Have you ever heard of the drop shot technique? If not, you might have come with its synonyms like undershot, down shot, and drop shot. Regardless its effectiveness is still proven severally by many anglers in the entire world. Typically it’s considered as a finesse technique that involves small and relatively lightweight plastic baits. When this technique came to the US, several anglers utilized it as any deep water method. They directly fished under boats for suspended or lethargic fish precisely in out west, whereby anglers won prizes catching winter bass up to even 100ft.
After this, with time, a lot of people have adopted this drop shot technique like other finesse worm methods such as dart heading and spilled shotting. The weights and hooks utilized for drop-shotting techniques are now more sophisticated compared to the past years. This is to imply that significant rod manufacturers have designated tapers specifically for this technique. The drop shot fishing technique was originally from Japan’s lightweight rock fishing fair shores. After which in the ’90s, the technique was adopted later by several US Bass anglers for competition in deep water angling. With that let us get into the nitty gritty aspects of fishing for white perch with a drop shot rig.
WHAT IS A WHITE PERCH?
This is a type of a small silvery fish with a profoundly dark domed back. Perch lives in brackish and fresh waters in the entire Chesapeake Bay as well as other tidal tributaries. The white perch typically grows to about seven to eleven inches lengthwise and merely weighs more than a pound at most. They possess a silvery grayish greenish body that has interpolated faint lines as well as whitish bellies. Besides, they possess a gray blackish domed back. Lower jaws slightly project. They also possess fins that are mildly forked with three anal fin spines. You will also see a deep notched in dorsal fins. Dorsal fins’ first part possesses many spines.
The adults feed on larvae, fish eggs, detritus, insects as well as small fish. On the other hand, the juveniles eat on tiny zooplankton, such as crustaceans and insects. White perch are predators of striped bass, weakfish, and bluefish. Human beings fish for white perch for recreational purposes. This fish is termed as semi-anadromous since it doesn’t travel from oceans to spawning grounds freshwater rivers all the way.
WHAT IS A DROP SHOT RIG?
It’s a popular and famous fishing setup that is inclusive of weighted leaders, which enables baits to sink ardently. The fishing style emulates a prey’s natural movement in the natural wild. It is suitable for fishing bottom feeders such as catfish or bass. Should you appropriately tie this rig to utilize in the appropriate technique, it’s imminent that you’ll enhance your fish catching chances when using it.
HOW TO TIE A DROP SHOT RIG
- Purchase a lightweight or medium rod. Purchasing a medium or lightweight fishing rod can be done at a game or fishing store and even online. Obtaining a lightweight rod will ease the process since it detects bites while fishing. Besides, it’ll give rod that sufficient action and bend; thus, when moving the rod, the bait is able to move in realistic mannerisms. Manufacturers also designate rods precisely for a drop shot. Nonetheless, it is not necessary to buy one for setting up a drop shot rig.
- Thread 4.5–9.1 kg or 10-20lbs of the braided line via the pole’s eyelet. You can slide a braided line onto your pole’s spool then turn its reel in anticlockwise motion in order to unwind a bit of that line. After which, you should take the line’s free end then run it via the pole’s eye. You should pull the line out of the tip of the eye to create an 8-12 inch excess line. The mentioned pound of the braided line’s highly sturdy and capable of handling the tension. This is possible from a 2.3kg to 6.8kg or 5 to 15lb fishing trashing at that line’s end.
Tip: you should note that you should not directly attach the bait to the braided line since it is thicker compared to fluorocarbon. It is merely visible to various fish types.
- Tie a 380 to 460mm or 15–18 inches of fluorocarbon leader to its braided line. Obtain 2.7 to 3.6kg or 6–8 lb (2.7–3.6 kg) fluorocarbon line for your leader. You can use swivel knot, uni knot, or even Palomar knot to attach the fluorocarbon leader securely to that previous braided line. Your bait, hook, and weight will all go to the fluorocarbon leader.
- Fluorocarbon is relatively lightweight and least visible to white perch; hence you need to utilize it efficiently at your line’s end.
- When you use fishing knots, you will ensure that that leader will not break loose from its braided line.
- Tie that leader to a hook. You should use sizes of about 1 to 2 hook when you need to set up the drop shot rig. You should thread the leader’s tag end into the hook’s eye top. Thus you will have 15 to 20cm or 6 to 8 inches of the line that you can work with. After that, you should use a uni knot swivel knot, or Palomar knot to simply secure the leader and the hook.
- Thread the leader’s tag end via the other side of the hook. When you’re done with the hook and the leader, you will have to thread the tag end. After this, you will also have to tie the leader and the hook. Then tie it back through the eye’s other side to correctly orient the hook. When done, the hook has to be pointed to the sides and upwards.• Leave about 30 cm or 12 inches of slack at your fishing line’s end to attach the weight.
- Attach the weight to a fluorocarbon leader. Utilize a 3 oz weight for the drop shot rig. Then take the leader’s tag end then thread it via the weight’s eye. After which, you should pull up on the line’s both sides to wedge that line into that eye then secure it correctly. The excess lines need to be snipped from the weight by scissors. You shouldn’t tie the knot to that weight in order to attach to its edge.
- Put baits to that hook to accomplish your rig. It is possible to attach artificial or live bait to a hook. A long minnow or worm or wormlike baits are perfect for your drop shot rig since their tails remain undulate in water. You can take baits then pierce it via its nose. It will give baits a realistic movement in the water.• Good instances of live bait are nightcrawlers, worms, and minnows. If you’d like more information on farming your own worms for bait read this article: Growing Your Own Nightcrawlers
CAN YOU CATCH PERCH WITH A DROP SHOT RIG
It is a lure fishing type that anglers need to try if they want to catch white perch and other predatory fish. A drop shot rig technique of fishing for fish like perch is increasingly becoming massive in terms of popularity recently. It is useful, especially during the winter season and cold months, where the bank –the time is minimal. White perch usually are predators and are typically attracted to moving lures as well as baits. The big perch often swim in shoals; hence perch locating becomes a daunting task for anglers. It is highly crucial to be mobile to find perch quickly. Drop shotting permits this situation with little ease. With minimal and lightweight tackle, anglers can effortlessly move the swims until they successfully locate white perch.
It is noteworthy that drop shot perch fishing is not similar to the regular lure fishing. With the former, an angler will cast out drop shot rig then feel the lead or weight down to the ocean’s bottom. When an angler does so, he or she will determine the bottom type they’re fishing over as well as alleviate the rig’s mainline from entanglement when it hits the water. When that lead or weight is at the bottom, an angler will quickly flick its rod tip to motivate the lure to attract and move perch to hit your baits.
As mentioned earlier, possessing a soft tip will go a long way in helping with this as well as permit the lure to move accordingly naturally. When you are drop shotting precisely for white perch, you shouldn’t retrieve your lure. Instead, the rig and the lead or weight has to be kept in one static position. This type of technique is easily implemented and hence keeps you highly interested since you will be jerking that tip constantly to obtain bites from the white perch.
Locating the white perch
The most massive factor during perch fishing is location. You just can’t catch what’s not there. Regardless of the venue that you are fishing from, here are the best-guaranteed places you can locate white perch. These features will give you the green flag that perch is available around the stipulated areas. Some of these features are inclusive of:
· Inlets
· Bridges
· Drop-offs
· overhanging trees
When you are river fishing, you should look for any kind of cover like locks as well as slack water. These, too, will highly indicate that perch is readily available when you see them. It is noteworthy that perch can never be far from prey to predator fish. Try to attract things like some cockroaches and voila! You will see white perch coming in innumerable numbers.
In winter, when you want to fish, look for locations in deeper water that are very constant. That way, you will see perch coming closer. These consistent waters make fish typically hold up. The optimum time for fishing perch is dusk and dawn; hence you need to go down to a venue early. Why not enjoy the window whereby perch are seamlessly on their feeding frenzy. An important thing you should know is that you need to move swims and stay mobile if you aren’t successful after 20 minutes per se. This will usually indicate that white perch isn’t in a particular area; hence you need to move on.
BEST BAIT FOR PERCH
Perch are some of the most aggressive fish that possess large appetites. They are also known for taking enormous baits that can’t even fit them. They are typically some bottom feeders with their diets differing dependent on the perch sizes. A small perch’s natural diet entails crustaceans and even insects, yet they are about 3 inches lengthwise. On the other hand, bigger perch usually have a preference for fish fry, small fish, and worms too. Some of the most effective baits are inclusive of casters, earthworms, and lobworms. If you want to fish excellent specimens between 0.9 to 1.4kg, you could go for dead baits of minnows, which are great choices. This is because they spin with artificial spoons and lures.
It is noteworthy that maggots will gain all the fish’s attention in that swim implying that, should you need to catch perch only, you will not succeed. Nonetheless, maggots can attract small fish and perch where they can feed into that swim. Hence feeding maggots when you are fishing large bait like lobworm is an efficient method. It’s never an easy fit to land a huge white perch, and having one hooked doesn’t guarantee that it will get in your net. Similar to roach, small white perch tend to shoal. While huge white perch are typically be found in pairs or even alone. You need to keep that tackle secure and not necessarily heavy during perch fishing.
Final say
If you are ever lucky to go fishing in a boat, then you need to know that the drop shot rig technique is advantageous since you can drop the rig over the boat’s side. Then feel it to the water surface bottom where you should twitch your lure gently. It is effortless to cover large areas yet still maintain important contact and bite detection with the lure. It should be fun at the end. Well, that is all to drop shot rig fishing for perch. Hopefully, you benefitted from the article, comment, and share.