South Pear Action

[jaccil]

Personally I would rather use 30lb braid if conditions allow.  I've always loved fishing very light, in order to have a better feel for what's going on.  With braid you have an even better feel than light mono and, because of abrasion issues, I don't like going too light with braid.

As for the term "dropshot", it's not really used that much around the world and, if used, refers to the rig rather than the rest of the gear.  The gear is just jigging or spinning gear.  If I'm out spinning with a 9/10ft rod and switch to a "dropshot" technique, why should I change to shorter rod just to qualify for dropshot...  I seriously don't care.  In the UK the only destinction in this regard is the type of lure we use: hard plastic (popper, shallow diver, deep diver), soft plastic, bucktail, or spoons.  The terms plugging or popping are used to distinguish from spinning but, with the exception of fly fishing, fishing with artificials remains lure fishing!

 

[FLUKE]

I agree with Jaccil and made a post in another thread about trying a texas rig for dropshot. Dropshot is in my opinion a marketing term (possibly created by Berkley?) to isolate this particular type of lure fishing. The result is that when you go dropshot fishing you don't buy all those nice spoons, poppers and crankbaits.
In bass fishing the term dropshot actually relates to a rig that has a weight on the end of the line with the soft bait tied directly to the line about 30cm above the weight. Has anyone tried such a rig in saltwater. The value of this rig is that you can shake the rod to get action on the lure without moving the weight. Therefore the lure stays in the strike zone.

 

[Mark.H]

Nice fish, You are making me very jealouse being stuck up here in JHB.

 

[jaccil]

[color="#006600"]FLUKE[/color] wrote:

In bass fishing the term dropshot actually relates to a rig that has a weight on the end of the line with the soft bait tied directly to the line about 30cm above the weight. Has anyone tried such a rig in saltwater. The value of this rig is that you can shake the rod to get action on the lure without moving the weight. Therefore the lure stays in the strike zone.

The described rig is one used in the UK for eel presentations (such as the LunkerCity Slug-Go), targeting sea bass, pollack and wrasse.

This post by a guy in Ireland describes various techniques for rigging soft plastics.  He really knows his stuff when it comes to this and has described not only rigs, but hooks and other issues regarding presentation of soft plastics.  Unfortunately the images on that page is not embedded (anymore), but below are the two images he posted for the dropshot rig.

 

[jaccil]

And for your interest, if you haven't seen these yet, videos provided by Berkley showing the action that can be obtained by these rigs:

Down Shot
Down Shot 2

And...
Neko
Wacky

 

[FLUKE]

Thanks Jaccil, those first 2 videos clearly show the advantage I was talking of. You can impart a lot of action without moving the lure too far. I'm sure this would be a rig worth trying for reef dwelling fish. If I'm not mistake the Neko rig has a nail weight in the end of the lure to keep it on the bottom.

 

[couta-koppie]

Yes, I'm also sure that technique will work. we use to use it when bass fishing and has always known it as down shot. still today some blokes get mixed up with down shot and drop shot. In down shot you get the wacky and neko, where in dropshot you get standard jigging as well as shaky. but I'll leave it to the experts cause I just wanna fish.:fishn