Many Bassmaster Elite Series pros excel with drop shot rigs, particularly when they target smallmouth bass. But it’s unlikely that any Elite angler employs a drop shot more often and in more situations than Idaho’s Brandon Palaniuk.
Regardless of where or how deep he’s fishing or the species of black bass he’s after, Palaniuk invariably has a drop shot rod rigged and ready to put into action. When he won an Elite Series tournament in 2020 on Santee Cooper, a drop shot duped his biggest bass, a 7-pound, 12-ounce, largemouth, from a brush pile in 8 feet of water.
