®
Spring 2024
F
orward Facing Sonar (FFS) is the hot hand to
play when bass fishing today. Like it or hate it,
bass fishing is forever changed as a result. All the electronics manufacturers have developed their own
version, and now you are seeing tackle manufacturers
developing lures specifically to use FFS.
This progression naturally leads to the development
of new fishing techniques to capitalize on the
advantages of FFS. Mentioned in the Scope Shad article,
the lure is a deadly FFS technique that is rapidly gaining
traction called DropSwimming.
DropSwimming has been around for more
than two decades, but you likely don’t know it. This
unconventional use of the drop-shot technique was
invented in the Pacific Northwest specifically to catch
suspended bass. Now with Forward Facing Sonar, this
deadly technique, will finally become mainstream. If you
are not using, you are losing!
QuickDrops drop-shot weight inventor,
tournament partner Ron Hobbs Jr. and I developed the
DropSwimming technique to catch suspended bass
feeding on baitfish in the middle of the water column.
We won many tournaments and AOY titles across the
Pacific Northwest using this secret technique the past
25 years.
Most think a drop-shot is fished with the weight
resting on the bottom, while shaking the bait above
the weight. Hobbs and I were swimming the drop-shot rig many feet above the bottom, just as you would a small swimbait. A slow and steady retrieve while gently shaking the rod tip mimics an easy meal of baitfish to a bass.
By twitching a drop-shot rig with the weight above the lake bottom, you still create the nervous bait movement that gets bass to bite just as if the weight were resting on the lake bottom. Your rod tip feels the weight and you get your lure to twitch by gently shaking the rod tip. This moves the weight up and down causing your lure to twitch. It allows you to power fish a finesse tactic and quickly cover a lot of territory.
The hardest part of DropSwimming in the past has been knowing where to cast. In the old days we would make blind casts and let the drop-shot sink to a level we suspected bass were feeding. With traditional sonar you would look for concentrations of bass and would see the depth both bait and bass were using. After making a blind cast we would then count down the lure and hope it was at the best depth to get noticed. Despite the guesswork DropSwimming proved effective in catching suspended bass others never imagined were “catchable.”
Forward Facing Sonar has solved this problem, making a deadly technique even more lethal. Using dual Lowrance Active Target units on an HDS Pro-16,
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