Entry 115-5

Mark Davis - Don't Forget the Worm

Drop Shotting

Editor's Note: At the Elite 50 BASS tournament on the Tombigbee River in Columbus, Mississippi, Mark Davis had a wire-to-wire victory. The front-runner after the first day, Davis continued to lead the tournament all three days and won. He won the tournament primarily with a Strike King Ribbon Tail Worm, fishing it the old way. This week Davis will tell us five of his best worm-fishing tactics.

Davis: Drop shotting is a tactic that came to the United States from Japan several years ago. To be quiet honest, I thought at first it was a gimmicky technique. I didn't want to fish or like to fish like that. So, I more or less turned my nose up at drop shotting. Since those early days of its introduction, I have learned how to fish this method of drop shooting. I've discovered that it's a totally unique and different way to fish a worm.

Drop shotting can be a very-deadly technique, and you can use it successfully in different types of fishing conditions. I use a 1/4- to 3/8-ounce weight on the bottom of my line. I don't believe that the weight is nearly as important as a lot of people think it is. There are special drop weights made for drop shotting, but you also can use a bell sinker, a bullet sinker or any other kind of sinker, and they'll all work fine. Really and truly I think you can tie a rock on the end of the line and catch just about as many bass as you do with a lead sinker on there. So don't get hung-up with the idea that you must have a certain type of sinker to fish the drop-shotting tactic.

One of the early mistakes that I made when I started using drop shotting was that I tied the worm too far up the line away from the sinker. I've learned that I get more bites and catch more bass when I've got the worm about 10- or 12-inches up the line from the sinker. Sometimes you may want to fish with the worm 3- or 4-feet up from the sinker. But I've noticed that under most conditions, in most of the places I fish, I get more bites and catch more bass when the worm's only 10- to 12-inches up from the weight.

Generally when I'm fishing the drop-shot tactic, I'll be using the 3X Finesse Worm and a No. 2/0 offset finesse hook. I'll Texas-rig the worm onto the hook. I prefer to fish with an open hook, unless I'm fishing in heavy cover where I know I'll get hung up. Most people believe that the only way to drop shot a plastic worm is to fish it vertically. However, I've learned you can catch a lot of bass by casting a drop-shot worm rig out and reeling it in.

One of the biggest mistakes that most fishermen make with this tactic is that they shake their rods too much. With the drop-shot technique, the worm is tied directly to the main line. And the worm is attached to the line between your rod tip and that lead sitting on the bottom. For this reason, even the slightest motion of your rod tip causes the worm to move dramatically. When I was learning to fish this technique, I shook the rod tip too much and too hard. If you'll just slightly twitch the rod tip, your worm will do all kinds of tricks under the water.

I strongly recommend that if anyone is going to fish a drop-shot worm, put that worm in an aquarium, and watch what happens when you move your rod tip. You won't believe how much that worm will move. What you'll learn is that the less you move your rod tip, the better and more naturally the worm will move. So, if you plan to fish a drop-shot tactic, remember that you'll catch more bass if you move your rod tip less. Don't shake the worm. Instead, just coax it into moving.

Mark Davis - Don't Forget the Worm

Drop Shotting

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