Drop Shot : Nose Hook Or Other Hook Placement ?

[ChrisD46]

I am prompted to write and seek your opinion after reading a drop shot article from Russ Bassdozer (a fan of Gary Yamamoto and his products) : Now according to Russ , when light line drop shot fishing for bass - Russ gets bit 3:1 versus nose hooking a soft plastic when he wacky rigs a soft plastic (hook placement halfway back) or Coo-Coo rigs (hook placement a third of the way back) . The soft plastic baits used by Russ include : 3" & 4" Senkos , 4.5" Yamamoto cut tails , 4" shad shaped worm , etc. What is your favorite way (which brings you the best results) to rig a soft plastic for drop shot fishing for bass : Nose hook - or other hook placement location ?

[panda_slicks86]

its all about the nose hook for me....... have tried it wacky with good luck too..... any one tried a small jig head with a drop shot set up about a foot up? i have always wanted to try it. i like my nose hook to be flush with the bait, slightly tucked........ any one ever tried those vmc spin shot or what ever they are called .... friggin junk i think

[steve1206]

I'm a "t-rigged" drop shot guy. Gamakatsu EWG hook..anywhere from 2 up to 1/0 typically. Way higher landing percentage for me.

[zodiak311]

It all depends on what type of structure is around me. If there is heavy cover, I t rig it. With open water I do a semi nose/wacky hook. I push the hook from one side of the worm and out the other, rather then going in from the bottom and through the top.
I usually place my hook about 1/2-1" inch from the head of the worm, so that both the ends have a little action to them. I rarely lose fish on a drop shot rig.

[panda_slicks86]

sommin about drop shot just keeps em pinned i don't think i ever lost one that was truly hooked..... but i usually only throw drop shot when the small mouth spawn is on at my local lake .... wacky seems to work well when the smalls are on nests as well, that and jig heads with craw trailers.

[froteur]

its all about the nose hook for me....... have tried it wacky with good luck too..... any one tried a small jig head with a drop shot set up about a foot up? i have always wanted to try it.

i've used this. it worked well. i should probably use it more.

[civicrr]

Like others, I'll nose hook in open to relatively open water. I haven't used them all but my preferred hook is the Owner Mosquito. If I start getting snagged, or just a lot of cover around, I'll use the Gami EWG. I'll typically use a Roboworm but have also tried other finesse worms.

Hook setting is different for the different hooks. When nose hooked all I do is reel. With the weedless/t-rig style hook, I do a reel & sweep set.

There have been instances when I've wacky hooked them but usually the two methods above have worked great. BTW, if I'm fishing water with good clarity, I'll have both a dropshot & a flickshake setup ready to go. I point this out because there might have been times when the flickshake was just killing them & a wacky dropshot might have been even better. Who knows....?

[hobobob]

A word of cautions on the Owner Mosquito hook.

http://www.richz.com/fishing/blog/?p=224#more-224

Look at the fish picture in the middle of the article. I too have similar incidents when I was using owner hooks. I gave them all away and started using Gamakatsu Split Shot hooks. Far fewer skin hook / dropped fish. Most are hooked very solid on the nose or lock on the jaw bone. Very hard to remove that tiny hook once hooked despite the size.

[panda_slicks86]

its all about the owner wacky/drop shot hook for me never had a weak hook up with em they are way better than the skeeter hooks and the gammy's for that matter....... vmc spinshot = junk

[mikezho]

I usually use nose hook for minnow type of bait, and texas hook for worm type of bait.

[Altro Cat]

I use the Aaron Martens method of nose hooking about 90% of the time. The only other rigging I use enough to mention is the T-Rig style with a Gama EWG hook when fishing bigger plastics like Caffeine Shads.

[DarkShadow]

It depends on the situation, really.

In open water, definitely will go to the nose hook, unless the fish are being a bit finicky and I need to throw something different at them, in which I'll go with the wacky rig.

In heavy structure, I'll T-rig them.

[JerryC]

I always nose hook them but unlike some other fellow fisherman i hide the tip of the hook in the nose of the worm i'm using. Some guys i noticed like to have the hook out of the worm.

[reddragon]

I also like to nose hook them, i never caught anything wacky I guess just it's just my luck...

[froteur]

I also like to nose hook them, i never caught anything wacky I guess just it's just my luck...

you're not wacky enough.