Capt. Mike Gallo has been a charter guide for over 25 years, and I’ve known him and fished with him through most of those years. For as long as I’ve known him, Gallo has always been on a quest to improve his fishing skills and tactics. That drive to “build a better mousetrap” has made him an excellent fisherman; one who is able to read the water and conditions and calculate where his best options are for finding fish. It has also generated in him a desire to try new things, to improve old things and to adapt different fishing techniques to our brackish waters, always hoping to improve his results.
One example is Gallo’s inline drop-shot rig, which he feels is especially suited for our wintertime deeper water fishing.
“We’ve always had three basic choices when fishing deeper water for winter trout,” Gallo said. “Either a heavier jighead with plastic or a live or dead shrimp, or a sliding sinker rig, or an adoption of the old red snapper rigs, which we call a drop-shot rig.”
Strengths and weaknesses
- The heavy jig’s strength is its simplicity. Its weakness is it can hook the bottom almost as often as it hooks fish.
- The sliding sinker rig is also simple but puts the weight of the sinker between you and the fish, leading to a lot of false hook-sets and missed hook-sets.
- The red snapper style drop-shot rig does have several variations, but all basically have an “arm” with the hook tied on it extended from the main line with the weight on it, which often wraps and tangles, and still reduces your sensitivity to the lighter bite of winter trout.
“The better solution is something I adopted from freshwater anglers,” Gallo said. “An inline drop-shot rig that has no “arms” or “legs” to reduce sensitivity, but instead keeps the hook attached to a single line.”
Inline bottom rig tips
- Whichever hook you choose, always use a short shank hook.
- Any of the hook choices can be used with live or dead shrimp, or soft plastic hooked through the nose (as pictured).
- Gallo said braided line on your reel also increases sensitivity but should not be tied directly to your hook. He uses a 3-foot No. 12 fluorocarbon leader between his braided line and the hook, tied with a uni-knot.
As for good potential spots to try your inline rig, Gallo said any of the usual winter hotspots; places with structure on the bottom, whether bridges, rocks, bulkheads, walls or reefs, are your best bets.
Three variations of inline drop-shot rigs
(Left to right) 1. Tie the main line to a No. 2 Octopus hook and tie another line to the same hook (about 18 inches) to a 1-ounce bank sinker. 2. Uses an inline hook instead of the Octopus hook, tied the same way. 3. Uses No. 1 spin-shot hook, which has a swivel on each side, tied the same way.
Capt. Mike Gallo’s Angling Adventures of Louisiana can be reached at 504-259-3474, aaofla.com, or the Facebook page: Angling Adventures of Louisiana.
