The Case for the Dropshot

With Local Pro, Jimmy Kennedy

I pride myself on being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Carrying that mindset to my fishing style, I can get on just about any technique and be successful once I dial things in. As a high school varsity bass coach I’ve learned that throwing a half dozen different techniques at my team in one on the water session is a great way to confuse the heck out of them. Froggin’, jiggin’, spinnerbaiting and swimjigging are all great techniques, and they all have their place when tournament fishing, but for beginning tournament anglers – especially at the high school level, your team needs to learn how to drop-shot. I’m a junk fisherman, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to catch fish if the conditions are tough. I prefer power fishing (MORE POWER!), but when things get difficult I’ll tune the dial down a bit in order to turn up the catching. There’s not many high school anglers who come in able to power fish, and with that in mind a coach’s job is to hook their student-athletes on bass-fishing with some early success in order for them to start exploring the tournament fishing world in their own idiom and evolve their learning style.

Andrew, the only freshman on my team this year.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to get to fish with a wide group of friends who each have a different style from mine. When it comes to getting a master class in drop-shot fishing, there’s only one person I call to get tips on the technique – Jimmy Kennedy. Even more importantly, his ability to teach the technique to people of all ages matters greatly. Anyone can do it, but when it comes to teaching nuance, Jimmy is par excellence. Even better, is his ability to communicate it as a first language and how it applies to bass fishing.

Austin, Gabe and Coach Casey after a day of learning the drop-shot.

I’ve known Jimmy for the better part of the last 20 years – starting way back when he was spending his days in the kitchen at River Run. As a self-taught chef, his ability tocombine science, ingenuity, creativity and experience in the kitchen allowed him to build a career that included not onlya successful and beloved community at his restaurant, but also to author a New York Times best-selling cookbook. If you live in Vermont and dabble in the kitchen, there’s a good chance that there’s a copy somewhere on a bookshelf in your home.

Chef, author, husband, father and professional tournament bass fisherman = Renaissance man.

Those skills, believe it or not, translate well to the competitive nature of tournament bass fishing. Being able to reason and adapt through difficult times leads to invention and development. Jimmy has also traveled extensively as a professional tournament bass angler, and a few years ago I was able to tag along for a taste. The yen for bass fishing may be greater than that for travel these days, but he still competes locally when time allows and is always willing to share his knowledge to younger anglers. That alone is a rarity in the tournament world. It’s no coincidence that when I decided to introduce drop-shotting to my high school bass team that I took the time to give Jimmy a call and pick his brain.

One of many drop-shot baits. That G.Loomis rod is pretty slick too.

“The bottom line is that if they’re not throwing a drop-shot, they’re not ready to go bass fishing,” Kennedy said. “That thing just flat-out catches fish. It’s not difficult either.”

It’s probably been 20-25 years since Jimmy has been fishing the drop-shot and over that time he’s figured a few things out. His typical setup involves a seven-foot spinning rod paired with the appropriate reel spooled up with 10-12 pound braided line down to an eight-pound leader of fluorocarbon.

That’s 25 pounds of Lake Champlain smallmouth in your face. Accidental? No. Exceptional? Yes.

“It’s a setup that I’ve tinkered with throughout the years. I went down to six-pound flouro, but I lost a giant smallmouth in a tournament and went back to the eight-pound. Never did that again,” Kennedy said. “I think the other thing is to be sure your drag is properly set – a little on the lighter side, and be willing to let the fish play out instead of just horsing them in. Nowadays, with forward-facing sonar, you can see the fish you’re casting to, and some guys are just incredible with using it, but they still have to set their drag properly and not get too excited.”

Jimmy ‘the Younger’, from about 15 years ago. Yep, he’s been doing this a while.

Drop-shotting will never be confused for power fishing, but in Kennedy’s case he’s got a rebuttal. 

“I typically have two of my regular setups rigged out – in case I break off during a tournament, but I also keep a heavier ‘Bubba’-shot’ ready. I’ll throw that thing on a baitcasting setup with 15-pound fluorocarbon with a ¾ or one-ounce weight. Just throw it in the thickest stiff you find and hold on.”

The ‘Bubba’-shot’, is basically a drop-shot setup on steroids, designed to fish in heavy weeds, but still having the power to hold up to the big fish and the cover they live in.

“It’s still technically a finesse technique, and not something an every day high school angler needs to worry about in a tournament,” Kennedy said. “But it’s got that element of power and is worth playing with once your drop-shot game is on point.”

Even with many sponsors over the years, the one constant with Jimmy is catching big bass.

Every boater out there has had their co-angler beat the snot out of fish off the back of the boat too. What makes the drop-shot so dear to many anglers is that fact that it catches fish behind their boating counterparts.

“I’ve had co-anglers show up with nothing but drop-shot setups and Senkos.” Kennedy said. “It’s a credit to the wisdom of the guys who fish as co-anglers. You can be the boater, on the front of a boat pitching a jig to a rock pile or log and your co-angler is just catching fish on the drop-shotbehind you with no discernable cover. We’ve all been humbled by it more than we’d like to admit.”

Champlain Valley B.A.S.S. Club’s drop-shotting queen, Olivia. (“Yep, that’s accurate”).

It took me a while to really get my drop-shot game up to snuff. I readily admit that when it comes to new techniques or lures I’m slow to jump on bandwagons. I remember Jimmy throwing it years ago and I dismissed it as a passing fad that would soon be obsolete. Boy was I wrong. It took me watching him and the late Aaron Martens on Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama to make me really dive in to the technique. I came home and dedicated myself to getting educated. The tying of palomar knots, the selection of hooks, weights and of course baits took me on a side mission I’ve yet to complete.

It’s something new…every year!

“There’s times when the fish want that lure to just sit still,” Kennedy said. “Then at other times they want you shaking it and picking it up. You can also catch fish just dragging it similar to a Carolina-rig. The sinker stirs up the bottom a bit and the fish hear it. Smallmouth are curious fish and they’re always looking for an easy meal.”

Kennedy says there are a few other things to be sure about.

“Check your line often, and check the sharpness of your hook regularly,” Kennedy stated. “Lazy fishermen pay big prices at the weigh table. It doesn’t take much to get a fray in your line when pulling through some weeds or over a few rocks. I was fishing a tournament years ago and had a limit to weigh and had just lost a monster that would have secured me a big win. The fish broke off because I got lazy and didn’t check my line. As time was running out I did the quick inspection, retied everything and went back at it. I threw my little leech drop-shot bait out there and was rewarded immediately with another fish of the same size – got her that time and cashed a $10,000 check. I’ll never forget that. I still think about it when I get complacent. Sometimes I just stop what I’m doing and go through everything step by step to reassure myself.”

Drop-shotting is kinda’ like eating potato chips - once you start, it’s hard to stop.

Over the years I’ve taken to describing what a bite feels like to people in my boat by pulling on their shirtsleeves. A long slow pull is probably a weed. A slow pull with a couple of tugs is usually a fish. Then at other times, when you’re just not sure, pull up assertively. There’s no need to enact the explosive hooksets you do when jig fishing. If you’re rigged properly, nine out of ten times the hook point will find the fish’s top lip.  The fish almost always immediately react with a surge of power in the opposite direction of the boat. It’s also a misnomer that the drop-shotcatches nothing but small fish. My personal best smallmouth – 6.1 pounds came on one. The fact that it was the only fish I caught that day is not usually part of the conversation.

“It should be something that every high school team has in their arsenal and that they practice extensively,” Kennedy said. ‘We all want to throw the Chatterbait or the swimbaitand catch big fish, but more often than not, I find myself confidently picking up the drop-shot in order to turn a bad day in to a good one, or a good one in to a great one.”

I’ve recently recommitted to drop-shotting after a long absence, and in doing so have been showing my high school team its effectiveness.