Something was going on at Mille Lacs that I think you will find interesting. Many of the anglers, myself included, upsized our drop shot rigs to take advantage of the prevailing conditions. It was an extended version of fishing the moment.
The bass up there were big. The lake is full of smallmouth between 3 1/2 and 6 pounds. We wanted to catch them. And, they were feeding on big forage.
There were minnows in the water that kind of looked like suckers to me. I can’t remember what they were called, but I can remember them being over 4 inches long. That’s sizeable. The crayfish were big, too. They looked like little lobsters. I’m serious, man. Several of them were spit up in my livewell. I’d guess they were between 4 and 5 inches long. Giants!
That situation, along with the water depth and the bottom composition of the lake, was made for a drop shot. A traditional rig would have been too light, though, because of the size of the bass and of the forage. We needed to upsize everything. That wasn’t a problem. The drop shot is a presentation technique, not a finesse technique.
Here’s how I did it, and I think most of the other guys did something similar.
Starting from the bottom up we ignored the traditional weights in the 1/8 to 3/16 ounce class. They were replaced with ones that weighed between a 1/4 and a 1/2 ounce. I know that sounds heavy but in places the water was deep and at times the wind was blowing pretty hard. The heavier weights got our baits down to the fish faster and helped us keep contact with the bottom when the boat was bouncing around.
And, from what I could see, several of us used Neko rig hooks instead of drop shot hooks. They have two features that we wanted — a slightly wider gap and a slightly longer shaft. That helped us get a solid hookset with the bigger baits we were using. I used 1/0 and 2/0 VMC hooks.
My bait choice was a Havoc Flat Dawg, but the thing that’s important about that isn’t the specific plastic I used. It’s size. It’s bigger than anything you’d think about using with a finesse drop shot.
As a side note to all of this I’ll tell you that I’ve also fished — mostly in southern waters — 5 and 6 inch plastic stickbaits if that’s what it took to match the size of the local forage and get the bass’ attention.
My rod and reel were heavier and bigger, too, although my rod action was still medium, and I still used spinning tackle.
Most of the time the water had a little color to it so I spooled up with 15-pound-test braid and used an 8-pound-test fluorocarbon leader. In those rare instances when the water was really clear I switched to all fluorocarbon line. I had two rod and reels ready to go at all times.
If the occasion arises, I’d suggest you try a heavier drop shot presentation. Don’t narrow your options by thinking it’s only for finesse fishing.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebookand Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
