Dropshotting
droPSHottinG
Heavyweight
by maRc maRcaNtoNIo
Story & Photos
E
veryone knows, in bass fishing you always use the lightest weight you can get away with. We are taught the purpose of the weight is to allow your cast to reach the fish. Then you want your plastic worm to fall slowly, wiggling as it wafts to the bottom. light weights increase the amount of time your worm remains in the strike zone. There are other good reasons to use light weights. it is believed a soft plastic worm rigged with a light weight feels natural when engulfed, because the weight is less detectable. during the retrieve, a light weight tends to be more snag resistant and makes it easier to detect tentative bites. For many years this “lighter is better” advice has served bass anglers well. Finesse techniques capitalize on the
lightweight theory. Western anglers fishing highly- pressured reservoirs of gin clear water learned to trick wary Florida-strain largemouths with hand-poured worms and split shot rigs. other tactics built on the lightweight principle include doodling and Mojo rig fishing. Hair thin fishing line became popular and the resultant decreased water resistance allows even lighter weight to be used. When wary bass see reruns of every lure, it is easy to see why anglers feel they have an advantage when using tiny weights. dropshotting arrived on the scene and the lightweight theory continues. in the angler’s mind the only thing that changed is the location of the weight (not its size).
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