Drop shot technique Patoka Lake

[SteveM4A1]

I've been using the drop shot method for crappie fishing in deep water for a long time now. I'd think it would work just as well for bass as for crappie.


It's an easy method of fishing but takes a lot of patience in finding the fish. Once one located where the fish are you can clean up with this method if there is a big school of fish in the area. It works this way for big schools of crappie.

I've been doing this as well. Once I find them on my graph and they are slow to bite, the drop shot usually does the ticket. Those gulp minnows are fantastic for this

[Moveon]

I've been thinking about how to catch those suspended summer fish. Or trying to catch them after the summer thermocline breaks up and they suspend really deep in the fall of the year.

How can I get my baits down to the right depth? We need a way to measure our line and to determine the depth of our baits so that we can put the bait at the same level of the fish. But how do you do that when the fish suspend in 40 ft deep over 60 ft of water?

You can fish striaght down from the boat with a rod and reel and a drop shot weight. For bass you might use a jigging spoon or a plastic worm or grub on the drop shot rig. For a crappie you may use a small jig/minnow. Either way you can put the baits were the fish are.

Today with modern graphs and sidescanning and down imaging it's pretty easy to figure out where the thermocline is located in the summer or where the schools of fish and bait fish are located in the water column.

But how do you search vast amounts of water quickly and effeciently?

I've been giving this some thought and know that if the fish are right on the bottom you can drag the baits near the bottom. It's pretty easy to figure out if the baits are hitting the bottom and to then bring them up a few feet to just clear the lake bottom. But when the fish are suspended up off the bottom 20ft and 40 ft below the surface you need a way to quickly place the baits in the strike zone.

This is where an electric downrigger hooked up to your Humminbird SI unit comes into play. The downrigger can be setup to drop a cannon ball down to 40 ft quickly and then a line can be attacked to the cannon ball using a quick release. Then any type of bait rig can be dragged behind the cannon ball and at the right depth. If the bottom comes up the depth finder sense the change in depth and raises the cannon ball up. When it gets deeper again the cannon ball is lowered automatically. This way you can maintain the correct depth without hanging up all the time.

You can get a Cannon Downrigger for around 400 bucks. It's a lot of money and your boat has to be setup to troll for long periods of time but it may be a way to catch some fish at times when they are suspended down deep.

If the fish are higher in the water column you can troll crank baits that dive down from 3 ft to 25 ft by varying the amount of line out behind the boat and the line thickness and boat speed. I've talked about how to do this using the Precision Trolling Books depth charts. But you are limited in how deep you can get a crank bait to dive. Yes you can add a weight in front of the crank bait to get it to dive down deeper, but it's hard to get a crank to dive down to 40 ft in October and Novermber.

Boat speed is another factor as sometimes you must go very slow to get the fish to bite when they are in a neutral mood.

Crank baits that float can work but you can also use crank baits that are neutral bouyant too. Or live bati rigs that hold night crawlers and a spinner rig.

Last year I tried trolling crank baits and didn't do that good and I think I know why now. I was trolling too deep. I had 100ft of line out and was trolling bandit 300 and 400. These were running about 15 to 20 ft deep with I used 10 lb test mono fishing line. I should have been using a bandit 100 or 200 with a lot less line out. I was fishing below most of the fish and it's been said that crappie will hit a bait that's at their level or above them but not a bait thats 5 ft below their depth. So I learned a lesson about how important depth control is when trolling baits.

I've been doing this as well. Once I find them on my graph and they are slow to bite, the drop shot usually does the ticket. Those gulp minnows are fantastic for this