Drop Shot 101 – Crank Baits on Lake “X”

[Rich Craven]

A little article I wrote after a spring fishing trip with my little bro, 2 springs ago.

Drop Shot 101 - Crank Baits on Lake "X"



My brother (and long time fishing partner) and I, decided one spring day to head out to one of our all time favorite lakes, which will be known as lake “X”.  Here in south central Michigan, we always had to wait until Memorial Day for our fishing season to start.  This particular fishing season, our department of Natural Resources, had opened up an early “catch and release season” for bass that began on the 1st of April.  Of course, being the die hard bass fisherman that we are, we jumped at the chance to get out earlier than normal and work over one of our most favorite bodies of water.

The water was colder than we are normally used to, right around the 45-50 degree range.  Water color on this lake is crystal clear, with depths up to 100 feet.  There is lots of structure here, rocky points, stumps, humps, and grass beds found all the way out in almost 40 feet of water.  My preferred method of fishing this lake is normally a Carolina Rig with a ½ ounce egg sinker, tru turn hook (size 2), and a 4 inch ribbon tail worm in pumpkinseed color. 

I like to use a 6 ½ foot Quantum rod, with a 5:1 Quantum reel, spooled with 8-10 pound Berkley Big Game line,  The rocky points are usually my favorite, as they normally hold the fiercer fighting small mouth bass.  My brother normally throws a drop shot, finesse rig of some special color he has conjured up for the new fishing season.

We normally do rather well, pitting ourselves against each other in our “famed” brotherly rivalry, seeing who can out fish the other.  But this “new” fishing season pitted us against elements that we were not accustomed to fishing, a whole month and ½ earlier than we can normally be on the water.

We found ourselves fishing deeper than we normally do (in the spring), moving out to 30-35 feet of water, looking for the lethargic, bronze backs and largemouth.  Finally after searching with the fish finder we came upon a rock pile in about 32 feet of water that was holding plenty of fish.

 We Carolina rigged and drop shotted until there was no tomorrow, with virtually no luck.  These fish were definitely not in a biting mood.  After throwing everything in the book at these fish (and snagging the marker buoy several times), I finally decided to go off the beaten path, and try something I had heard and researched about during our winter months.  I had read and heard about drop shotting a crank bait over the winter, researched it, and had set some crank baits up just for this purpose.  Thankfully, I had rigged a rod with this setup and pulled it from the rod locker. 

Within 2 casts, I had my first largemouth of the day, as my brother had laughed at me just prior for having such a silly setup.  Shaking his head and mumbling he went back to his finesse fishing.  I landed and unhooked a decent 1 ½ pounder and let it go.  3 casts later, another green back hits my setup.  I land the fish, almost 2 pounds.  I brother looks at me in awe, laughs again, and says “coincidental” and continues to fish.  I mutter a couple of “brotherly” words, razzing him as I have fish and he doesn’t, and plop, back in goes my drop shotted crankbait.  Casting a little farther out this time off from the steeper side of the rock pile, I hook up once again, with the fish pictured in the photo above, almost 4 pound largemouth.  At this point, my brother became a firm believer in the set up that I was throwing, and asked if I had anymore, of course, I loaned him one.  We went on for most of the day, both of us catching bass and joking back and forth about our new found setup, one that is in both of our arsenals all the time now.

Below, I will explain how to fix up your crank baits for drop shotting.
This is not a technique that I designed or came up with, but it is one seldom seen or used and I would like to share it with you, so that you may incorporate one more weapon in your rod locker.

You can use any crank bait that you wish to fish with, and keep it in the strike zone.

The first step is to identify the crank bait that you want to utilize for drop shotting. In this case, I chose to use a Bill Dance Fat Free Shad, with a 12 ft dive depth:




The next step was to tip up the Crank Bait so the split ring was hanging straight down against the bill, and marking the bill with a sharpie, inside the split ring, centered and at the bottom. Note that the mark is dead center, and just inside of the split ring, see picture below:



After my mark was made, I taped the split ring to the crank bait with tape to get it out of the way, picked a drill about the size of 10 pound mono and proceeded to drill my hole. See below:



Once the hole is drilled in your crank bait you are ready to tie it up to your fishing line.  Myself, I normally use a single polymer knot for connecting my crank baits to my fishing line.  Below is shown a crank bait with the single polymer k
not.



Next, you will want to take the ‘tag’ end of your line (the end not attached to anything) and run it down through the hole you just drilled, see below:



The picture shown below shows the crank bait awfully close to the drop shot its self, but this picture is only to reference how to rig it. Tie your preferred knot to the crank bait at the desired depth you want. Say you want it to run 15 inches off the bottom, then tie your crank bait on the line with a 15 inch tag line. Run your tag line down through the hole you drilled and attach your favorite drop shot weight to the bottom, I prefer the Mojo weight myself, so that is what is pictured. See below for finished product:



And there you have it folks!! One each crank bait, drilled and rigged for drop shotting. I tested this in our swimming pool. It ran true, no left or right roll to it at all. The wobble was perfect. A bigger hole will create a wider wobble, I guess it is time for you all to go and experiment. Have fun and tight lines to all!! For safety purposes it is a good idea, to have someone help you while doing this. Either, to hold, or to drill or to mark. A drill press would probably be a preferred method.

[nmanley]

Pretty darn good tip/trick and THANKS for it.

I bet if you cam-fer the holes thru the bill the line will last longer too.      

[Gangly]

wow, thats a new one on me, definately unique!

[Bassinkorea]

Very interesting looking rig, thank you for sharing......and welcome to UB 

[BassAss@sin]

Thats an awesome idea right there. How do you go about work a rig like that?

[Rich Craven]

I bet if you cam-fer the holes thru the bill the line will last longer too.      

I do have a little tool that I de-burr the hole wiht and it puts a little chamfer on the hole, sorry, I didn't mention that part.  The line seems to hold up rather well, only re-tying if the line above my knot becones frayed, as if I lose the sinker.....no big deal, the rig just becomes a tad shorter.  Normally the mojo weight will actully pull off from the line...a quick fix 

[Rich Craven]

Thats an awesome idea right there. How do you go about work a rig like that?

Good question!!  Alot of times, I will use this over short vegatation adjusting the crank depth so that it barely cathes the weeds as if you were fishing it normally without this set up.  But my favorite place to use it is on rockpiles, and normally on a bait caster wilth long or short sweeping motions of the rod.  As I sweep the line to one side or the other, I will keep the line fairlt taunt, but allowing it (the lure) to stop a flot up a tad bit, this is where most of your strikes will come from.  But as you may very well know, each fishing situation is different, and you need to find the "mood" of the fish, and give them what they are really looking for 

[bassindude]

Awesome tip. Thank you, i'll be using this one.

[Doug C]

Yea, that's a good idea.. I'll give it a try soon. I imagine too that it wouldn't effect the use of the CB in any significant way while running it normally.

[Rich Craven]

Yea, that's a good idea.. I'll give it a try soon. I imagine too that it wouldn't effect the use of the CB in any significant way while running it normally.

Actually Doug, I have not tried throwing the crank baits "as normal" after prepping them for the drop shot rig, so I can't honestly answer how they would run.  I would assume that the hole drilled in the lip would affect the wobble to some extent, but can't honestly answer that.  Something I will have to try out when the "hard water" leaves the Michigan lakes.

[Rich Craven]

So has anyone tried this since reading it?  Just looking for feedback, or additional information on what you may or may not have done with the rig.  Did you try it over a different type of structure?  Enlarge the hole through the bill, or maybe decrease the hole size?  Just looking for some different "ideas" or improvements for the setup.  Thanks

[Bassinkorea]

As a matter of fact, I tried this rig today for the first time. I was fishing the rig from the bank and casting it out using small crankbaits. I had a lot of trouble with the trebles getting caught up on the dropper line.

I suspect I will get better results fishing it from my boat vertically instead of casting it.

[Rich Craven]

As a matter of fact, I tried this rig today for the first time. I was fishing the rig from the bank and casting it out using small crankbaits. I had a lot of trouble with the trebles getting caught up on the dropper line.

I suspect I will get better results fishing it from my boat vertically instead of casting it.

Bassinkorea, try a heavier weight on the bottom of the setup and let me know how that works for you.  Good luck, and thanks for the feed back.

[Bassinkorea]

Rich, I think my problem was I was trying to fish a finesse version of this rig (spinning rod, 6lb fluoro, small crank, small weight). With the crank being so small, the hooks were already too close to the dropper line.
I will be fishing some tournaments in deep water this year, so I'll be trying this rig again, but on a bigger scale.

[Rich Craven]

Rich, I think my problem was I was trying to fish a finesse version of this rig (spinning rod, 6lb fluoro, small crank, small weight). With the crank being so small, the hooks were already too close to the dropper line.
I will be fishing some tournaments in deep water this year, so I'll be trying this rig again, but on a bigger scale.

That may be the case, I never tried it setup with the small stuff before, I normally use a 3/8 ounce or heavier.

[iClass]

I have seen this rig before but have never talked to anyone who had actually fished it.  I am thinking of a dozen or so places to try this out, maybe as soon as I get back to the house.  I know some great semi deep and deep water areas this ought to do really well on.

Thanks for the post!

[Rich Craven]

I have seen this rig before but have never talked to anyone who had actually fished it.  I am thinking of a dozen or so places to try this out, maybe as soon as I get back to the house.  I know some great semi deep and deep water areas this ought to do really well on.

Thanks for the post!

Post back after you have tried it please.  I always love to hear how folks have done with the set up.  Tight lines!!

[Rich Craven]

Back to the top.

[Yeaperous]

very unique and nice...i might have to try that sometimes ...

[CraigP83]

As a matter of fact, I tried this rig today for the first time. I was fishing the rig from the bank and casting it out using small crankbaits. I had a lot of trouble with the trebles getting caught up on the dropper line.

I suspect I will get better results fishing it from my boat vertically instead of casting it.

What if you removed the front treble? That should give you some extra room between the hooks and tag line