around any kind of features that and you can just keep contacts all the time just gently dragging the rig around and you'll feel by as you're lifting and dropping you'll feel what the bottoms made up of there and anything that feels a little bit unusual strike one of the key things that you'll find when you try a drop shot fishing for the first time is that because it's one of the only forms of luring where the lure can actually be static at times some of the takes can be really gentle they're not going to be those sort of arm wrenching bites that you get with other styles allure fishing and that's something to be aware of so they can just be little twitches gentle tightening of the line or the rod tip pulling over so if you feel anything that's unusual it's always worth striking to set the hook I've stepped up to a slightly bigger ler unfortunately it hasn't increased the size of the perch however it does show something quite interesting just how aggressive even on a freezing cold winter's day these perch can be now if you watch now I'm just gonna pop this single hook out and as you can see that was a fair old mouthful for that perch didn't stop him having a go though there's lots of drop-shot lures available on the market however I'm gonna give you a shortcut to success by showing you my three favourite patterns for perch fishing first and foremost we've got the mini fried it's got a natural baitfish shape with an elongated tail section and a paddle tail which gives plenty of movement seven centimetres in length and you get six in a pack and we've got various colors and colors are something that will come on to in a minute they're really good imitation of the average sort of prey fish item that a perch would expect to come across in UK waters here we've got something a little bit different this is a spiky shad it might appear to have a similar profile to the leather I've just shown you however it's got these little dimples all over it over 200 along the body there and that kicks out lots of vibration and also for those of you that might thought about flavouring lures as well it means that they take flavour very well and also trap air bubbles which leaves a trail as you retrieve through the water we've all of those little added extras this means that for coloured water situations this is my favourite it's got a nice big size to it big paddle sail plus lots of extra vibration in winter sometimes the water can be clear times can be hard and much like any other type of fishing never be afraid to scale down and my choice in those conditions would be the tiny little four centimeter micro fry it's got a massive tail section which still means that it kicks out plenty of vibration and flash in the water yet it's got this tiny little baitfish profile that's an absolute killer on difficult days with regards color if you're fishing in coloured water situations bright patterns such as fire tiger and other solid colors are absolutely brilliant if the waters clear more natural patterns that imitate the type of prey Fisher expecting to come across or a great starting point however the rules are always made to be broken in predator fishing so don't be afraid to experiment on the day to find what works for you if you're looking to try drop shotting for the first time it's important that you've got the correct gear for the job I'll just talk you through the gear that I'm using here today I've got the rage Ultron drop shotting finesse rod six foot six which is the perfect length for fishing smaller waters such as little still waters canals drains and small rivers it's got a nice sensitive tip and that means any delicate bites that we get especially when we're fishing the lure static or vertically we can swap those easily however it's got plenty of guts in the middle and lower sections for dealing with any bigger fish that we hook it's a balance that we've got a 1,500 size Ultron Pro reel as you can see that balances nicely nice and smooth and really importantly when fishing for perch it's got a lovely smooth drag if the drag snatches at all like it would on some reels it's easy to pop the lure out of their mouth so this is absolutely perfect for this style of fishing now the main line is rage jig silk low diameter no stretch absolutely made for the job now you will notice that I've chosen a yellow color braid and this to me is really important for drop-shot fish fishing the reason for that is a lot of the bites often go off to the side or a gentle tightening of the braid and if you've got a little bow in the braid you see it tighten or you see it pull to one side a lot of the time you don't feel those bites but by having a yellow braid or a brightly calibrate you can actually spot them and that's a big edge when you try and drop shot fishing for the first time well we're starting to come towards the end of the day now when in fact you moved back up to where we started today quickly mini fry in the hot olive pattern across the far bank and a little spot where I saw some crayfish talking and I talked to fish it feels a little bit better it's either a good perch or it could be a small Pike but time will sell my cast across to the far side it's actually quite a barren spot but the takers instant so I'm gonna be keen to see what this is because they're coming starts at witching hour that time of the day when better fish feed and to be fair most efficient port today have been fairly small and this the first time you put something today that feels a little bit more substantial it's just going behind a sniper in fact know what's happens here is whatever I folks have been grabbed by slightly larger pike I thought a big a big knot and then it's just one solid and whatever is grabbed it is just plodding around the swim at the moment I'm pretty sure that's what happened because I saw the fish that that took my lure in the first place it wasn't a particularly big fish so a little bit of excitement here as it comes to the end of our day and it's just plodding around feels like whatever's grabbed it is a good fish as well now of course we very lucky to get them both in a net but you never know you see a big trail of bubbles coming up off the bottom here it's that time of day when big predators feed and pretty exciting when stuff like this happens and of course it's only in front of sufficient that you get this type of thing so the I just saw a pike a decent-sized pike gripping hold of the whatever it is I've hooks now if we're really really lucky what might happen is the single hook may have transferred into the pike that's happening and we've got a chance of landing a fish it's not too far under the surface now I have seen the leader not a patron into the bat-line there is a fish powers away again these vortexes here on the surface I think we're gonna at least get a look at this gonna round it off we go again every time that seems a little bit more like it powers away now I spend a lot of time on the bank but times like this that make the old knees tremble I've got to say it's really exciting stuff the fish is powering away to have a look at the angle of mullet or a finesse drop shot hog here it's taken on a pretty horrendous angle whoops big head shakes again and it's actually let go it's still following it around the swim I can see it and it's in fact a little part that I big vortex out in the swim there and in the park I'm just gonna gonna bring it in there and there we go free milk across the back there we can see those big scuff marks where that one almost met its maker this evening he's had a lucky escape if he's smart when I put him back he's gonna make a very very quick exit out of this swim before he becomes dinner with the light fading I think that's going to be the last cast of the day here on the Kennett and Aven canal we've gone through the basics that you need let's go out there and try drop-shotting you've seen a few fish get caught along the way we have a lot of excitement at the end of the day when that small Jack got grabbed by a big pike hopefully you can put these tips to good use to go out there and try this highly productive method for yourself

Channel: Fox Rage TV

Views: 33,315

Rating: 4.7276597 out of 5

Keywords: Fox Rage, Savage Gear, Rapala, Snapper, Mick Brown, Matt Hayes, Lure fishing, bass fishing, trolling

Id: XUTxDOhBO7Q

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 02 2015