Beginner's Guide To Split-Shotting

All right, I know this says split shot for beginners, but I'm going to give you some juice that even you advance guys are going to learn something new here. So let's dive right into it.

Split shot and has been around since, Oh my gosh, probably around early 80s. You know, mid 80s is about the time I started fishing and I'm in the West Coast. So finesse tactics hit their first and I've been fishing it ever since. As a matter of fact, I always have a split shot rigged. Every time I go out and not that I use it every time, but I I've been using it for. For decades and with great success and I I would say that it's even more successful today than it was originally when it came out mainly because it doesn't get fished as much. A lot of guys are out there fishing drop shots and Ned Riggs and Neko rigs and all this other stuff and they've kind of forgotten about the drop shot or the the split shot. So I think the split shot is very effective today. So here's here's here's the juice guys, here's how you this this this dive into it.

First of all, let's talk about the rigging. The split shot, originally, how it started off is we had a round, little round split shot. You crimped on the line about 12 to 18 inches up the line. We'll talk about length in a minute. And at the round split shot worked pretty good. The problem with that is the split shot. You know you crimped it on the line and it would weaken the line right there. Plus, if you need to move the split shot up or down, well, you're fat out of luck. You'd have to clip it off and retie and start over again. 

In came a split shot that's got what they call ears on the end of it. So you got the open end, and then on the other end of it you have these little ears that stick out that if you crimp down on those, it would open it back up again. You can reposition it on the line and crimp it back down again. The same problem is that if you've crimped down on the line, well, now you've weakened it. So that's not good. But also those little ears would pick up little, you know, grass debris, things on the bottom, pick up muck. That would dampen your sensitivity. Plus they could actually end up spinning in the water when you reel back up, you'd get a little bit of spin in it from those ears and that would introduce line twist. So not a good answer either.

Finally, somebody came out with these cylindrical weights. And what you do with those is you thread the line through it and then you use what's called a, you know, rubber nail, and I use what's called the Peg-It. That's the brand name. And you slide it in all the way. You snip off the tag end of it and there you go. It holds it nice and snug. It does not. Do any damage to the line and you can bring it through weeds and grass and other stuff just fine and get hung up. Matter of fact, it works really good in rocks too. It just doesn't get hung up very much. So it's a great solution. Plus, if you need to move it up and down the line, you just wet the line. Slide it up or down to where you want it to be and you're good to go. Keep going. You're good to go. So I like using. Cylindrical weights, now I use those all the time for my split shot and even though I still call it split shot. So that's that's one key thing.

Where to put it? Starting off at 18 inches is a good start. Here's the thing with with Split shotting guys, when it first came out, it was known for clear water tactics deep water. So 18 inches was a good starting point as far as distance. And a lot of times the deeper that you went, the more you know you give it 24 inches or maybe a little bit longer. Now people have learned split shot works really well in shallow water too. As a matter of fact, you can even flip and pitch it. You just shorten it up to about, you know, 10 to 12 inches works really good. You can use it in shallow areas. 10 inches, 12 inches works really well. So you know now. I would say if you're less than 15 foot, 12 inches is a good starting point if you're beyond 15 foot. 18 inches is a good starting point.

Now the factor is the activity level of fish. The more active they are, the more aggressive they are, the shorter distance you can have from the hook to the split shot. Conversely, if it's a really slow bite, you back off and give it. 24 inches I. Been known to give it as much as 3 foot. So you just kind of to look at that plus summertime. Typically summertime you have a shorter leader, winter time you have a longer distance. Again, that is activity level just goes back to how active they are. In winter time, they're not as active, not as aggressive. Longer distance works summertime, the more aggressive shorten it up.

As far as line is concerned, for me it's it's only fluorocarbon and that's it. Back when it first came out, monofilament was your choice. That was it. That's all you had. So we used monofilament. It worked fine. But monofilament floats. And so when you're fishing in deeper water, you get this long arc bend in the water and that's that's not good. You, you have more line out, you have less connectivity to your bait. And a lot of times it's a very subtle, subtle bite and we'll talk about that in a second. So if you have a lot of line out, it's really difficult to detect the bite. So monofilament wasn't a very good choice for for split shot, but. That's all we had.

Copolymer came out after that and that was pretty good. I used to use copolymer and if you look at some of my earlier videos about split shot and you'll see I'm advocating copolymer line. That's before fluorocarbon really became a big hit. Now that fluorocarbon's out, that's all I use. 

You would think, OK, why not use braid? Braid. It's slick, it's really slick and it's really thin for its pound. Test in it and you put a cylindrical weight on there with a rubber peg and it's it slides up and down your line no matter how hard you try to keep it from doing that, you know, even on a cast it'll slide all the way up to the hook it's terrible it's awful to manage plus braid is buoyant So again, you get that arc and you get a lot more line out there than you would with fluorocarbon, which sinks you get a direct connection with fluorocarbon. Fluorocarbon is also extremely sensitive and because the nature of fluorocarbon, it's almost invisible in the water and here's the key thing about it fluorocarbon is more abrasion resistant, resistant than braid, especially in rocky areas, which a lot of times that's where you're fishing the split shot, those rocky points, those rocky drops on creeks, riprap, things like that. A lot of times open areas, you have a hard rocky bottom and braid's going to tear up underneath those conditions, whereas fluorocarbon will not.

Notice I didn't mention a swivel. No swivels in this. Anybody that tells you to use a swivel with a split shot, simply they tell you that because they don't know how to rig it. That's the plain truth because they're rigging it wrong. So they get line twist and it's all about the rigging. If you rig it correctly and then there's some little tricks with the spinning outfit itself, you can completely eliminate line twist. 

So here's the thing. The key is when you rig it, the hook has to be absolutely straight on the body of the of the grub or the the tube. For example, I, I use grubs, that is the thing to use all the time. I mean, that's how it started out was a was a grub that was the beginning and it still works really well today. A tube is also also exceptionally good. Grub works well if there's somewhat aggressive to aggressive. Tube works best if they're not aggressive at all. One of those cold front conditions tube works fantastic, but rigging that on there perfectly. That hook, it's got to be on there straight if it doesn't. Your bait's going to spin and you'll know that when you cast out and you reel it back in to make your next cast. Watch your bait. If it's spinning, you got it rigged wrong. So re rig it and make sure it's on nice and straight so you don't get any of that because that's most of the time. That's that's the problem with line twist and that's why these guys advocate a swivel in there. It's like if you rig it right, you're not going to need a swivel. The other reasons you get line twists aren't even related to the bait and how it's rigged. So swivel's not going to save you. So there's no need for a swivel with a split shot.

The other ways that you can eliminate line twists. Just how you use a spinning reel and a spinning outfit, you can virtually eliminate all line twist. I have a video right here that goes into it in depth and I'm telling you guys, I use this all the time when I use spinning gear and I never ever, ever have line twist. I'm honest Scouts honor. I don't have any problems with line twist using fluorocarbon. Use the techniques in that video and make sure your your your bait is rigged straight. You're never going to have any line twist issues. Don't use a swivel.

Rod. Rod is really important. Back when this technique first started off, we're using 7 foot to 7 foot 1 medium light fast action spinning rods. And that hasn't changed. That is still the go to rod for split shotting. You know, techniques have evolved over time and matter of fact back when that first came out, most rods, a long rod was considered, you know, 6 foot 6. That was a really long ride back then. So coming up with a 7 foot was like Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? That's huge. Right now is rare for you to find any technique where you use a rod. Less than 7 foot and in the rod composites and what they're made out of and the line guides and everything has all changed over time. And so a lot of tactics and gear that we used to use with various tactics has changed over time and as as morphed, but not with split shotting. Split shotting still that's 7 foot or 7 foot 1 medium light fast action rod. Pair it with a size 2000 or 2500 reel. And you're good to go.

You want to, you want a high quality reel. That drag is what's really important. So a high quality reel has a really good smooth drag and that's important. Now when you get a good fish on, you're using like 6 LB line. That's all I use. When I started out doing it, I'd use 10 LB. Again, I'm using monofilament, so I use 10 LB line. When I use copolymer, I kick down to 8. And now I'm using fluorocarbon, I use 6. And 6 is real tough. It works really well. You got to get past that. Some guys like. 6 LB. But when you've got a medium light action rod, you've got a spinning outfit that's got, you know, a good drag to it that fluorocarbons got a little bit of give and stretch. This is what you need. You're using a 1 to size 1 ought hook. So it's not a very stiff or strong or thick hook. So you don't need a strong outfit to set the hook. You just, it's a, I'll tell you about the hook set in a second, but you get that fish pinned and then all of that works in concert to work together to get that fish to you so it works perfectly it's a great setup for even big fish. 

As far as the hook set is concerned this is not the time to cross their eyes a lot of times this guy's reel down and boom you know those YouTube hook sets right? Yeah that's ridiculous all for show No, I I don't do that never have all you do with this setup is your reel down you give it a good. Firm hook set while you reel into it, you kind of lean into it. It's kind of a sweeping, reel jerk. Hooksett, but it's not. Lay down him, give it all you got. If you do that, you didn't get into either snapping your line or straightening the hook out, or just ripping the hook out of the fish's mouth. So a super hard hook set is actually bad. You will lose more fish with a strong hook set. And then the rest of your gear, just keep that pressure on that fish and you'll get them to the boat. Don't. Swing him in the boat. You're using light gear. This is not the time to be swinging fish. Something bad will happen unless it's a dink, you know, a little small fish or you know swing them but a bigger fish. Go get them and you'll catch a bunch of fish.

Now, as far as the technique is concerned. It's about the depth. So if you're fishing shallow, you can actually pitch it up under docks, under eaves, under branches and overhangs and look for those shadow areas, places where the bass will hide up and get up, tuck up underneath. I love fishing docks, especially. They got weeds around. If I can, you know, pitch it up underneath a dock and with some weeds around it, those fish will be right up underneath that dock. Or I fish where there's a little bit of wind. You got floating docks and they've got weeds around them and that dock will pivot. And now you've got this opening where the weeds are and you can just pitch it right in that little opening. A lot of times you'll catch fish that way.

Fishing a little bit deeper. Especially if the bite is off and slow, this is where the split shot really shines. Cast it out, let it hit the bottom, and the way you know it hit the bottom, your line is peeling out and all of a sudden it goes slack and stops moving. Now you know it's hit the bottom. Grab the line so you got some tension to it and reel up until you got tension to the weight. The reason you do that is if you have slack line, you start reeling, you're going to get a loop in that spinning reel and that's going to be a bad problem. When you cast again, it's going to blow up on you. So grab that line, reel up till you get a little tension and then let go. And now what you're doing is you keep tension on the line and you just slowly crawl it. You you just crawl it on the bottom. If the bite's really slowing off, you're only moving it a couple inches at a time. And then you let it rest and let it sit for 10 seconds, 15 seconds, sometimes 30 seconds. Keep tension on it and then slowly reel it a couple more inches and let it stop.

When you're doing it this way, when the bite's really slow, the bite is very subtle. A lot of times the bass come up and they just go and they don't move. They just sit there. And so when you pull up on it to move again, you're going to feel the spongy feel. The best way I can explain it is take a thin rubber band and bring it between your fingers here and just pull on it. You'll feel that tension, that little rubber band, spongy feel that give. That's what you're looking. If you got a weed, it doesn't give. You just pull and you kind of it's there and there's the tensions, consistent, consistent. But if it's a fish, it kind of bounces, for lack of a better word, little spongy, Spongy, that's a fish. Set the hook. Other times the bite is just they'll, they'll start swimming off and you reel up and you see your line kind of go in One Direction. Well, you got to reel up and set the hook. You didn't do that. So it's very subtle. You got to pay real close attention to that bite.

The other part of it is. Hold the rod loosely in your hand. A lot of the techniques we use in bass fishing, we got a firm grip, not like a death grip, but we got a firm grip on the rod with split shot and when it's really dead and dull and the the bites off like this. Hold it loosely in your hand, don't just palm it. But I mean just a looser grip. What happens Sometimes the fish grabs it and if he starts to swim off your rod will move in your hand. You got to live a little bit of leeway in that your rod will shift in your hand when the fish picks it up. That fish won't feel the resistance of you and that gives you just a heartbeat more second to set the hook immediately. Sometimes that fish feels that resistance, they spit it up before you get a chance to set the hook. So just holding it loosely and you can feel that rod move a little bit when that fish grabs it. That gives you a second more to get a good hook set.

Now when the fish are active, your presentations faster now you throw it out, let it hit the bottom, reel up, lift up off the bottom. And let it drop. And your your lifts are a little more exaggerated than you might think. You're not lifting the bait up that high, you're lifting the weight up that high. So the weight lifts up, now the bait starts to follow. Then when you drop you see your bait's not as high as the weight. And then the weight drops and the bait starts to follow. So you're lifting up. A little more exaggerated than you think. So lift up on it and then let it drop and reel up the slack as it falls. Let it fall, wait a second so the bait can drift back down weightless at that point, and then reel up field if there's a bite. Nope. Lift up, drop and rinse, lather, repeat. You can do that technique pretty quickly. Even behind someone who's fishing fast.

As a matter of fact, a great way to fish the split shot is you cast out in real it very slowly. This is when you're using a grub. Use a three inch grub, throw it out there, let it get near the bottom. It doesn't have to be on the bottom and then just slowly reel it and just let it slowly swim along the bottom. Guys, sometimes people out there throwing crankbaits and at the front seater is throwing crankbaits or spinner baits or top water fast moving lures. If you're out there casting and winding it this way, you're picking up a lot of fish that he missed. I've Dang near 1 tournaments from the backseat doing that. Matter of fact, I've won a few doing that. It it, it works very, very well. So if you're in the back of the boat fishing the split shot rig behind a, you know, a, a power fisherman is actually a good way to go.

A lot of times what I do with that bait. One little tidbit here is I do read the Texas rig almost every time. I don't rig it with an open hook even though I'm sometimes I'm fishing out on rocky areas and rocky points where there isn't any weeds or wood to get hooked on. Because you're fishing in a variety of different situations. That's why I rig at Texas, Rick, 'cause you never know, you may hit an area with this patchy patches of grass and those bass that are up in those patches, patchy areas, and you can bring that split shot. You know, that grub right over the top of it. You might go through a little bit of weeds or something like that, but because it's Texas Rig, you're not going to bring back a lot of weeds or anything like that. So I always fish at Texas Rig. Just a rule of thought.

One more debate to use. Also is a finesse worm. This is again when the bite's really off and I've used tubes and they don't want to bite. The tubes get a four or five inch. Finesse worm and that is like killer when the bite is really, really off. It's like winter time or what have you. Bad fronts come through in the springtime and it's the bite is just shut off. That finesse worm is going to be killer for you.

So that is the basics of vision, a split shot rig. Go out there, have yourself a ball, catch a ton of fish.