A-Rob

1 thing I would add to your soft plastic fishing, is balancing that slower presentation with a fast moving bait like a crank or spinnerbait (which you said you were into a bit). If the bite is on, you can catch more fish faster, cover more water with this option. But soft plastics are great, super versatile, ie snapping a tube to dead sticking a senko

I'd go strike king or bomber cranks of each depth chrome and blue colors. Worms, Tubes, Lizard, Creature (ie brush hog), Senko. Can't go wrong. Whatever spinnerbaits, I catch a lot on booyah but I know they aren't the best, but for the price they are good, always on sale for 2-3 bucks at BP Topwater: spro or snag proof or whatever hollow body, buzz bait, gambler buzz frog, those are the 3 I use. Jigs: booyah, strike king, I have no complaints with them they catch fish and are decenlty priced. thats what I fish, and I haven't had problems with those brands, and I'm poor so I they are all less expensive.

Try a ribbontail. Yum Paddletail worms are unreal. I heard some pro say: Fish the straight tail worms on a flat bottom, and a ribbontail when there is more cover. (Paraphrased)

topwater for largies over heavy cover is awesome/fun. For penetrating deeper weeds, in my humble opinion, the most hassle-free (weedless) and effective bass catcher is a texas rigged tube with whatever weight needed in bullet sinker form. It is my go to. the hook will sit against the tube, you don't even need to hide the point back into the plastic. Bass love tubes. Try black/blue or a realistic green/brown.

I have had green and browns work for me dude give them a try

in ziplock bags so they don't tangle/dry out and in the front pocket of my tacklebag

get some worms, brush hogs, beavers, swimbaits, and anything else you want Be careful it is a slippery slope you are on!

I agree, tie it up yourself. To save time and not waste time out on the water. Bring a rod with it rigged up on land, or just decide to spend one afternoon with your 1 rod rigged up carolina and just spend the day practising it. Once you get the hang of tying it up, it takes 1 minute.

wait a minute...ziplock bags aren't cheap, why are you mixing them anyways? why not just throw it in separate bags?

Colors will run not always bad haha I got some nice colors by accident once in a while, but if you want green pumpkin you don't have it b/c it'll be green pumpkin purple haha

haven't used them, but brush hogs work, don't know why this wont, looks pretty nice to me!

I often switch any treble that doesn't catch my skin when I gently slide my finger over it, any 'slippery' feeling is dull in my books and I will replace. I also hate when the hooks rust! VMC are the ones I'm using....sure sets for this season.

I like the hollow bodied with skirts whenever I am fishing over heavier cover, like a pile of pads. But if I am fishing more open water and just trying to cover water around the edges of cover, or cane I will use a yum buzz frog or a gambler buzz toad.

Roadwarrior's links are awesome. I fish them texas rigged pretty much all of the time with as little weight as possible with so much success I rarely wacky rig them haha.

1/2oz tracks the best for me. Sometimes I go down to a 3/8 oz for a smaller profile for smallmouths. But it sometimes rolls to one side or pulls out of the water too much

....or on a dark/cloudy day

chartreuse is great on spinnerbaits/cranks for me It is a special color b/c smallmouths attack it...especially when the water is churned up a bit

I have done well with Wave in general, I'm sure their tubes will be great for 99 cents

Baby bass (green and pearl white)

I keep them all in 360 boxes, or some variation of that size. I just organize them all by type: worms, tubes/creatures, cranks, bigboy lures (jigs and swimbaits) I keep my spinnerbaits separate in ziplock bags to try to keep them from drying out and they don't fit in my boxes.

I use a black with blue fleck zoom super chunk trailer.

5" Gambler Dinger 4.75" Zoom Finesse worm 4.75-5" Zoom Shaky worm the gamblers aren't used too much but they are awesome.

I find that new largemouth lures are always being cranked out while smallies just keep to the basic couple lures, tube, senko, spinnerbait, crank, etc. Anyways, I usually find some cool creature baits, like a 4 or 4.5" brush hog that I can carolina rig for smallies. Or heavy spinnerbaits that hide the weight to keep a small profile for smallies. Shaky head craze works great for them to. Any new dropshot lure. .. Thats basically the "new lures" I know about.

haha it seems every grandpa has a lure they swear by (that usually looks strange).

a 5/0 will work. I find (nothing new here) that they pick it up by the head and the hook will be in its mouth, it doesn't matter too much b/w the 5/0 and 6/0 in my opinion.