Whether you are fishing small ponds or big lakes, fishing can get very tuff during the winter months.
The drop shot is the first thing I tie up when the winter bite gets slow and I can’t catch fish on other baits.
The drop shot is versatile, easy to use, and catches fish when nothing else will.
Once the winter arrives and the water gets very cold, bass fishing can get difficult.
Bass don’t eat as much, don’t chase as much, and get a lot more picky.
Additionally, the water clarity during the winter is usually much clearer because of the lack of rain fall and algae, plankton, and other plants that die out in the cold water.
So not only are bass less hungry, but they can also tell real food from fake food better than the rest of the year.
The drop shot checks all the boxes for countering these fishing conditions.
The drop shot is slow moving, small/finesse in profile, and looks very natural and realistic even right up close in clear water.
As long as you can put the drop shot near bass, they will have no choice but to eat it no matter how cold the water is.
Slow and stealthy is the name of the game for winter drop shotting.
Once you make a cast and the drop shot has reached the bottom, just let it sit there for a few seconds.
If there is a bass near by, the drop shot will look just like a dying baitfish that couldn’t handle the cold and the bass is likely to eat it right then.
After a few seconds, slowly lift your rod tip until the line is tight to the bait on the other end.
Slowly drag the drop shot with occasional shakes of the rod tip. Also periodically pause the drop shot again for a few seconds.
If you are using a floating bait, it will just suspend right off the bottom and entice bass.
If you aren’t using a floating plastic bait, it will slowly sink to the bottom and look like the dying prey again.
Either way the pause will generate lots of bites.
In my opinion, the best winter drop shotting baits are small minnow profiles.
In the winter, bass are primarily feeding on baitfish. Ideally, dying baitfish. So using small minnow or baitfish profiles does the best job at matching the hatch.
And for colors, your standard grey/silver colors for mimicking shad and green pumpkin colors for bluegill work great.
Another great winter drop shot bait is just the finesse worm. A long and slender
Trick Worm profile always works no matter the time of year or water temperature.
With my worms, I either fish green pumpkin or muted red colors during the winter season.
The drop shot will work in just about any weather or water conditions.
So the best thing I can say is to tie up a drop shot when nothing else is working.
If you have thrown the jerkbait, the blade bait, the umbrella rig, or another cold water bait and still can’t get bites, that’s when the drop shot shines.
So the bite getting tuff and bass not biting are the conditions in which the drop shot works so well.
There are two hook styles for drop shot fishing. First is a mosquito or wacky style hook which is used to nose hook soft plastics.
The other hook style is a straight shank or worm hook that is used to weedless/Texas hook the baits.
During the winter, I almost exclusively use the smaller, mosquito hooks and nose hook my baits.
These hooks allow for a couple of advantageous things during the winter. First they increase your hook up ratio slightly.
Because of the light gear you are using, it can be tough to set the weedless hooks into the bass’s mouth at a high percentage.
This is especially true in cold water when bass often bit baits very softly.
The most important thing that these smaller hooks do is allow for you to rig up much smaller soft plastics.
In cold water, smaller is usually better. Bass don’t want to fight with big prey when they barely have any energy.
With the much longer Texas style hooks, you simply can’t fish small minnow or baitfish style baits.
With that being said, if you are fishing around brush or deep vegetation, it is still much better to use a weedless hook to prevent snags.
There are a few different drop shot weight styles as well, but personally I don’t think the style matters all that much.
How heavy the weights are is much more important to me. In cold water, the lighter the better.
Usually I use 1/8 oz in shallow to medium depths and will go up to a 1/4 oz in deep water.
These are light weights, but you want to be as noninvasive as possible when bass are finicky.
The gear setup is very simple. It’s pretty much the same as any other finesse fishing technique. Get a medium to medium-heavy action spinning rod and rig it up with 8-10 lb fluorocarbon line. During the winter when the water is very cold and clear, I sometimes will go all the way down to 6 lb test line, but that is pretty rare. For the most part, 8-10 lb line works the best.
In conclusion, when the winter months make fishing challenging, the drop shot technique stands out as a reliable solution.
Its finesse and natural presentation make it an effective choice for targeting bass in cold, clear waters when other baits fall short.
By understanding how to fish it slowly and selecting the right baits, hooks, weights, and gear, anglers can turn a tough day on the water into a successful one.
The drop shot is more than just a tactic—it’s a go-to strategy for ensuring a productive winter fishing season.
