Hey,just learning  to fish the drop shot rig.Is this always fished with the wieght on the bottom or can it be jiged up of the bottom.any other help would be helpful.THANKS !!

     Im new to the dropshot rig as well. I have had success with it but mostly just dinks.I dont spend money on "specific" dropshot weights. I use ordinary Bell sinkers.When I fish it I cast it out, Let it hit bottom. and then slowly lift my rod tip . Sometimes I just lower my rod tip then bring it back up to make the line taught again, Then at times I also let the bait sit stationary and just shake the rod tip.Guess I havent found the "exact" way to fish it. I just experiment and all the methods above have produced fish.

As far as the length your bait is off the bottom,that is something you have to experiment with. The fish might be holding real tight to the bottom so you could possibly put your bait just a couple of inches off the bottom.

Alot of times when I went from a taught line to a slack line I would bring the line taught again and....fish on. Wierd. Sometimes I cant even feel the fish hit...Its just kinda......There. Other times I get such hard strikes ,the rod almost gets pulled into the water. Im never prepared for that so I have yet to hookup on one of those.

Last fish on a dropshot I caught last night got me aggravated. I would cast out,before I could even start moving the bait,I got a slight tap - tap. I would wait ,set the hook and come up empty. I tried to catch this bugger 5 or 6 times. Eventually I just let it nibble on my bait for a longer time. I lowered the rod tip,set the hook and ...fish on.  To my surprise it was a 14 inch ...Get this......TROUT!!!

I was using a 3" Berkley Power Pulse Worm. I have also been able to catch some real nice Bluegill on this rig.

I watched --Bassmasters--Gerald Swindle do that very thing at Table Rock last year (?).  It was the tourney that he and Zell were on the same bridge.  He went to the bottom, cranked up X number of turns and found his bite on suspended fish.

Quick hint for you guys. I'm experienced in the drop-shot rig and I almost never put a "weight" on the bottom anymore. Why settle for 1 bait when you can have 2?? I usually will tie a jig on the bottom of the dropshot instead of having the weight on the bottom. This way, I have a craw imitation on the bottom and a shad imitation further up in the water column. Just a suggestion! The bass have taken both before. I catch a fish on the shad imitation and the very next cast, I will catch a fish on the jig.

Man o man that is an awesome Idea. I would have never thought it. I gotta give that a shot.