Legal or Not?

[Rippinlip]

I was wondering if a person was pre-fishing some waters for bucket-mouths if the following set-up is legal? I do know that using multiple lures on one line is illegal, except for some panfish jigs. Say a guy wants to cover the bottom and about 2-3 feet off or more, can a person use a drop shot rig and then use a jig for the bottom weight and remove the hook off of the jig??????

[Guest]

Funny you should mention that...

I posed almost an identical question a year ago. I live in Iowa, but do the greatest share of my fishing (mostly bass) in Ottertail & Becker Counties.

At home, the drop shot/jig rig is a common set-up for me, but I leave the hook on the jig. What I see is that the bigger fish come on the jig anyway, so unless I'm in a tournament where I'm looking for numbers to begin with, I don't see any real advantage to the "system".

Considering that you're most likely going to utilize this type of setup on a deep weedline (would this be correct?), the rig would most likely hang weeds more often and reduce your efficiency. If it were strictly in the rocks (especially for smallies) it might be worth a shot, but how are you going to know which lure the hit is on? It would stink to miss fish that were hitting the hookless jig that would have hit whatever vertical presentation you'd have pitched anyway.

With any vertical presentation, my contention is that if you get it (and keep it) in their face, and they are even the lease bit active, they are probably going to eat whatever it is you put in front of them.

FLB