Way north bass guy

For me, a drop shot has only been in play for the last few years. I can say that it has been a great numbers and big fish tactic. Here in central Ontario, we have about any kind of water you could think of for bass, from super deep, gin clear Canadian Shield lakes, to shallow, fairly dirty stump and weed filled lakes. I’ve used a drop shot with several different kinds of baits in many different waters, and it’s worked well to catch easily over 60 smallmouth in one day with my 9 year old, as well as some absolute pigs. It’s also become one of my go to tactics for pulling big largemouths out from under docks on some of the lakes I fish. Not too many days now where there isn't at least one rod on the deck with a drop shot attached.

I did the exact same thing, think I used the same bobber stop all season on one rod last year so I guess I’ll be good until about the year 2800 or so.

Man I’d have to sweep all that stuff off the top shelf with my arm, there’s no way I could watch tv with things sitting in front, even if they only block the bottom couple inches ?

Maybe once a year, I think it’d be cool to see any of the big circuits have a draw partner tournament. Random draw the day before to decide teams, both guys fish together the entire tournament and combine weights caught, give them the afternoon to choose who’s boat to use and get all rigged up and let em loose for the weekend on a lake. Imagine any combination of guys fishing together for two days, I bet you’d see some pretty interesting pairings and the different ways they’d work together to figure out a lake and bring in the best limit ( or total lbs if it’s mlf style).

Quite a few years ago I won a big pike tournament, over 100 boats, by running a suspending rattle trap and stopping it over the top of big cabbage beds. My partner and I were literally drifting through a huge bay that had about 30 other boats in it, and we were the only guys catching fish. For a while I didn’t even make a cast, just kept culling pike as my partner caught one after another on every cast! The concave part of the head in front of the line tie acts like a lip to make it dive down, the rattle traps we were using only went a couple feet down but it was the perfect depth as the cabbage topped off just below the surface. They are a great bait to cover water with, but you can stop them for a second or two whenever you want and there’s no danger of sinking into the weeds.

I wish my problem was muddy water. All our water is white with trucks driving on it right now ?.

Try to get in that note: Needs repetitive casting motion for several weeks straight to assist with proper stretching and healing. Is your doc a fisherman by chance??

I’ve used it for a couple years now on many different reels and no issues for me.

Man I miss the floor high beam switch, I’m just old enough to have driven a few of my dads vans and trucks before they became “obsolete”. I’m used to the steering wheel one now but it was nice to use the floor one. And yeah, my front graph stays on with the transducer out of the water on some pretty long runs in the boat, and never had any issues over the years with them.

Well I’m really trying to feel bad for ya, but I’m still looking at 24” of ice around here and likely another month and a half ( best case scenario), before my boat is floating anywhere. Oh the joy of winter ?

I’ve never used the spider wire, but have several big bulk spools of Berkley 100% fluoro, it’s all I use any more for fluoro. Good stuff for me on spinning and casting rigs from 8-20lb test ??

I have a way that’s just a bit different, but works just as well. Only a few more steps than that, here, I’ll show you. Nevermind, takes to long to draw up ?.

I tried braid to fluoro for a while, and it seems to me that unless your in real deep water ( over 30’), there is just too much contact, by that I mean no stretch, so the bait tends to be moved way too much. A lot of the time I’m dropshotting, I want the bait to be almost floating motionless, and with no stretch at all, any small rod movement makes the lure jump around quite a bit. The last few years I’ve been using straight Berkley 100% fluorocarbon usually in 8lb test and it’s been great for me. Lots of contact with the bait, but just enough “give” that the bait isn’t being jumped all over the place and to me seems more natural in the water.

Just got back from a guys weekend at my buddies hunt camp. Spent two days in the bush, 8 guys on older, smaller snowmobiles bushwhacking our own trails wherever we wanted to go, and enjoying some good eats and a few adult beverages at the camp at night. Glad we shoveled off the camp roof on Friday when we got out there before this rain came, I took a pic of the camp before we shoveled it, and had one on my phone from the exact same weekend last year, bit of a difference in the amount of snow! First pic is last year, second was this year. Had to make a tunnel to get back in after shovelling the roof. Surprisingly, it was still excellent sledding conditions in the bush, hardly anyone got stuck too bad. There’s absolutely no base at all though, so it should melt fairly quick whenever it does finally start to warm up.

Sounds like a good rule to me, I just finished blowing a path out to my geeenhouse to get some salad greens, and there’s about 24” of snow out there ?. Won’t be seeing shorts here for some time yet.

My 9 year old is a whizz with his spincast reel, mounted on one of my older but decent 6’6” medium casting rods. I haven’t used one in years but I do know guys that will use them for skipping baits under docks if they can’t seem to master skipping with a baitcaster, but don’t want to use a spinning outfit. If it puts the bait into the right place for you, and has the power to bring a fish back to the boat, use whatever you feel comfortable with and forget about what anyone else says about it.

About an inch of glass and argon is the difference between this being a Mexican standoff or one heck of a good game of chase!

I’ve been using Suffix 832 in 10-20lb on my spinning rods, with Berkley 100% fluorocarbon for a leader and an Alberto knot and never once had any issues with knot failure, but you have to make certain the knot ( whatever type you choose), is tied correctly or you’ll have problems. I will say that most of my spinning outfits have only straight fluorocarbon on them and I don’t have much for twist issues, the braid to fluoro rigs I use mainly for jerkbaits and a few other lure types.

Yeah but they were running hard over big, dry rocks. That’s gotta hurt the hull, even a thick aluminum or steel one. Looks like they’re up north too, maybe Alaska or B.C. I kept expecting to see a big moose or grizzly step out in front of them in one of those creeks ?.

Insane, is what that is. Holy smokes! ?

Johnston bros are 2 and 3 right now, hammerin those southern largemouth! ??

Funny you mention this, when I was younger my buddy and I used to launch our 16’ tin boat into the river that ran into our large, frozen lake, usually this was in early April. We’d drive out as far as we could, then run circles to break up as much ice as we could with our wake. The next day we’d troll the much larger open water area for early spring lake trout.

Forever X1000 here! It seems like around the third week of March I start “hoping”, but it always takes about 4 months longer than I’d like for the ice to melt.

I would say I’m fairly versatile with most baits and techniques, but like most people, I have several tactics I fall back on most of the time. One of my biggest strengths would be finding fish in new bodies of water. Seems like every time I go to a new lake, the first time there can often be very productive for me, not saying I’d smoke everyone else there in a tournament, but I always manage to get on some decent fish. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been a multi-species angler since I was a little kid, and we have so many different types of water around here that I’ve had a lot of experience with different techniques for different habitats. I’d love to give the mlf type of deal a try on a new lake against some real good fisherman, just to see how I’d hold up. I always find it fun to try to figure out a new lake.

I’m checking daily for the same thing, got my eye on a couple Lew’s reels, I won’t need them until May at the earliest but I’ll scoop em up as soon as there’s a sale.