Drop shotting
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 11:02 am
Hi Gentlemen,
I have been a little reticent to mention this on here as it may not be regarded as traditional fishing, but please bear with me. I notice that BigFish brought it up under lure fishing last year and there was very little subsequent discussion.
I first heard of the method in April 2012 after I had fished Hanningfield for its big perch. It was considered to be a good method so I 'parked' the idea for later. During this bad winter I read up more and looked at videos posted on the net. I thought it would be a good idea to try in a marina I have been fishing with a buddy. I bought a suitable light rod & teamed it with a small modern fixed spool loaded with braid.
It would be quite appropriate to fish with a B James Grebe or a Hardy Wanless and an early threadline reel, but I chose modern. The 2 main reasons for this are that it is an active method of fishing and I intended to fish all day sessions and I wanted lightweight gear. The other reason is that although perch would be my main quarry I was also likely to hook a 20lb pike or a double figure zander.
The method is very simple. It is basically a line with a light weight on the end and a hook coming off it 12 to 18" from the hook. The hook is baited with a real worm or an artificial jelly worm/lure. A short cast and twitch the bait back without lifting the weight from the bottom. Typically I would twitch the bait 3 or 4 times then wind in 1/2 a turn on the reel handle. It is nice active angling but in a gentle way, until a fish hits! I suppose you could equate it to a tactic I used to adopt way back in the 60's, upstream worming. In this case though the bait is fished off the bottom.
I tried it first on Blenheim Palace lake in March with a lobworm and just caught pike. the next time was at the start of the closed season and I had 3 perch to over 2lb and lost a big one. All this was just 'messing about' while fishing with a second rod. Not only were the perch hooked but so was I and so was my boat partner.
The next trip we both just fished the drop shot method. I only used lob worms and caught 9 good perch up to a PB of 3.08. My pal just used artificial baits and finished with 11 perch. From that point on I mainly concentrated on jellies as they seemed to out fish the lob worms.
This one of 3.05 was caught a few days later after my spring shearing!
Over a total of 4 trips we caught 59 perch, 11 of which were over the magical 3lb mark and one of them went 4.01. Pike were numerous up to 18lb and we both caught zander, my pal getting 2 over the 10lb mark. All fish were caught on the drop shot method and I guess the fish we caught would not have done a B James Grebe a lot of good at all!
My advice to anyone is to give it a try. This would work on one of the commercials where I am sure there are some big ones. Where lure fishing is not allowed, use the lobworm as all you are doing is twitching the bait! Where you are unlikely to encounter pike then by all means use the old gear.
I am having a day on Hanningfield next week where I will be after the monster perch it holds. Guess what method I will be using?
Bob
I have been a little reticent to mention this on here as it may not be regarded as traditional fishing, but please bear with me. I notice that BigFish brought it up under lure fishing last year and there was very little subsequent discussion.
I first heard of the method in April 2012 after I had fished Hanningfield for its big perch. It was considered to be a good method so I 'parked' the idea for later. During this bad winter I read up more and looked at videos posted on the net. I thought it would be a good idea to try in a marina I have been fishing with a buddy. I bought a suitable light rod & teamed it with a small modern fixed spool loaded with braid.
It would be quite appropriate to fish with a B James Grebe or a Hardy Wanless and an early threadline reel, but I chose modern. The 2 main reasons for this are that it is an active method of fishing and I intended to fish all day sessions and I wanted lightweight gear. The other reason is that although perch would be my main quarry I was also likely to hook a 20lb pike or a double figure zander.
The method is very simple. It is basically a line with a light weight on the end and a hook coming off it 12 to 18" from the hook. The hook is baited with a real worm or an artificial jelly worm/lure. A short cast and twitch the bait back without lifting the weight from the bottom. Typically I would twitch the bait 3 or 4 times then wind in 1/2 a turn on the reel handle. It is nice active angling but in a gentle way, until a fish hits! I suppose you could equate it to a tactic I used to adopt way back in the 60's, upstream worming. In this case though the bait is fished off the bottom.
I tried it first on Blenheim Palace lake in March with a lobworm and just caught pike. the next time was at the start of the closed season and I had 3 perch to over 2lb and lost a big one. All this was just 'messing about' while fishing with a second rod. Not only were the perch hooked but so was I and so was my boat partner.
The next trip we both just fished the drop shot method. I only used lob worms and caught 9 good perch up to a PB of 3.08. My pal just used artificial baits and finished with 11 perch. From that point on I mainly concentrated on jellies as they seemed to out fish the lob worms.
This one of 3.05 was caught a few days later after my spring shearing!
Over a total of 4 trips we caught 59 perch, 11 of which were over the magical 3lb mark and one of them went 4.01. Pike were numerous up to 18lb and we both caught zander, my pal getting 2 over the 10lb mark. All fish were caught on the drop shot method and I guess the fish we caught would not have done a B James Grebe a lot of good at all!
My advice to anyone is to give it a try. This would work on one of the commercials where I am sure there are some big ones. Where lure fishing is not allowed, use the lobworm as all you are doing is twitching the bait! Where you are unlikely to encounter pike then by all means use the old gear.
I am having a day on Hanningfield next week where I will be after the monster perch it holds. Guess what method I will be using?
Bob