Losing a lot of hooks and sinkers...help?

[MuskieBait]

I know in my other post, I said not to over think things (sometimes)...

But then there are occasions where you should think over things...it may make you go "...hm..."

I know there are a lot of members here who fish from shore using the dropshot rig. The argument is that this rig, because the hook is placed 12", or 24" or more, from the sinker, it should theoretically snag bottom less often, right?

Well, let me propose a common scenario...consider this situation...

You, the angler, makes a 60-foot cast from shore. Let's assume that you propped your rod up at an angler (ie, rod tip up) when you rest your rod, and let's assume that the rod tip is 5 feet from the water line. Also, let's assume that your sinker eventually hits bottom at a depth of 10 feet. Thus, the total VERTICAL distance, from the rod tip to the bottom is 15 feet.

So...let's draw a triangle. (Can you see where I'm going? Let's go back to highschool geometry/trigonometry ). The rise of the triangle (combined height of rod + water depth) is 15 feet. The run of the triangle (distance cast out from shore) is 60 feet. That makes the hypotenuse (the exact length of line cast out) roughly 60.8 feet. If the total height is 15 feet and your length of line out is 60.8 feet, you get a ratio of roughly 0.25 (which is actually your sine angle). Without going into complicated trigonometry, I'm going to skip all that and simply use ratios (it's all a ratio anyways), since triangles sharing the same sine angles can simply be scaled larger or smaller...meaning relative ratios in the length of the three sides.

Taking that ratio (or sine angle), I calculated that for a certain distance between your hook and your sinker (represented by the hypotenuse of smaller triangles), you can figure out how far off bottom your hook really sits (the opposite side of the smaller triangle). Here's the "chart", with inches rounded to the nearest whole number...

(distance in feet between sinker and hook) = (inches off bottom)

1 feet = 3in off bottom
2 feet = 6in off bottom
3 feet = 9in off bottom
4 feet = 12in off bottom
5 feet = 15in off bottom

So...the hook is not that far off bottom, huh?

The longer you cast, while fishing at the same depth, the more you put your hook closer to bottom (smaller angle). The shallower the depth you fish, given the same casting distance, will also put your hook closer to the bottom.

The dropshot rig is really only more snag-less if you are using a more vertical presentation, or fishing in really deep water. And it really only presents your bait higher off bottom if the angle is greater (again, more vertical presentation)

So it is not really the best rig to use to reduce snag...a boulder can easily be 12" tall...so are branches on bottom...or a stump...or those fine stringy weeds or any other kinds of weeds...

It's even worst if you have slack in the line.

With your typical 6' to 7' freshwater rods, it's not really that convenient (nor good casting mechanics) to fish a 5' leader anyways. That is usually best with 9' or longer rods. So in your typical fishing situation, the dropshot rig is not really all that snag-proof.

I really only use the dropshot style rig (high-low rig, chicken rig...whatever you like to call it) when I'm fishing deeper areas, or from tall piers or bridges, or if I can keep my line tight or hold the rod in hand and walk the rig along bottom. If the area is too snaggy, it really is not the best choice.

That's really all I want to explain in a long winded way...but I do want you to understand