Most bass fishermen think the drop shot is a California thing, clear reservoirs, spotted bass, twelve pound fluorocarbon and microscopic hooks. They're wrong. The drop shot works everywhere, including Lac Saint-Louis in November when the water hits four degrees and the smallmouth have seen every crankbait you own.
Why the Drop Shot Works When Nothing Else Does
The genius of the drop shot is simple: the weight sits on the bottom. The bait hangs above it. You can shake that bait in front of a bass for thirty seconds without moving the weight. A Texas rig drags across the bottom. A Carolina rig clicks and bumps. A drop shot just hovers. When bass are pressured or cold or both, hovering is exactly what they want.
The Setup That Works
- Line: 8 lb fluorocarbon. Not six, not ten, eight. Thin enough to sink and feel bites. Thick enough to pull a three-pound smallmouth out of a brush pile.
- Hook: Size 1 or 1/0 drop shot hook. The eye is in line with the point, not bent up. Gamakatsu and VMC both make good ones. The hook needs to stand out perpendicular to the line, that's how the bait hangs horizontally.
- Weight: Teardrop drop shot weight with a swivel at the top. 1/8 oz for depths under 15 feet, 3/16 oz for deeper water or wind. The weight breaks off on snags by design, you lose a ten-cent weight instead of a two-dollar hook and your entire rig.
Tying It Right
Tie a Palomar knot. Leave a long tag end, six to twelve inches. That tag end is where the weight goes. Thread the tag end through the weight's swivel and pull it to the bottom of the tag.
Most people put the hook too close to the weight. Six inches is the minimum. Twelve is better. Fifteen is best in clear water. The farther the bait sits above the bottom, the more natural it looks. A crayfish doesn't hover six inches off the rocks. A baitfish does.
The hook goes on the main line above the knot. Pass the line through the hook eye from the top, then tie a standard clinch knot. The hook should point up when the rig is hanging. If it points down, you tied it backward.
The Bait That Catches Them
Four-inch finesse worm. Morning dawn colour is the California standby and it works in Quebec too, Aaron's Magic, Purple Death, any translucent colour with flakes.
Nose-hook the worm: push the hook point through the very tip of the worm's nose, then pull it out through the side about 1/8 inch down. This makes the worm hang horizontally. When you shake it, it kicks. A trick worm with a curl tail adds action at rest, the bass stare at that tail twitching and can't help themselves.
The Shaking Technique
This is where most guys go wrong. They shake the rod tip too hard. The bait jumps and darts, looking like a dying fish in a seizure. A dying fish doesn't hover in place. It sinks or swims erratically.
- Hold the rod at ten o'clock, tip pointed at the water.
- Make tiny twitches, just your wrist. The rod tip moves a quarter inch. The bait vibrates in place, the tail kicks, the body shimmies, the hook doesn't move more than an inch.
- Shake for five seconds. Pause for two. Shake for five.
The pause triggers the strike. The bass watches the bait stop moving and assumes it's hurt or tired. That's when it eats.
Reading the Line
You won't feel most drop shot bites. You'll see them. Watch your line where it enters the water, a drop shot bite looks like the line twitches to the side, goes slack, or stops sinking. The bass has the bait in its mouth and isn't moving. Your line tells the story.
When you see the twitch, reel down until you feel the fish, then sweep the rod to the side. Not up, up pulls the hook out of a bass that's facing down. Sideways sets the hook into the corner of the mouth.
Missed bites mean you set too early. Wait for the second twitch or the line going slack. A bass will mouth a drop shot bait for three or four seconds before swallowing. That's an eternity if you're paying attention.
Where to Fish It on Montreal Lakes
Drop shot shines in two places:
- Outside weed edge, 10–15 ft: The bass are suspended just above the weeds, not on bottom. A Texas rig drags through the weeds. A drop shot hangs right at weed-top level.
- Deep rock piles on Lac Saint-Louis, ~25 ft: Late summer, smallmouth stack up on those piles like cordwood. A crankbait gets hung in the rocks. A jig gets lost. A drop shot sits right above the rocks, shaking in place, and the bass come up to get it.
Find the bait on your depth finder and mark the depth the fish are holding. Set your hook so the bait hangs six inches above that depth. You don't need to cast far, lower the rig straight down and shake.
When It Doesn't Work
- Heavy current: The weight won't hold and the bait swings around like a kite. Switch to a fish finder rig or a jig.
- Dirty water (under 2 ft visibility): Bass need to see the bait to commit. In stained water, go bigger, a 5" worm or a creature bait with vibration they can feel.
- Hook too small: A size 2 pulls out of a big bass. Size 1 is the minimum. The bass don't care about hook size, they care about the bait.
The Cold Water Advantage
October and November on the Ottawa River. Water drops into the low single digits. The bass get lockjaw, they won't chase, they won't react, they'll barely move.
Lower a drop shot straight down over the side of the boat. Nose-hook a small minnow imitation. Let it sit. Shake it once every ten seconds. The bass will inhale it without moving six inches.
I fished a tournament on the Ottawa in late October. Air temperature was 3°C. Everyone else threw jigs and blade baits and caught nothing. I drop-shotted a four-inch worm in twenty feet of water. Caught three smallmouth that went for twelve pounds total. Won the tournament. I wasn't magic. I just had a bait that didn't move. When bass won't chase, don't make them.
One Last Thing: Rig Maintenance
Tie a new drop shot every time you fish. The knot pulls through the hook eye. The line gets nicked. The tag end twists. A drop shot rig has four failure points, check each one before you cast.
Carry extra weights. You'll lose them. Keep a dozen pre-tied hooks in a plastic tube. When you break off, clip on a new one and keep fishing.
The drop shot isn't flashy. It won't win you any style points. But when the bass have locked their jaws and the guy in the next boat is packing up early, you'll still be catching them. One twitch at a time.
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