This morning I had a couple of decent bass in the Conde del Guadalhorce reservoir at El Chorro. It is a long time since I had a good bass and they were taken on successive casts. Those big bass seem to be like London buses. There is an interminable wait before two of them turn up at the same time!
Today I ditched my purist fly fishing approach for a pragmatic reason: I catch few bass on the fly these days and they generally not very good fish. The lunkers seem to like a bit more depth than can be covered well with a floating line and I don´t want to go fooling around with sinking fly lines. And so today, instead of the fly rod I used a little spinning rod and fished drop shot.
I started off in the float tube and I was full of optimism but there was nothing cooking. After about 40 minutes I snagged up and lost my lure and so paddled back to shore to where I had hidden my fishing back and I tied up another rig.
I figured I might give it a cast or two from the shore and, somewhat to my surprise I hooked and landed a good fish. After taking photo of my first drop shot bass and letting him go again I thought of returning to my float tube which was hauled up on the shore. I figured it might be worth another exploratory cast before embarking. That turned out to be a good call because the lure was taken almost straight away and soon I was looking at bass number two. This fish was larger than the first.
Drop shot fishing seems to be very effective. The lure is presented close to the bottom and can be made to wiggle very enticingly. The bass certainly seem to like it!
After I had released the second fish and had a few more speculative casts from the shore I went out in the float tube and caught three more but these were relatively modest fish the kind I am more familiar with.
Drop shotting seems to work! This was fish number one.
I´m used to fishing nymphs on a size 14 hook so these lures seem huge to me. Black bass have enormous gobs and can engulf big lures easily.
This is black bass number two. Once at the dinner table my brother Sean looked at my hands and said “those aren´t your hands! Those are the hands of a gorilla!” I can see what he means when I look at this photo! This is the best bass I have had for quite some time and so I was a very happy bunny!
fishydreams 
Nice bass Paul. The drop shot tactic certainly seems to work for you and interesting that it works well off the bank. I use the drop shot at times when trout and grayling Euro nymph fly fishing in pools with very snaggy river beds, or for getting down to fish in deep plunge pools below weirs and falls where fish hide during low flows, Instead of using two bead head nymphs I replace the point fly with a few inches of weaker mono and attach a split shot. I can bounce this along the bottom without getting hooked up and the dropper fly fishes nicely a few inches above the snags. If I do get hung up a steady pull will see the shot slide off or the weak link will break and I get my nymph back. I hate loosing my nymphs on the riverbed!
Hi Brian. Yeah I used split shot too and it saved me on a couple of occasions when I snagged up and the split shot were lost. It´s a new kind of fishing to me but the presentation is really good and the fly or lure is just where it needs to be. I must admit it was a lot of fun!
Well done Paul: dropshot is deadly…
It seems to be! It is really direct and I know that the lure spends most of the time where it needs to be! We must do a bit of tubing on El Chorro the next time you´re over.
Certainly: will be a while, but would love to.