Droppers/stingers or not

[dfauverii]

  What works better for you?  Spoons and such with droppers and your bait hooked there or right off the spoon or whatever?  I love a dropper myself but have done well at times without.  I am thinking of trying it with a chubby darter this winter.  That may sound strange but it comes from something that my brother and i did this summer while bass fishing Renner res.  We fish 6 inch rapalas alot but somehow, on the same weekend but separately, we both ran about a 4-6 inch dropper off the back of our rapalas.  I was running gulp off that, he ran just a twister tail.  The difference was unbelievable on bass not to mention we started pulling in alot of nice gills and sunfish off of the dropper.  It really seemed to turn the bass on. 

[Dorado]

I have used both, usually end up taking them off after multiple tangles, foul hooking the lures etc.

Somtimes they can make or break a day however.  I have had days when every fish comes up and looks at the lure (on the flasher) and leaves.  I have had luck getting them to bite (sometimes) by adding a tiny ice fly as a dropper below a good sized chubby darter.  The rational being the big lure brings the fish in and the ice fly seals the deal.

I certainly does not always work, but is something to try when the fish are stubborn....

[icing_perch]

It depends on the species you are fishing for. I predominately fish for perch here in MT and have success with both.  In deeper water I normally start with a buckshot spoon tipped with maggots or perch eyes and let the fish dictate what I need to do.  if they are hitting the spoon by itself I will stick to it almost all day.  But if they are coming up and looking and not biting I will switch to a Hali with the dropper chain and maggots.  For trout I rarely use a dropper, I normally just downsize my lure and just take longer to get down to them.  Some lakes I fish for perch you will get fish looking all day at a spoon but rarely hitting and I will go to a horizontal bait like a diamond jig or genz worm and do better.  Fished a tourney and my boy and I caught about 300 perch in 6 hours fishing nothing but diamond jigs tipped with maggots.  just continue to change presentations until you find something that works.

[Kinkyline]

   What are you calling a diamond jig?...just curious.

[icing_perch]

They are made by Custom Jig and Spins.  they also make shrimpos, ratsos and rat finkees.