Always a pleasure watching your videos, my catch ratio has went through the roof because of you 2 guys, I have completely upgraded my entire arsenal and it has payed off big time, I’m 65 and feel like a kid again thank y’all sooo much! Forever in y’all’s debt! Love you guys!
Thank you for a video explaining drop shot fishing with a baitcasting reel! Beautifully covered from "fairy" stick to a heavy casting rod. Been looking for this video. I knew you had done it but I couldn't find it until now. Thank you. Everything else is on RUclips is a 3 minute video with little info. Yours is above and beyond as always. Thank you!
I learned about the Drop Shot a few years ago, and this rig has caught me nearly 150 fish so far this year!! 2022 has been the best fishibg year for me ever !! Accredit a lot of that to you both at Tacticalbassin & the person who put me on you guys David Haney from Atlanta, Georgia. Would like to see some spinner chatterbait footage too. Peace ✌
I really want to get into the dropshot. I got some zman finesse shadz to try out with it. I have a lot of dropshot baits that I use for a mojo rig so I figure it should be something I use more.
Great video. Tied up a drop shot on an extra baitcaster I had lying around and put on a sweet beaver. Had a big hit in a lily pad patch but never checked my drag and whiffed on the hook set. It is fun and never would have thought to try it with a baitcaste
I remember fishing a dropshot in a club tournament practice day and even being my first time using it and rigging it with non-typical terminal tackle I caught over a dozen fish off of one rocky hump. Just yesterday I broke out the DS again on my home water and caught my PB dropshot fish of 2 1/2 lbs.
I combined one of your other videos with this one. When rigging the soft plastic, I use your fluke technique: downsize the hook and use a CPS in the nose. Incredible action in the most subtle of currents. I’ve been debating using a Powershot or “Bubba Shot” with one of the Berkeley powerbait Gillie. It will look like a suspended bluegill/sunfish.
Power dropping I like it! It took me months to learn how to use a baitcaster and I can't stand using a spinning reel now. Power dropping 😎💪👍. Awesome video, tight lines 🎣
Nose hook bait from underneath , back toward tip of worm (KVD style) still get the action plus weedless….also you can cast a drop shot on 10lb. Line out in deep water on a Baitcaster… works well. Spin cast works great out deep for straight drop/ target fishing , but 10 lb. Casting shot on baitcaster fun to fish!
I started Drop shotting again for the first time in maybe 10 years. Holy cow does it get Bit non stop... by bluegill. Landed me a 7" gill on a 6" Roboworm last week. Hell yeah! lol
I had a similar experience this weekend! Spotted bass and bluegill everywhere and I was throwing live bait that kept getting destroyed by smaller bluegill. So I stepped up to bigger soft plastic to target the bass, dropshotting a 6" roboworm. Instead of the bass, I got a BIGGER bluegill. Those bluegills are pissed off little napoleon fish!
I'm also drop shotting rubber leg popper flies for trout right now. 😆 Central AZ so holdover trout stocked this past winter (or sometimes even older) are hanging out down there.
The pond i fish the most has a ton of slime on the bottom. Any lure that contacts the bottom instantly picks up a pound of slime and moss. Will a dropshot work in this case?
I’d stick with the Texas rig with a lighter weight or weightless. I fish a lake with similar conditions and I save the drop shot for when I’m in the kayak and just fish it vertically. From the bank it picks up the muck.
Anything that keeps the bait above that slime will work. I don’t agree that a TX rig is the best answer since that just buries the bait in the slime. Dropshot or weightless ( since that will sit on the slime and not get buried as badly) is my choice when dealing with slimy bottoms.
@@richardbossman9875 that’s why I recommended the weightless “Texas rig” aka ewg hook rigged weedless without the nose weight. When bank fishing a drop shot picks up a lot more vegetation than TX and gets snagged a lot easier.
Man, folks wanna dump on dropshot, but I’ll tell you this much-for all the money I spend in a year being a tackle junkie-little worms, flukes, and flatworm baits on a dropshot catch me more fish than anything else. It’s not my favorite technique, but it reliably produces fish. 20 pound braid, 8-10 pound fluoro leader, and rig it like Tim said. It produces fish. I liked the 5 inch Keitech shad impact in bluegill flash, but for some strange reason, they don’t make it in that size anymore.
Thanks Tim . Going tomarrow and if the bite gets tuff I will give it a try. I know you like your robot worms but have you tried the netbait t Mac for powershots. Works great. That tilapia color it's GRRRREAT !!!
My drop shot set is a Aldenaran BFS on a Megabass P5 Kasumi 6’11” with 15lb braid and an 8lb flouro leader. Love using a bait caster for drop shot. I plan on changing the rod to a P5 BFS rod when that are back in stock.
these days with all the great BFS options we have i completely stopped using spinning gear all together, dropshot on the baitcaster is the jam out here on the delta these days. starting to see it more and more.
Hey Tim, I would maybe call that first style bait a Flat or Spade tail because when I hear Paddletail I think swimbait. Also get a clip-on microphone because when you guy turn away from the camera it makes it hard to hear you
I consider myself an experienced salt water angler and still learning bass but I still don’t understand what a bait caster is used for or why you’d pick one over the other.
I think that answer will vary widely based on the angler's experience and area of the country they live in. I'm in Florida, and grew up fishing inshore saltwater, so spinning gear is a natural for me. I own up to MH power spinners, which I use till the baits get too heavy or the vegetation gets too thick. For tossing baits into heavy cover, I go to baitcasting, as that's where I find spinners usually struggle. Have I pulled fish out of the pads with spinning gear? Yes. Do I prefer to do it that way? No. Baitcasters have the extra backbone and muscle to get the fish out and headed my way before they can wrap me in the vegetation. Also, frogs are baitcasters for me; the technique involved in "walking" them comes easier to me with a baitcaster and braided line. I throw jigs a lot; lighter ones I use a MH spinner, heavier ones a MH or H baitcaster. Same for Texas rigs. Is that right for everyone? Goodness no..but it works for me, in the ponds I fish...almost exclusively from the bank. If I was in a boat, fishing Okeechobee or some of our other grassy lakes, my gear would probably be a lot different. Good luck out there!
Been seeing a lot of different ways to attach the hook to line on drop shot rigs like bobber stops,drop shot hooks with swivels, best knot to use. Why not use the old fashion catfish weights they are cheap and have a swivel to attach your line to?
Catfish weights are usually if not always made of lead which while cheap are less sensitive to bottom feel than lead. Truth be told though, if I were fishing areas I was always loosing weights I’d switch to lead since its main job to to just get the rig to the bottom and keep it there.
We have several videos about the differences in glasses, and we actually have our own. Here are the videos... ruclips.net/video/rbuUj6PIC8Y/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/e57v9e-gdDo/видео.html and here are our glasses: bit.ly/3cLH0kl
You know I've been listening here on RUclips about fishing and how to use this technique and to use this different technique and all that I have listened to by different people on RUclips they always come to this if I only had one technique to use this would be my number one that's from the Carolina rig to the drop shot and Carolina rig the spinnerbait the buzz bait the frog look I can go on and on and I guess I just want to know why do y'all say if I had one technique this would be the technique that I use it's not to say the other techniques won't work or you just comparing this technique that you are talking about right now is the one that you would use in any situation
I highly recommend a 1 1/2” tag end off the weight if there is any kind of slime in the water you’re fishing? It tends to slide off instead of grabbing onto!
I needed this one today. I spent 4 days on the lake this past weekend and the only bite I could buy was on a dropshot. I was using a 4.5 Missile Baits Quiver (orange and green pumpkin core) on a 1/0 EWG Texas rigged. Great info in this one. Thanks, Tim!
If the trouble you have is getting the hook to sit level then it helps some to run the tag end back down ( direction is important ) through the eye of the hook. The tension caused by pulling against the weight at the bottom should help rotate the hook up level. If you are pitching to cover though I wouldn’t worry too much since you’ll be using a bigger bait and hook most likely.
Also they make premade dropshot rigs where you just tie to it and then tie a stopper line for the weight, they keep the weight in the best position if you are trying to nose hook.
I don’t get it-and I’ve been fishing for 2 decades lol-why do certain people refer to spinning rods as “fairy sticks” ? Every professional fishermen has at LEAST a couple spinning rods on deck at any given time. And I also find it outrageously easier to get a solid skip under cover with a spinning as opposed to bait casting.
As a Florida fisherman I never understood that either... spinning tackle is used all day every day to catch big snook and reds. Just landed a 35 inch slob snook on a medium "fairy wand" with 15 pound braid this weekend...in a decent tide flow at that 🤷♂️ 🤔
Right? Exactly Some of my best bass have been caught on spinning setups when I’m throwing drop shots, 4-5 inch wacky worms, bitsy bug jigs, and light Texas rigs
Probably because they do not have our background and experience with spinning gear. Both spinners and baitcasters are essential bass fishing tools: proper tool, proper time. Good luck out there!
Most people don’t fish heavy enough spinning tackle to deal with big bass trying to bury in cover. I think BFS is more of a “fairy wand” than your average MH spinning outfit but most people don’t fish spinning gear heavier than medium for some reason.
Definitely not my favorite way to catch them, mainly because I can never get the line to lay flat on a spinning reel and am constantly dealing with a tangled mess
After spooling your line, take a good swivel and tie about 1' loop of line to one side of swivel. Then hang it on a fence, tree limb or what ever. Tie your line to the other side of swivel, then walk your line off about 3/4 of your spool. Pull snug and reel as you walk towards the swivel for about 15' . This is very important, let your line go slack. (That's when the swivel spins) . Pull snug and repeat all the way in every 15'. This always works! While fishing always close your bail with your hand then tug line tight. (Make it a habit). Please pass this tip on and save someone from frustration.
I know a lot of guys don’t like to deal with connection knots, however in my experience of you run a braid mainline you cut out a lot of the issues. Just make sure you spool it with some tension. I tie a double uni/uni-uni whatever you want to call it. Simple effective and most importantly easy to retie on the water. I run 10lb braid to 6-8lb floro leader atleast twice as long as the water clarity (not including tag end that will vary)
One issue dropshots cause is line twist, you can eliminate most if not all of that by making sure the bait is rigged straight and by adding a swivel above your hook. This is probably why you are having issues ( I’m assuming it’s only when dropshoting).
Always a pleasure watching your videos, my catch ratio has went through the roof because of you 2 guys, I have completely upgraded my entire arsenal and it has payed off big time, I’m 65 and feel like a kid again thank y’all sooo much! Forever in y’all’s debt! Love you guys!
Thank you for a video explaining drop shot fishing with a baitcasting reel! Beautifully covered from "fairy" stick to a heavy casting rod. Been looking for this video. I knew you had done it but I couldn't find it until now. Thank you. Everything else is on RUclips is a 3 minute video with little info. Yours is above and beyond as always. Thank you!
Thumbs up to pay respect for each item lost off the boat.
I learned about the Drop Shot a few years ago, and this rig has caught me nearly 150 fish so far this year!! 2022 has been the best fishibg year for me ever !! Accredit a lot of that to you both at Tacticalbassin & the person who put me on you guys David Haney from Atlanta, Georgia.
Would like to see some spinner chatterbait footage too. Peace ✌
Always love the drop shot, and of course love you guys!
I love the Drop shot!🎣
I really want to get into the dropshot. I got some zman finesse shadz to try out with it. I have a lot of dropshot baits that I use for a mojo rig so I figure it should be something I use more.
The dropshot has been KILLING for me this season!! So glad I put the time in to build my confidence in this technique.
Great content as always!!
Awesome vid! What I would love to see during the vid is how you tie on the dropshot weight and rigging. Love your vods, keep it up!
Great video. Tied up a drop shot on an extra baitcaster I had lying around and put on a sweet beaver. Had a big hit in a lily pad patch but never checked my drag and whiffed on the hook set. It is fun and never would have thought to try it with a baitcaste
I’ve had great success power shotting a roboworm this summer. Very overlooked technique. Thank you for all the tips.
I like this take on the drop shot
Wow guy's great video. Here in the very north eastern part of Tn this is going to knock it out of the park. Thanks
Definitely learned something new today.
I remember fishing a dropshot in a club tournament practice day and even being my first time using it and rigging it with non-typical terminal tackle I caught over a dozen fish off of one rocky hump. Just yesterday I broke out the DS again on my home water and caught my PB dropshot fish of 2 1/2 lbs.
Never thought about putting a drop shot on a baitcaster but I will definitely be giving this a try thanks.
AWESOME VIDEO!! I need some major help with my flipping & pitching!!!
Great video!!👊🏻Very instructional!!👍🏻Learned different ways to present it, Thank you!! Stay Safe & God Bless!!
Thank you. Will try it this weekend
I combined one of your other videos with this one. When rigging the soft plastic, I use your fluke technique: downsize the hook and use a CPS in the nose. Incredible action in the most subtle of currents.
I’ve been debating using a Powershot or “Bubba Shot” with one of the Berkeley powerbait Gillie. It will look like a suspended bluegill/sunfish.
I just tried the "Bubba Shot" this weekend. No dice but I feel the fish were pretty finicky but it definitely passes the eye test.
Bambuie Bear Heavy Cover Grass Shots are the best tungsten drop shot weights to use for fishing a power shot.
Power dropping I like it! It took me months to learn how to use a baitcaster and I can't stand using a spinning reel now. Power dropping 😎💪👍. Awesome video, tight lines 🎣
I just started learning the drop shot technique and so far haven't been able to catch one yet. A learning process for me and I'll keep working on it.
Try dead sticking it or slow WAY down
@@dillonkaradunis3119 thanks I’ll give that a try as well.
Maybe try the length of the weight /worm 1-2 foot depending on the bottom you might have to do like 3-4
Thank you Tim.
Nose hook bait from underneath , back toward tip of worm (KVD style) still get the action plus weedless….also you can cast a drop shot on 10lb. Line out in deep water on a Baitcaster… works well. Spin cast works great out deep for straight drop/ target fishing , but 10 lb. Casting shot on baitcaster fun to fish!
Love all the videos man!!!
Good stuff man! Definitely gonna give the drop shot a go
Hit the spots on West Point Reservoir in 20 ft yesterday on the drop shot. 4" morning dawn Roboworm.
does this work for dirty water? sub 6 inches of clarity?
I started Drop shotting again for the first time in maybe 10 years. Holy cow does it get Bit non stop... by bluegill. Landed me a 7" gill on a 6" Roboworm last week. Hell yeah! lol
I had a similar experience this weekend! Spotted bass and bluegill everywhere and I was throwing live bait that kept getting destroyed by smaller bluegill. So I stepped up to bigger soft plastic to target the bass, dropshotting a 6" roboworm. Instead of the bass, I got a BIGGER bluegill. Those bluegills are pissed off little napoleon fish!
I'm also drop shotting rubber leg popper flies for trout right now. 😆 Central AZ so holdover trout stocked this past winter (or sometimes even older) are hanging out down there.
do you ever use the spin shot, swivel hook ? if you do our don't why
The pond i fish the most has a ton of slime on the bottom. Any lure that contacts the bottom instantly picks up a pound of slime and moss. Will a dropshot work in this case?
If you use one of the slimmer drop shot weights I think it would work reasonably well
I’d stick with the Texas rig with a lighter weight or weightless. I fish a lake with similar conditions and I save the drop shot for when I’m in the kayak and just fish it vertically. From the bank it picks up the muck.
Anything that keeps the bait above that slime will work. I don’t agree that a TX rig is the best answer since that just buries the bait in the slime. Dropshot or weightless ( since that will sit on the slime and not get buried as badly) is my choice when dealing with slimy bottoms.
@@richardbossman9875 that’s why I recommended the weightless “Texas rig” aka ewg hook rigged weedless without the nose weight. When bank fishing a drop shot picks up a lot more vegetation than TX and gets snagged a lot easier.
Another option is to use a float which will keep your bait suspended off the bottom without dragging a weight through the muck
I know you guys have had to fish the free rig. Would like to see a video on the baits you use and how you fish a free rig.
Thank you Tim 👏👏🔥
Great video
i just caught a 12-13in black crappie on one while fishing for bass.(crappie are usually 3-5in near me)
Love the vid!!! Good job
Is it bad to tie a leader floro to floro? I have my light worm rod with 15lb floro, but was thinking about putting on like a 10lb leader
What size Bellows Gill do you like to drop shot? There’s a lot of sizes? Hope to get a response but I know you guys could be busy.
Man, folks wanna dump on dropshot, but I’ll tell you this much-for all the money I spend in a year being a tackle junkie-little worms, flukes, and flatworm baits on a dropshot catch me more fish than anything else.
It’s not my favorite technique, but it reliably produces fish. 20 pound braid, 8-10 pound fluoro leader, and rig it like Tim said. It produces fish. I liked the 5 inch Keitech shad impact in bluegill flash, but for some strange reason, they don’t make it in that size anymore.
Thanks Tim . Going tomarrow and if the bite gets tuff I will give it a try. I know you like your robot worms but have you tried the netbait t Mac for powershots. Works great. That tilapia color it's GRRRREAT !!!
They have talked a lot about the T-Mac in some other videos.
I want to come fish with you guys! It would be a dream come true! My best friend lives in Lancing Tennessee!!!
gonna try this thur
My drop shot set is a Aldenaran BFS on a Megabass P5 Kasumi 6’11” with 15lb braid and an 8lb flouro leader. Love using a bait caster for drop shot. I plan on changing the rod to a P5 BFS rod when that are back in stock.
these days with all the great BFS options we have i completely stopped using spinning gear all together, dropshot on the baitcaster is the jam out here on the delta these days. starting to see it more and more.
Hey Tim, I would maybe call that first style bait a Flat or Spade tail because when I hear Paddletail I think swimbait.
Also get a clip-on microphone because when you guy turn away from the camera it makes it hard to hear you
I consider myself an experienced salt water angler and still learning bass but I still don’t understand what a bait caster is used for or why you’d pick one over the other.
I think that answer will vary widely based on the angler's experience and area of the country they live in. I'm in Florida, and grew up fishing inshore saltwater, so spinning gear is a natural for me. I own up to MH power spinners, which I use till the baits get too heavy or the vegetation gets too thick. For tossing baits into heavy cover, I go to baitcasting, as that's where I find spinners usually struggle. Have I pulled fish out of the pads with spinning gear? Yes. Do I prefer to do it that way? No. Baitcasters have the extra backbone and muscle to get the fish out and headed my way before they can wrap me in the vegetation. Also, frogs are baitcasters for me; the technique involved in "walking" them comes easier to me with a baitcaster and braided line. I throw jigs a lot; lighter ones I use a MH spinner, heavier ones a MH or H baitcaster. Same for Texas rigs. Is that right for everyone? Goodness no..but it works for me, in the ponds I fish...almost exclusively from the bank. If I was in a boat, fishing Okeechobee or some of our other grassy lakes, my gear would probably be a lot different. Good luck out there!
Caught 7 yesterday on ole trusty dropshot!!
That was a good day! It’s been tough out here in SoCal. Can’t even get bit on the trusty drop shot.
The spinning rod you are using is not the same one you link to. An old model?
Why not recommend the OG jackall cross tail shad - not the net bait rip-off.😢
Can this work in dirty water under 3 inches of clarity
Like a video but that heavy drop shot rig we called the Bubba rig been doing that for years on Lake Fork
Been seeing a lot of different ways to attach the hook to line on drop shot rigs like bobber stops,drop shot hooks with swivels, best knot to use. Why not use the old fashion catfish weights they are cheap and have a swivel to attach your line to?
Catfish weights are usually if not always made of lead which while cheap are less sensitive to bottom feel than lead. Truth be told though, if I were fishing areas I was always loosing weights I’d switch to lead since its main job to to just get the rig to the bottom and keep it there.
Could you do a video on sunglasses? And what ones you like and the difference in the color of lenses etc.
We have several videos about the differences in glasses, and we actually have our own. Here are the videos... ruclips.net/video/rbuUj6PIC8Y/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/e57v9e-gdDo/видео.html and here are our glasses: bit.ly/3cLH0kl
What hook would you use if you wanted to do an exposed hook on a 6" worm?
#2 mosquito light from owner
İs it possible to use drop shot at sea with bigger baits and weight?
They changed the stumpy crush to junior crush?
Year round there always a spinning rod with a drop shot tied on cause it catches them when nothing else works
I need me a few cali clips
This is all well and good but when is the new Skeeter making its debut 😁.
Rip to a the things lost of the side of the boat lol 😆
Cali clip: ✌️
Tim: 😧
Champs 🏆
You know I've been listening here on RUclips about fishing and how to use this technique and to use this different technique and all that I have listened to by different people on RUclips they always come to this if I only had one technique to use this would be my number one that's from the Carolina rig to the drop shot and Carolina rig the spinnerbait the buzz bait the frog look I can go on and on and I guess I just want to know why do y'all say if I had one technique this would be the technique that I use it's not to say the other techniques won't work or you just comparing this technique that you are talking about right now is the one that you would use in any situation
I highly recommend a 1 1/2” tag end off the weight if there is any kind of slime in the water you’re fishing? It tends to slide off instead of grabbing onto!
I needed this one today. I spent 4 days on the lake this past weekend and the only bite I could buy was on a dropshot. I was using a 4.5 Missile Baits Quiver (orange and green pumpkin core) on a 1/0 EWG Texas rigged. Great info in this one. Thanks, Tim!
I’d rather drag a C-Rig any day. I had a Nrx/ci4 combo & sold it cause it just collected dust
If I ever make it down there with my boat maybe we could do a 2 v 2 😆
Do not use a drop shot. Your thumb will hurt from catching to many fish.
And 8/10 of them gonna be 12in 🤣🤣🤣
I have hardly ever tried throwing a dropshot and as such have never caught a fish on one. My biggest problem is just getting the hook to sit right.
If the trouble you have is getting the hook to sit level then it helps some to run the tag end back down ( direction is important ) through the eye of the hook. The tension caused by pulling against the weight at the bottom should help rotate the hook up level. If you are pitching to cover though I wouldn’t worry too much since you’ll be using a bigger bait and hook most likely.
Also they make premade dropshot rigs where you just tie to it and then tie a stopper line for the weight, they keep the weight in the best position if you are trying to nose hook.
We hillbillies fished this method 30-40-50 years ago 😂
Who is this guy!?
SPINNING or BAITCASTING for DROP SHOT?
I bought tons of flat worms, and still only throw 4.5" roboworm straight tails on nose hooks. I don't get the hype.
And this technique is best for people on a boat !! Again nothing for the shore?
Did you see the bank fishing video they did a few days ago? ruclips.net/video/5Eb0n74TbGo/видео.html
I don’t get it-and I’ve been fishing for 2 decades lol-why do certain people refer to spinning rods as “fairy sticks” ?
Every professional fishermen has at LEAST a couple spinning rods on deck at any given time. And I also find it outrageously easier to get a solid skip under cover with a spinning as opposed to bait casting.
The "bassmaster" guys think the only way to catch a fish is to concus them with your hookset.
As a Florida fisherman I never understood that either... spinning tackle is used all day every day to catch big snook and reds. Just landed a 35 inch slob snook on a medium "fairy wand" with 15 pound braid this weekend...in a decent tide flow at that 🤷♂️ 🤔
Right? Exactly
Some of my best bass have been caught on spinning setups when I’m throwing drop shots, 4-5 inch wacky worms, bitsy bug jigs, and light Texas rigs
Probably because they do not have our background and experience with spinning gear. Both spinners and baitcasters are essential bass fishing tools: proper tool, proper time. Good luck out there!
Most people don’t fish heavy enough spinning tackle to deal with big bass trying to bury in cover. I think BFS is more of a “fairy wand” than your average MH spinning outfit but most people don’t fish spinning gear heavier than medium for some reason.
I feel like those who call it a "fairy wond". Have also never won a fishing tournament, let alone anything. Lol
Prefer screw locks here to save me some money on plastics.
Oh goodness everytime I watch one of your videos I’m out $100
1st
Definitely not my favorite way to catch them, mainly because I can never get the line to lay flat on a spinning reel and am constantly dealing with a tangled mess
What line are you using??
Check out a video on how to properly apply line to a spinning reel? You may be coming off the spool in the wrong direction?
After spooling your line, take a good swivel and tie about 1' loop of line to one side of swivel. Then hang it on a fence, tree limb or what ever. Tie your line to the other side of swivel, then walk your line off about 3/4 of your spool. Pull snug and reel as you walk towards the swivel for about 15' . This is very important, let your line go slack. (That's when the swivel spins) . Pull snug and repeat all the way in every 15'. This always works! While fishing always close your bail with your hand then tug line tight. (Make it a habit). Please pass this tip on and save someone from frustration.
I know a lot of guys don’t like to deal with connection knots, however in my experience of you run a braid mainline you cut out a lot of the issues. Just make sure you spool it with some tension. I tie a double uni/uni-uni whatever you want to call it. Simple effective and most importantly easy to retie on the water. I run 10lb braid to 6-8lb floro leader atleast twice as long as the water clarity (not including tag end that will vary)
One issue dropshots cause is line twist, you can eliminate most if not all of that by making sure the bait is rigged straight and by adding a swivel above your hook. This is probably why you are having issues ( I’m assuming it’s only when dropshoting).
If you're looking for a great dropshot hook for nosehooking in open water get the Decoy shot rig Worm10.