Fishing Lures Pike Plugs

Drop shot fishing tips

The 80-20 rule definitely applies to fishing: 20 percent of the fishermen are catching 80 percent of the fish and their success isn't about luck. It's about getting the right offering to exactly where the fish are located.

You don't just need to know "the area" where fish are holding, you have to know the depth and be able to get your lure to that depth.

Drop shot fishing has been developed and fine tuned in recent years to give fishermen another tool in their tackle boxes to get their lures down to where the fish are.

Preparation and Background

Bass anglers were the first to use drop shot fishing and develop its potential. In the bass fishing world, most of the drop shot fishing is done with soft plastics and rubber worms.

Bass fishermen tie their rubber worm hook on, but leave a long tag end on their knot. Then they put a 3/16 or 1/2 ounce sinker on the tag end of the line so it drops well below the worm. The idea is that the sinker will hit the bottom, but the lure will be suspended higher in the water column.

Special hooks and sinkers designed for drop shot fishing are now on the market and the technique is widely used in bass fishing, especially in colder months when the fish are holding in deeper water and not too eager to go very far out of their way to strike a lure.

Fishing plugs can also be adapted for drop shot fishing. You just need to drill a small hole in the lure's lip and then thread the tag end of the line down through the hole, attaching your weight at the bottom. They make a special weight for this set up that "pinches" itself onto your line so you don't have to tie a knot.

Virtually any crankbait can be adapted for use like this. But if you don't want to bother drilling holes, all our Fishing plugs are available in sinking versions. Then it's just a matter of matching the depth at which you want to fish with the right sinking crankbait.

Technique and Application

The most important part of drop shot fishing is keeping your weight bouncing along the bottom. You want to maintain that feel at all times.

A great place to use the technique is over a weedy area where the weeds are all about the same height. Cast past the weeds, then slowly work the drop shot through the weeds. In the same way, your lure will stay at a constant distance from the bottom when you cast to the shoreline and walk the drop shot rig back into deeper water.

Another good application of this technique is when non-feeding pike or trout are suspended in the water column. Dial in the depth with your rig and you have a good chance to coax one of these recalcitrant critters to bite.

A Final Question

Anglers used to put the drop shot technique in the category of "finesse" fishing. But as it has proven itself time and time again, it's becoming one of the mainstays among serious fishermen.

Whether you grab your drill and bore a few holes in your crankbaits, or top off your tackle box with a few weighted crankbaits, isn't it time to get your lure down to where the fish are?

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