MIbassyaker

Your rod should say on it somewhere what lure weight range is best for it, usually right above the reel . The max is probably around 1/2oz. If you want to fish a chatterbait or spinnerbait, stick to 1/4oz, as they are actually heavier than listed, especially when you put a trailer on them. Bigger ones will also have heavier hooks that are better suited for heavier baitcasting rods. If you just want a get a small variety of newbie tackle to cover the bases for starters, and that you could fish well on your spinning rod, I would get these 5 rigs: 1. 3" or 4" curly tail grubs & 1/8oz ball jig heads 2. Wacky rig: 5" senko or other stick worm and finesse/wacky hooks 3. Texas rig: 6" or 7" striaght tail or ribbon-tail worm, 1/8oz bullet weights, and 3/0 worm hooks 4. 1/4oz spinnerbait 5. A 1/4oz top water popper like the Rebel Pop-R or Booyah Boss Pop

Rockford, eh? I'm not sure there is a wrong answer, but I like amber, pumpkin, and other light brown-ish colors. Check out this DNR poster: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/crayfish.posterDNR_522337_7.pdf Lots of O. propinquus & O. virilis in the Grand River watershed.

Congrats! I caught my first bass almost 30 years ago and still remember it vividly.

Where do you live? In my area, a 5lb bass might be 10 years old, and maybe older in waters with a lower-quality environment. In small public waters of the kind I fish, which are typically a few dozen acres, it's a tall order for a catchable bass to live that long without being harvested by somebody eventually (or killed from improper handling at some point). There actually may not be more than one or two bass over 5lb in some of my haunts, and I am lucky if I catch more bass over 4lb in a summer than I can count on one hand.

Biospawn Exoswim 6th sense Curve 55 Booyah Prank Bagley Spintail Some of the Berkley Maxscent line (lunch worm, creature hawg, kingtail)

is there any color a smallmouth won't attack? The seem less picky to me even than Largemouth.

Not gonna work with tournaments, but start early or stay late.

most typical size is the 1.5. The silent ones you can get anywhere, while the rattling version is a BPS exclusive (although I'm not sure the difference matters much). Most colors work most of the time, in most places, but I like any sunfish/bluegill or craw patterns for my waters, as I have no shad where I fish (does it matter? I don't know, but I have my superstitions like everyone else). If you fish muddy or low visibility water, the firetiger or the chartreuse with black back are good choices.

Same as my picks, except for E...I'm going with Alton Sr. He also has a good history on grand, and frequently punches above his ownership level.

I have been using a menace grub too for crawdad-ish chatterbaiting, but there are some interesting choices listed here I may try. Thanks.

The reason people assume its the lure is because the lure is a concrete thing you can point to that either caught fish or didn't. It took me an embarassingly-long time to understand the importance of location over the lure, but once I did, my success went way up.

Oh yeah! I can use that! I don't really have ledges, but I do have some areas where getting a big worm, craw or creature down on a stand up head should clean up.

Sigh. I went out a month ago at the peak of a short warm spell and found some open water with temps in the high 30s/low 40s. Made a few casts from shore. Felt good, caught nothing, went home. Promptly got busy again, and will probably be too busy to go anywhere until the end of the month. So here I am, watching air temps hover around 40-45 the last several weeks, hoping it doesn't get too warm too fast before I'm able to get out again. And we got more snow last night. Yay?

Seriously??!! I have never experienced this -- now I'm (stupidly) curious. I think you need to experiment with maxscent and report back with results. Inquiring minds want to know.

1. go weightless first, switch to weighted if necessary. 2. I would not worry about pegging. Free-sliding weights are best most of the time, while pegging is better in specific situations, like vertical presentations in heavy cover. 3. It is very hard to put into words precisely what strike-detection is like. often it is a distinct tap. Sometimes it is just a mushy resistance. Sometimes it is a sudden loss of resistance. Sometimes it is purely visual -- just line movement. Remember, hooksets are free. You only get better with practice. Mobility: I know it is time to move when I have given a cast or three to each piece of cover or area, and have covered the top, middle and bottom of the water column. Once I catch one or two, I narrow-down and try to repeat the bait/speed/depth/cover type whenever I move.

There is no need to feel bad about legal harvest. If keeping the bass was not legal, I probably would have just left it rather than kept it. The fish will be eaten (an eagle, osprey or otter, perhaps) or decompose naturally, and go back into to the food-chain. Cycle of life. If you do feel bad about injuring or killing bass occasionally (it will happen), there is a simple remedy to make yourself feel better: Use the occasion to justify making a small donation to the conservation fund of your choice. When you take, give something back. Simple as that.

Bass may or may not care whether my lure is worth $10 or $200. Maybe they do! I don't know. But what I do know is that pike and musky make me care an awful lot whether my lure is worth $10 or $200.

I struggle with post-spawn for some reason. ....or, maybe it's not really a "struggle", so much as just does not seem as productive as in the pre-spawn or the following "summer peak". What I find most successful are (1) soft jerkbaits like a fluke, fished weightless, and (2) wacky worms, and (3) poppers, propbaits and floating minnows, twitched, popped, ripped on top with pauses.

Yikes -- good to know. Hasn't happened to me yet fortunately. Hard to beat Gammy for....almost anything.

I love the DIY options above. I think the (unweighted) ones I've been using are the Trokar wacky weedless and Hayabusa spin muscle. for weighted, I use the gamakatsu and jackall heads. On the expensive side, but I don't think I've lost any yet.

A fine worm (as is every worm, in my experience). Your weights and line are good. Fish it on the bottom, drag or hop with pauses. vary the speed. stick with it, and it will produce. Sorry, can't help with frog walking. I've never been able to do it either.

Is one of those the same as the "try stuff until something works, then keep doing that" method? That's the one I do.

Location, location, location.

Yes, those meet the definition of "connecting waters", so it's OK.

https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/texas-rig https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/dropshot-videos