Drop Shotin' Lake Oroville

By Gary Watts

Last weekend I fished a tournament at N. California's Lake Oroville. Some of you probably read about this lake in Bassmaster, as it was one of the stops on the BASS Western Tournament Trail.

Oroville is home to a great spotted bass population as well as Largemouth and Smallmouth. To win on Oroville you need to find the Largemouth or some good quality spots. We had pre-fished the lake Thursday in the rain with a great topwarter bite going on. I was also able to catch 5 fish on a jig that would have gone almost 15 lbs between them. Friday gave way to partly cloudy skies and a tough bite. Saturday was no different.

We decided to try for the good bag of Largemouth on tournament day, hoping the jig bite was on, as those jig fish came from between 10-30 feet. We got one good largemouth in the morning and by noon weren't feeling to good with the jig pattern. Our back up pattern of throwing 4 inch worms on a darter head wasn't working either. We decided to go with a technique that neither myself or my partner had used in a tournament…Drop Shotting. Knowing that prior tournaments had been won using this technique on the main body of the lake we were off. We started on a small main lake point in 32 feet of water. We rigged the setup with a 4 inch worm, wacky style.

For those who are not familiar with this let me explain, the drop shot is set up with the weight at the bottom and the hook tied directly to the main line approximately 2-3 feet above the weight. You can use the size hook you feel comfortable with. You can rig the worm either texas style or wacky rig it (hooking the worm in the center so it hangs on either side of the hook). My partner threw his in and I started to apply some sunscreen…no sooner had I gotten my hands full sunscreen did he yell "get the net, got a good one". From that point on It was almost a fish on every cast. We caught a limit (5 fish, 13 inch minimum) in less than a hour and culled fish for the last two hours of the tournament to end up with 10.04 lbs, good enough for 4th place.

How did we do it? When we dropped the drop shot rig down, we just jigged it vertically (referred to as shakin' in the west) next to the boat in 31-34 feet of water. The vertical jigging combined with the wacky rigged worm was what it took to turn on the Lake Oroville spotted bass.

Next time you go to the lake and the bite is tough or you want to try something different, don't forget about the drop shot rig, it could turn a slow day into a great day! Please remember to practice catch and release and be sure to deflate the air bladder on any deep caught bass, we'll see you on the water.

Gary Watts
Pro-Staffer