Labman, Chickamauga, Bass/Crappie/White Bass, 06/18/2010, Solo-Dropshot tryout

[FishNews]

A little different report from me today. I decided to not fish until late afternoon as a change of pace. I had been toying with the idea of dropshot rigging for bass and I watched a couple of videos by Skeet Reese to make sure I was rigging correctly. And got some tips from the video on how to fish it. I was ready to give it a try.<br /><br />I headed up river to a point that Nauticman had remarked he should fish sometime as we rode past on our way to another crappie hotspot earlier this week. I immediately got caught in high winds and a downpour but it only lasted about 10 minutes. Just enough to get soaked. So did a couple of sweeps with the downscan to get an idea of what was there. It looked like a lot of fish were holding from 15'-25' on the drop of the point. I was using a yama 4" watermelon/blk senko worm for bait. To make a long story shorter I dropped it down to the bottom and started giving tiny shakes, moving the worm without moving the dropshot weight. I got a hit right away and landed a nice spot. I repeated the procedure and caught another. It seemed that if the downscan showed fish and I got something down to them they would eat it. I keep learning more about using the structure scan on each trip.<br /><br /> After catching 7 Spots in about 15 minutes the bite slowed and I started moving around looking at more of the extended point. I noticed what looked to be a school of crappie suspended around a stump off to the side with the fish holding at 10-12 feet . I thought I will give it a try and flipped out a crappie jig and had an immediate hookup. Caught 6 nice crappie and 2 whitebass at that spot. Time to try some more bass action. Searched around the point and found another bunch of fish on the other side of the point. Lowered the dropshot rig to the bottom, some small shakes and bam, another bass. I had noticed in the videos that Skeet had time to lift the rod, feel the fish, and make a couple of turns on the reel to take up the slack before setting the hook. It worked that way for me too. They really hold on and no problem getting the hook set. I ended up with 13 spotted bass, 2 white bass and 6 crappie from this one point. Glad Nauticman called it to my attention. Oh yeah, was using 6# mr crappie hi viz line, and 1/4 oz dropshot weight and dropshot short shank hook.<br /><br />I think I am gonna like this dropshot stuff.<br /><br />Regards, Labman<br /><br /><br /> <br />