When the boats are running and the sun is hot, you can still count on getting bites with this efficient finesse rig

By now, most bass anglers are familiar with the drop-shot rig. Two decades have passed since the tactic first hit the fishing scene. The drop-shot’s origins are in Japan, where finesse-fishing gurus perfected the technique and later shared it with West Coast anglers facing tough fishing conditions in the clear waters of California. The drop-shot quickly answered the prayers of bass anglers struggling to get a bite. Then the drop-shot moved east, proving its effectiveness through the country’s midsection and into the Great Lakes. It was here that the drop-shot, which allows bottom contact even in the roughest waters, gained steam among smallmouth bass anglers. Personally, I fished the drop-shot rig to over a quarter-million dollars in tournament earnings during my tenure as a competitive angler on Lake Erie in the early 2000s. Then, nothing came close to the rig’s effectiveness for big-water bronzebacks.