Yesterday was perfect - partly sunny, breeze, water temp low 70's, water a green stain.
I wanted to perfect a dropshot hook-up rate for any species, but especially small fish because they present the biggest challenge keeping them hooked.
choices had to be made regarding:
which hook, line, sinker and lure size to use
hookset type
leader length
type of retrieve
At first I tried an Octopus hook but my hook-up ratio stunk. (A circle hook would have done just as bad.) So, I went to a light wire Eagle Claw Aberdeen bronze hook (#6) with its slightly longer shank and happily caught different species (small largemouth bass, yellow perch, sunfish and a crappie).
I used a leader length-to-weight that was too short, under 10". After casting jigs and catching many perch in an area, I had an idea of the depth they were striking and it wasn't near bottom. The depth was between 4 and 5' with the fish down only 2' which meant using a leader between hook and weight 2' or greater.
I've always read that you need flourcarbon or thin mono to feel the strike and started with both on different rods but I wasn't impressed so I retied directly to thin braid (2lb test diameter). Not only did I feel the strike bettter but hooked fish easily by only raising the rod tip.
My initial weight was 1/4 oz. but I found out that the lighter the weight, the more repsonsive the lure action to rod twitches, so I went to a 1/8. (My weight consists of a brass or lead bullet sinker used for plastic worms, tied to a swivel beneath it or I'll cut off the hook of an unusable jighead.)
I started with a 2 3/4 - 3" soft plastic minnow (I designed) and fish were biting the tails but not taking the hook near the head so I downsized to using minnows 2" or less. Immediately there was a big difference in hook-up ratio and fish aggression. (It seems fish are competitive bullies that can't help themselves chewing on an itsy bitsy prey fish or worm.)
At first I worked the lure slowly, sometimes vertically, twitching the bait in place. Few bites with that technique, so I started power dropshotting with the usual pauses and slight twitches. That made all the difference! (With power dropshotting, you work a lure horizontally similar to using a jig, except slower, but still not stationary as you would regular d/s.)
Sonar was indispensable finding the structure, depth and active fish. I beat the banks and caught a few, but the majority of 50 or more fish were caught in 4-5' near drops that fell to 7'. In the furture I think I'll start taking pictures of the sonar screen to show you what I mean. I'm usually not interested in fish directly beneath the tranducer, but I have caught fish that way. Rather, I want to know how hard the bottom and what it contains (rock wall, rocks, stumps).
What a wonderful day and a challenge was met successfully. Now I need to try other bait designs and nose-hook them to see how versatile the d/s is. Too bad I could only catch 9" perch, preferring to feed my pond bass 5" or less. Don't want them getting fat!
