Armtx77

Great idea and thanks for posting it up...gonna give it a try as I throw a bunxh of swim baits and it gets tiresome removing that stuff from the knot all the time.

Steepandcheap.com Costa Oakley Smith I prefer Costa in Green Mirror. I wore Oakleys in college for baseball and you cant go wrong there either. Be sure to get a set of keepers as well.

That is a great fish. Congrats.

My go to has been a 7' ML-F HMG spinning rod with Daiwa BG 1500 and 8lbs NanoFil. With that being said, if you want to do a lot of T-rigging. You may want to go with a M-F. This weekend was my first roll with T-Rigs on this set up and I missed several fish, because the rod just absorbed so much of my hook set and I couldnt get a "hook drive" through a very soft lure.

1/16-1/8 Your best sucess will happen along the banks ie casts at 10 and 2 positions. Unless you are fishing known drop offs or are trying to punch through surface lettuce, I dont see a need for heavier lures and line. I cant load up the pic, but I caught a 5.2 LMB on a weightless T-rigged, 2.8 Keitech Fat Swim Impact, this past weekend. I was just working the weedline from the bank and noticed the line moving towards deep water on the slack line.

I run a 7' ML-F Fenwick HMG with 8lbs Nanofil. I paid 95.00 and have no issues with 60ft casts of 1/16th oz lures(I dont know what a long cast means in terms of ft) If I up it to an 1/8th oz...country mile stuff,that gets hard to accurately cast into tight spaces. Longer rods with not quite a buggy whip action Light to Medium Light.

I will toss a vote in for the BG 1500. I bought my first last fall. Bought my second 3 weeks ago. Bought a couple of spare spools over the weekend. Im clearly biased.

2 HMG's for me this year.

The Barbie rod? Her jumping at the end, brought joy to my day.

The largest lure I have thrown this year is 1/8oz. The largest lure I will throw for bass this year will be 1/8oz and the smallest a 1/16th. My lure selection is as follows: -1/16-1/8oz silver minnows -2.5 Keitech Swim Impact -2.8 Keitech FAT Swim Impact -1/16-1/8oz rooster tails. -Various jig heads in 1/16-1/8oz with #1 or #2 hooks. -Various tungsten bullet weights in 1/16-1/8oz for T-Rigging the 2.8 FAT with a #1 hook. My set up has been a 7' ML-F HMG with a 1500 BG and 8lbs NanoFil. My presentations are not "finesse" per say, but I have wanted to go "light/finesse" for a long time. Im going to spend the entire year, fresh water fishing cloae to home. Including the city lagoons and lakes.

Fish the wind driven shorelines first. Paying close attention to any slack water the wind is not getting into. The wind will blow baitfish in the same direction and Im assuming these reservoirs are not perfectly round. I am finding that these high pressure lagoons/lakes around me. That the bass and bluegill dynamic/hatred for each other, is heightened right now for some reason. Spawn for both is over, but blue lures are out fishing every other color by 3 to 1. Pre-spawn and spawn, were earth colors. Im fishing 8lbs NanoFil and would recommend you go with nothing larger than 8lbs diameter line. Casting parallel to the shore line, is going to produce more, than casting to open water. I recently threw a 3/4 weight and bounced it off the bottom, looking for "deep" holes. Good luck.

I have about a dozen Silver Minnows in various colors. With Chrome(silver)/Blue being the one that catches a few dozen bass a year. I typically scream them over the top of grass beds in early summer.

Check your guides with a Q-Tip first. 20lbs mono on a 1000 series spinner...I dont think you will get much on it, but I could be wrong. I run #8 NanoFil on my 1500 BG and I can get about 130 yds on it. I have caught up to 6lbs on it several times without issue.

I was using 10 year old rods and reels, until last fall. I caught 1000's of fish on that gear in that time period. I have replaced a bearing or two, but the rods have remained the same. Almost 100% of that fishing was salt water for Reds and Specks. Last October, after the Redfish run into the marshes. I decided I wanted to get back into freshwater. While I could have easily used the saltwater gear for freshwater. I wanted to get into light action gear. I bought one set up in October and another one in the past two weeks. I will be honest, I noticed the difference on the newer setups. Especially the rods and how sensitive they were for 100.00 rods.

1500 BG owner here as well. Mine is hooked into a Fenwick HMG 7' ML-F. I bought a second 1500 BG about two weeks ago. So, Im biased, but have no issues saying it is a solid reel for 75-90 bucks. It is not a Ci4 at any level, but I have a couple hundred fish on it and it does what I need.

We have the City Park Lagoons here in NOLA and to say they get preasure is understatement. There are days it eats my lunch. As in a skunk lunch, but guys pull out BASS upwards to 8lbs, a few times a year and 6lbs is not unusual. My best in those lagoons is 4lbs on a couple of different occassions, but any fish that is better than 12" is caught deep in the vegetation and always on a T-rig. I have tried finesse, shallow cranks, spinner baits, buzz baits, frogs, in line spinners, small Rebel Crick Hoppers during the hatch(I crush the bream with it), weedless spoons...the feeaking kitchen sink and they just want a T-rigged worm on their face. I know they are being faced, because pick up happens almost immediately. Rarely do I work it out and get a strike. Are you isolated to fishing from the bank or can you drop a watetcraft in it? The lagoons/lakes I fish here in the city, are STICTLY bank fishing.

Those look good. To everyone who jumped into the thread; I appreciate the feed back on my questions and comments. It has been a learning experience and I thank you all for your efforts and time to this. Looking forward to some stable weather(NO rain) and seeing what I can make happen. Thanks again

Yeah, I run a #1 hookT-rigged and 1/16oz bullet weight on the 2.8 from time to time and it catches fish. I get into a 1/8oz in some of the slow moving waters a little bit too. Just to get deeper quicker, but usually I run #2 jigs. d**n bluegills and their tail nipping no doubt. This is going to be my first full year of bass fishing on ultralight/light sized lures. I dont plan on throwing anything over an 1/8oz. Just something I have wanted to do for a long time.

I catch a lot of Reds down here and I would agree with Woo. Can you imagine a run on 30-40" Reds that breached?!?!

I ordered a bottle with my Keitech order. If I can get a few more out of them with the use of Mend-It. Than it will be worth it.

I had a Browning float tube for about 5 years 95-2000 and used it to fish some of the big strip mines in Central Illinois. Kayak fishing was unheard of back than and a canoe could not be kept in the back of your car. I caught my PB/LM in that float tube I caught a lot of fish out of mine, but GOD are they a PIA to fish out of: -Pain to get in and out of the water. -You sit too low to make accurate casts into cover. -They will eventually leak at one of the seams and they it will not be able to be fixed. -The fins suck when you have to walk through a low spot. I was in my late teens/early twenties. I was in college, I was poor because of college, but that rig put me on fish that were unfishable from the bank. I would fish out of one again, especially if it was back in those old strip mines. When I got my Native kayak out fishing the first time. I was fishing the Causeway for speckle trout and my mind wandered back to that float tube and how much those times mean to me. Good luck, dont let us discourage you, but they present a challenging aspect to fishing.

Are these "re-branded" lure options, seconds from the major manufactures aka dont meet certain spec criterias to be sold under their name brands? This is done across a lot of manufacturing companies...ammuntion companies come to mind.

LOL...when I run out of Keitechs. I throw inline spinners and Rat L Traps, sometimes a weedless spoon, but nothing seems to beat that Swim Impact on a weedless jig.

My budget is not tight per say, but $6 for 12 of them, gets a guy thinking about an alternative. On a good day, I can go through a pack and I guess I should not complain about spending $6.00, to catch 25-30 fish. Including a couple of "dinner sized" fish to feed the family. Perspective has been found. Many thanks to those who have responded and my order to for more has been placed. They catch fish, is the bottom line.

Yeah, that is kind of what I thought. The saving grace of the small baits, is that you get a few more per package for the same cost. Guess I better call in a resupply, to have on hand.