I am not sure if the rod lenght makes much difference with drop shootings. I guess that's a personal preference. It may depend on your boat's size and where you sit in the boat. I thought that when drop shotting you fished straight down below the boat? Do you all cast the drop shot baits? I would think you want to maintain good tight lines to the bait so that you can feel the bite in deep water. Deep water is 25 ft or deeper to me. If you have a lot of slack in the line between you and the bait it would be harder to detect the thump. That's why I like to fish with a tight line. If casting I like to cast out the back of the boat with the wind. I keep the line straight in line with the wind so that I don't get a bow in my line. Casting across the wind direction can put huge bows in the line an cause you to loose contact with even a heavy bait like a 1/4 oz jig. I prefer to use heavy jigs when fishing deep and when the winds blowing hard.

I was talking about two different methods of fishing. Drop shot and Float and Fly. I use the 12ft long rod for slow trolling and at one time tried to use it for float and fly. A long rod works good for sling the float and fly baits out. If you fix the float you can leave out 12 ft of line and have the bobber fixed at the 12 ft level and still be able to sling the cast out away from the boat.

I prefer a rod that has a large opening in the last guide on the rod which allows a thrill type bobber stop (String Type) to pass though the rod's guide without hanging up. If the bobbers stop is set for only 6 ft deep the stop can be wound up on the reel and sometimes hang up in the line on the reel or the guides and either stop the cast from going out or move the bobber stop to a DEEP position on the line. These thrill type bobber stops have a hard time getting tight on a thin diameter fishing line. You basically have a yard type cotton wrapped around mono slipper fishing line. You have to really tighten the bobber stop down on the fishing line to get it to stay in one place. That can make it harder to change depths later too. Also some mono lines have variarying diameters as you go along the fishing line. So the bobber stop can get tight at one spot on the line and three feet away it can be loose.


Regards,

Moose1am