Top 5 Mistakes Fisherman Do With The Drop Shot?!

what's up guys ben kohler the tackle otaku here with the hookup tackle today we're going to talk about the top five mistakes that we see people make when they're drop shotting now about 20 years ago when i started guiding drop shotting was really a big thing that was moving here to the u.s and still to this day a couple decades later it still has this big mystique from a lot of guys they're just finding out about it just learning about it and then of course here in the shop we're always helping people refine to get the most out of this technique we seem to see the same mistakes over and over and over again so today we're going to highlight those so that hopefully you can prevent yourself from making them and if you are making them you can correct them and catch more fish so if you're ready let's go all right guys so let's dive in to the top five mistakes that we see people make with the drop shot now just in case you've been living under a rock and you have no idea what a drop shot is this is essentially a drop shot so a drop shot is a bait that is rigged above the weight and the weight will land on the bottom and the bait stays either suspended off if it's a floater or it will slowly flutter down to the bottom it just allows you to present your bait in a different way versus just dragging across the bottom like a lot of other finesse techniques do now even though this seems very simple there are some little tips and tricks that should help you guys get more bites but the biggest thing is is not only do i want you to get the bites but i want you to land those fish so that your enjoyment is maximized you guys are tournament fishing you're cashing in on every opportunity and we can write some of the ships that maybe are a little bit of off course okay so what i'm going to do is i'm going to start from what i think is the most important down i mean these are all really important but we're going to start from technique to getting the bite okay so the first thing we're going to talk about today that we see people make mistake over and over and over again on is lying so line is a very important thing to consider when you're drop shotting and the biggest thing i can tell you is that when you're considering line you have to take into consideration the diameter okay now we should all 100 of us be using fluorocarbon line to our bait i don't care if you have straight fluorocarbon going on your spinning rail if you have braid and you're tying a four carbon leader off to however you like to do it is fine and we can discuss pros and cons of that in the comments if you want to but there needs to be fluorocarbon down to the bait the reason for that is this is a finesse technique so we want that fluorocarbon line down there because it's invisible the fish can't really see it it's got lots of abrasion resistance little strength so it's the right line for this kind of technique now even though fluorocarbon is pretty much invisible underwater the diameter affects the way your bait is going to move so a lot of times we see people come in with too heavy a line they're going with 10 pound or even a lot of times eight pound and sometimes it's just too thick for getting the maximum movement out of the bait now keep in mind that a lot of this is going to depend on the brand of line that you guys are using so you're going to always see us holding up line like sunline seaguar some of the higher end japanese fluorocarbons because this is really what you guys should be in if you guys are throwing something like a berkeley 100 fluorocarbon remember that the diameter is totally skewed to the pound test so eight pound test doesn't always mean eight pound test okay so for instance since i just threw berkeley under the bus their eight pound test is .28 millimeters thick that's the same as sunline 12 pound so if you think you're throwing eight because it says eight on the box you're throwing the same as everybody else is throwing 12 if they're throwing sunlight so your line is way too thick you're not gonna get the right action out of your worm so what i would highly recommend is i would recommend staying at eight is your biggest but really start thinking about dropping down into size into something like a six or a seven now i know it doesn't seem like that much of a difference from eight to seven but the diameter is about 15 difference each drop down you make so you're going to get 15 more movement out of your bait even at just a rest right because remember the water has current underneath it it's pulsing it's moving so the thicker your line the less your worm is going to be able to move so if you guys are struggling getting bites you're like man everybody's catching on drop shot and i'm not dropping down in line size is going to be critical for you it's going to help you get a lot more bites okay so 7 is where i start most of the time and i'll go down to six or five if i really need to get an extra bite a lot of guys just go to eight because eight is simple and eight is fine if they're eating eight really well but a lot of times they shy away from eight because the bait doesn't get quite enough movement so that's when it's a good idea to just drop down in size so don't think that one line is perfect for all conditions you need to mix and match based on what the fish are telling you all right next thing that we see people make mistakes all the time on is their hook selection now there are nine million different hook choices on the market right different brands different things right but the biggest thing that we get here in the store is man can you help me get a new hook i'm losing fish like crazy and almost every time i can guess the hook that they're using okay so let's break this down really quick now there are two different styles of hooks that we use okay so the first option is a nose hook option which would look something like this this is going to be a smaller hook you're going to basically just hook the bait right through the nose and this is going to give the worm or the bait that you're using maximum movement it's going to showcase the bait the best the downside is is that it's going to snag anything that you drag it into so if you're fishing around a lot of brush or cover not usually the best option but if you're fishing more open water and rock the nose hook could be the way to go the other type of hook we use is more of a weedless presentation right some guys just say it's texas rig drop shot or weedless drop shot but this is going to be the presentation that we're going to use when we're fishing around a lot of cover if we're dragging it through wood through weeds through brush and we need it to be more weedless so we can come through the cover without it snagging on every branch it touches this is the way to go okay so let's start with that style hook real quick there are basically two different styles of hooks we could use for our weedless presentation okay one is going to be like an ewg style hook and the other is going to be a straight shank okay now i don't like to say that things are right or wrong if it's working for you and you're getting bit and you're landing fish and you're having fun then it's right right and if you're losing fish and you're getting frustrated and you're not having fun then it's wrong okay this hook is wrong every time okay so if you are going to be drop shotting you need to get away from this style hook and get into more of the straight shank hook and here's why if you are using an ewg style hook like this guy what happens is as you are shaking through the brush this bait as it hits logs will slide down on your hook and it will turn into a clump of worm on a hook right and then as you wind it in this thing winds in and spirals back in and every time it's spiraling in it's twisting your line okay one of the number one complaints with drop shot is line twist right and the number one cause of line twist is your worm not being straight on your hook okay so if you are needing to use this type of rigging this weedless or texas rig type rigging it's probably because you're coming through brush so by going with a straight shank you can eliminate that problem they'll have a keeper on it so as you're coming through the brush it will prevent it from sliding down so you can actually work this worm up and through the branches as it comes over you can just drop it back down so it falls back in the cover and so you could actually maximize your time in the strike zone and in that cover by using the right hook the other disadvantage to using a hook like this guy is you'll notice that there is very little gap between the hook point and the eye of the hook okay so what happens is when you actually set the hook you're skin hooking the fish and so the fish are barely getting hooked so you'll swing and you'll hook them you have them on there and then oh it came off right or oh i got him and then he jumps and now your goes flying right that's because the hook never actually penetrated all the way through the barb to stick them and get them when you use a straight shank hook then you've got tons of gap between the eye and the hook it's all space so when you swing there's plenty of hook to actually penetrate into the fish's mouth and the hook gets in there and will stay in there hopefully right so if you're looking for some good straight shank drop shot options these are our favorite two this is the owner cover shot hook what's nice about the owner hook is it's made out of a zoo wire it's got that nice coating so it penetrates easy and it has a little flexible fluorocarbon keeper so it holds the baits on there really well and then roboworm makes a hook called a rebar but it's a gamma gatsu hook but it has the right keeper on there for keeping your worms in place and either one of those are good options okay jumping to nose hooks okay and this is one that we get every single day in the shop most people that get into drop shotting tend to start with this kind of hook or this exact hook and this is the gamakatsu split shot drop shot hook this is in my opinion the single worst hook on the market okay now most guys start here because it says drop shot so it should be right right but it's not this hook is not built correctly this is a notorious hook for hooking the fish and losing the fish so if you like to lose fish keep throwing it okay if you actually have to land fish we're going to change it up and we're going to show you guys some better hooks and again the same reason that this hook is not right for drop shot is the hook point and the eye of the hook are basically at the same angle okay so there's just not that much gap there for that thing to hook so when you swing again you just kind of skin hook them so again you're going to have them and they're going to jump and it's going to toss your and down he goes right so let's get rid of these now a lot of you guys have been enjoying the gamakatsu g finesse one this one is definitely a huge improvement it has the right bend but it's got such a small little barb that a lot of guys find that it doesn't stay in very well especially for smallmouth fishing so i can't stress enough that the best hook for nose cooking on the market is this dude this is the decoy shot rig worm 10 okay it's the right gauge wire and it has the right bend to it hopefully you can see that there's a huge gap now between the point and the eye of the hook so when they swing that thing is going to go straight through the mouth it's going to get them every time right in the hard part of the jaws it's going to penetrate through the barb and that way you're not panicked every time they come up and jump you're going to be able to stick them and land them if you can't find the decoys another great option is the owner mosquito hook the mosquito hook comes in a regular or a light version but again it's got the proper amount of gap between the eye and the hook point so you get great hook penetration and great landing ratio all right next thing that we see people not do right all the time is bait selection okay now there are a gazillion options for worms and baits that we can drop shot right but what we find is we find people get stuck in one lane now if you grew up on the west coast out here you're probably throwing a robo worm like 90 of the time if you grew up on the east coast you're probably got a whole box of zoom finesse worms and trick worms and that kind of stuff in your box as well and day in and day out if i had to pick one bait to go out to the lake and throw a drop shot it would probably be some kind of worm shaped bait like a six inch straight tail robo worm but don't get stuck in the trap that all of a sudden you've been catching them on this thing and now they're not eating it it's because they're telling you that things are different so we can adjust our baits based on seasonality based on forage that the fish are feeding on based on water clarity right so let me just give you a couple really easy tips and tricks okay think of your straight tail worm as your go-to starting point every time okay so if you're just starting out you have no idea what's happening throw a straight tail okay something in a natural color a brown a green just make it look lifelike okay if the fish are a little more aggressive if they're seeing smaller forage either cross or shad or a little bluegill fry that kind of stuff as the water's heating up then you can switch to something that has a curly tail to it and that curly tail is just going to give the worm a little more movement as it moves just a little more life that's a closer imitation of what they're seeing under the water okay so sometimes just by changing from a straight tail to a curly tail can make a big difference in bites another thing you can do is if you know that the fish are feeding on cross you could switch to a small little craw profile don't always have to drop shot a worm so you could throw a little two or three inch craw shorten the leader down okay so go to more of like a four or six inch leader from your hook to your weight and then just shake that crawl right there off the bottom and give them something that's very natural another thing you can do is if the fish have a lot of aggression but they're not really reacting to your curly tail as you could go to a smaller style bait it's going to have more of a darting motion as you move it now this is an osp doe live stick is a three inch we've talked about this before as a great drop shot bait what's great about a bait like this is you can just do quick little hops and the bait will kind of dart back and forth so you can get a lot of movement side to side instead of just up and down like a regular worm if the fish are feeding on a lot of bait they're chasing shad there's a lot of minnows in the area then don't be afraid to go to a swim bait style on your drop shot okay so this is a mega bass hazard on shad instead of like shaking your worm you're just going to be more of a straight drag and you're going to basically present a bait that's moving you know 8 inches 10 inches 12 inches off the bottom okay so if they stopped biting for you get creative in your offering of your baits and don't be afraid to try new things okay you can drop shot anything but give some different baits a shot okay all right next mistake that we see a lot of guys make is in gear selection now let's start with the rod okay over the last decade or so rod companies have started printing on the rods what they think that rod is ideal for and basically if you are a big box store customer and you know you're not going to get a lot of help it's useful to see oh that's a drop shot rod and pick that rod up and go unfortunately it's confused a lot of things because they're not always labeled correctly or maybe a better way to look at it is that a lot of guys think well it says drop shot on it so i should be able to do everything drop shot on it when it's not really built that way so we're going to break it down really quick so speaking of a rod that says drop shot on it this is a g loomis dsr rod okay this is the their drop shot rod and this is one that we see a lot because loomis is a wonderful brand and it says drop shots a lot of guys think well i should be able to throw my nose suck i should be able to throw my weedless i should be able to throw my light weight my heavy weight but that's not how a rod like this is built if your rod says drop shot on it chances are 99.9 chance that the rod is built for light line nose hook light weight okay five pounds six pound line three sixteenth ounce weight or eighth ounce weight small little three or four inch bait and a nose hook the rod is probably going to be super whippy okay and it's just not going to have any power to it if you're making a long cast if you're fishing a little heavier line like a seven pound or an eight pound if you need some power to drive a hook through if you're doing a weedless presentation or if you're using a heavier weight like a quarter ounce or three eighth ounce that we use all the time in deeper water or bigger water okay so if you're needing a rod more like that then you're going to want to look at more of a jig and worm style rod okay so something in a true medium right in a jig and worm style rod that's going to be a little bit faster action not quite as whippy it's going to have more of a bend through the midsection but very powerful and there's tons of great options on the market but don't be afraid to try something that says jigging worm or shaky head on it most of the time those are the better all-around options than your quote-unquote drop shot rod is the other thing that we see people do all the time is they go with a cheap spinning reel okay now i can't emphasize enough the importance of a good spinning reel now a lot of guys think well it's just a line storage device so why spend 200 or 500 or whatever on a great spinning reel well here's the reason when you finally hook a big one you want the spinning reels drag to be so smooth that the startup inertia required for this thing to spin is so low that when that big one surges at the boat the reel does its job and lets him takes drag and lets you pull it back in and you actually land the fish right so what you're paying for on a good spinning reel is the ability for that line to butter smooth come off of that thing okay you'll see a lot of guys on tour if you guys been paying any attention to some of the small mouth tournaments you'll see the guys with subpar gear out there actually panicking and they're trying to strip line off of the reel and that's nonsense if you have the right reel if you have a reel with good drag you don't need to do that you set it properly you let the reel do the work for you so this is a dial exists this is the best spinning reel on the market so if you want the one with the greatest drag the smoothest reel this is it but you don't have to go crazy you don't have to spend 500 or 700 bucks on a reel the daiwa kage is another great option at 199 dollars it's gonna give you just as smooth of a drag it's a beautiful reel so there's tons of options but if you're really going to get into drop shot fishing you really want to spend the right amount of money to get that nice smooth buttery drag so that when you finally hook those giants you actually get them in the boat all right and then finally the fifth mistake that we see a lot of guys make is the way they retrieve their drop shot now remember this is a bottom technique so the biggest thing i could tell you is as you throw out right make sure the bale remains open and that drop shot falls all the way down to the bottom before you start your retrieve okay we see a lot of guys just throw it out and then immediately just start moving it it has to maintain bottom contact so if you're making a cast and you're working it back down the bank make sure you're constantly in contact with the bottom that may require you to open your bail slow down do whatever but make sure it's staying on the bottom second thing is is we see a lot of guys spaz out on these okay i don't know what instinctively goes through people's minds but a lot of guys think they have to throw it out there let it get to the bottom and then they're just shaking the out of it right and that worm is down there literally seizing out down there and if you want to tell a bass how your beautiful nice finesse bait is not real give it a seizure underwater and they will swim the opposite direction remember there's current in the water you're getting a lot of push so literally you should have to do very little on your retrieve okay it's literally just a slow little drag right and then wind down the slack and then just kind of lift right very controlled very smooth and that worm is just going to undulate naturally and that water is going to push it and give it life now there are times when certain baits may require you to just kind of give little pops right or little shakes but little is the key here remember if you move your hand just an inch or so that rod tip is moving like eight or ten inches okay so all we're trying to do is get our bait to barely barely move we don't want this thing jumping up feet at a time it doesn't look like anything natural right so calm down slow down right nice gradual pulls is good maybe just a little shake right if you're by something but just like this and then wind back down the slack okay it's almost never i can never think of a time where i've been there where i'm just shaking this thing you know like crazy calm down slow down you catch more fish alright guys it's been fun i hope you learned something i hope you can add some of these into your arsenal and maybe fix or tweak or prevent yourself from falling down one of these bad habit paths so if you have any questions drop me a question down below in the comments of course we'll put links to anything that we showed in the comments as always thank you guys for your support and your business we appreciate you watching we'd love for you to subscribe so please do until next time peace

Channel: The Hook Up Tackle

Views: 285,298

Rating: 4.84337 out of 5

Keywords: the hook up tackle, drop shot, bass fishing, fishing arizona, daiwa, decoy, megabass, osp, roboworm

Id: cALHtnOjE7Y

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020