While showing Kevin VanDam on Bassmaster Live this morning, Mark Zona mentioned the rare sight of VanDam using a drop shot rig. Zona noted that when KVD goes to the drop shot, he's using it to get a school fired up.
If you happened to be in Jason Christie's seminar at the Bassmaster University tent yesterday, you heard the same tactic. Christie mentioned that he always keeps a spinning rod with a drop shot rigged on his boat deck at Kentucky Lake.
"I use a spinning rod to get a school fired up," Christie said. "If I can just get one of them to bite, then I can come back with a crankbait. If I show them something light and small that they haven't seen, sometimes that will trigger a strike."
Christie prefers a heavier weight than normal on the drop shot, usually a half-ounce, so he can make a long cast on the exact line of sight that he'll use when he follows up with the crankbait. And he prefers a bait called a Kill Shot, which is basically a small flat-tail grub. If you don't have one, you can cut a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver, or similar lure, in half and achieve the same look.