Chris Zaldain shares one of his guarded secrets with a drop shot and finesse swimbaits for catching bass on rough spots
Thin, wiggly worms, soft stickbaits and little goby imitators are the workhorses of the dropshotting world, but when California pro Chris Zaldain heads north in the summertime to chase big brown bass, his number one tool on the end of his spinning rod is a small swimbait. There are times when he’ll fish them horizontally on a jig head for sight feeding smallmouth, but even when he’s “video gaming” them on a dropshot rig in a cone around or under the boat, it’s his favorite choice for catching tournament-winning limits.
“It’s a technique that I call ‘drop swimming,’ and it’s great in clean water,” Zaldain said. “Instead of dropping it straight down, I’ll make a short pitch cast, much like I normally would with a swimbait. I’ll let it hit the bottom and then slowly reel it so it ticks its way across the rocks.”
