Aaron_H

I told myself when I started out bass fishing that I would only buy what I need as I need it. Turns out, "need" is a pretty flexible term in this hobby....?

Last pic is a nice-sized Mayan Cichlid. I'm guessing you're located in south Florida?

I'm a big fan of Gamakatsu, Owner, and (sometimes) Trokar for most of my hooks. However, like a couple of others have said earlier in the thread, the H2O Xpress EWG hooks are solid competitors to Gamakatsu Superline EWGs for far less cost ($4.99 for a 25-pack). I have only used the 3/0 and 5/0 but they are great hooks.

I mean, if it ain't broke....

I use a 7'2" MH SLX for those techniques, and I like it very much. Sensitive blank (for the price), crisp action, lightweight.

x2 Bought a few packs of senkos when I was first starting out bass fishing, couldn't buy a bite on them. Let them languish in my tackle bag for another year while I stuck with curly tail worms and creature baits until I gave them another shot. Many big fish later and I almost always have one tied on.

Gators? You mean Floridian Swamp Cats? I don't pay them any mind for the most part, they're way too skittish to worry about. Only time I ever left a spot because of a gator was a couple of years ago. There are a lot of gators in my neighborhood in the 2-7 foot range, but there's one big 11 footer I've seen that moves around the different bodies of water. I was bank fishing one of my favorite spots when he happened to be there, made a bee line for me from across the pond. Decided maybe I'd go try a few other spots that day.....

I feel like with those slower actions paired with mono, there will be too much sponginess/stretch for setting the hook on a texas rig or getting really crisp jerkbait action. If you need to do all of those techniques on one of those rods specifically, I'd go 30lb braid to a mono leader.

I mean, growing up people smoked and drank on TV all the time. As an adult, I don't smoke and I rarely drink. At the end of the day, I don't think it's YouTube's job (or place) to teach a child what to do/what not to do. That's the job of a parent.

I know you were looking for hookset advice a little while back. You're catching fish, man, so you're doing something right! I find that when I whiff a hookset, it's usually because it's a small bass that didn't have enough of the lure in its mouth. Those little guys will pick up the tail and swim with it a bit before they really munch it down. If I feel a small bite, I try and give them a few seconds before setting and that usually helps. Major props for seeking advice and trying hard to improve. It's a grind and it takes time, but you've got the right mindset.

+1 for A-Jay's advice, but it looks like a weak hookset to me as well. Glenn has some good advice here: https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/texas-rig-hook-set.html

For my wacky rigs, I use a piece of clear heat-shrink tubing instead of o-rings, more secure and cost-effective IMO. Hook I use is a 2/0 Gamakatsu Finesse Wide Gap.

Looking to throw together a TW order and need to restock my split rings, curious how these Gamakatsu rings stack up to Owner Hyper Wire rings. Not much in the way of reviews out there, anyone here used them?

I was a bit surprised they didn't reimagine the Nasci as an SLX-branded reel, or at least recolored to match given the popularity of SLX. It's not like Nasci has a pedigree like Curado or Bantam.... I'm a Shimano (and sometimes Daiwa) guy, but I ended up going with the Quantum Smoke S3 PT Inshore to match the SLX spinning rods more closely. On-topic, those Kaden rods look fantastic, nice to see Dobyns offering some faster actions for those who want them.

I like to beat the banks of ponds, mostly. My neighborhood has some ~10 acre ponds and a number of canals that have been here since the 60s-70s that are all within 3 miles of me, lots of big bass to be found here. My usual spot lately though has been a string of ponds about 15 miles from me. I'm about 40 minutes from Lake Toho, an hour or so from Harris Chain.

That's a negative, ghost rider. Silent (or much lighter sounding) lipless cranks are an essential part of lipless fishing IMO. If the bite slows down on a Red-Eye Shad, I'll switch over to a Rattlin' Rapala which has a much softer rattle and they'll fire up again for it. Sound profile is probably the main thing I consider when deciding which lipless to throw. I recently found an older Yo-Zuri Livebait Shallow Vibe 60 (in gold/black, my favorite), and it's dynamite. Very tight action but completely silent....I'm afraid to throw it now because I can't find any more to buy!

What an awesome fish, man. Your joy with that catch really shows in the pics, great job! My PB was 27" long with a giant of a head, but got her when she was skinny in the middle of June.... Someday I'll get a big prespawn girl! Don't forget to show us some pics of the replica when you get it.

Ouch, that's not a fun spot to get stuck. Good thing your buddy was willing to help out. I considered it, it definitely would've worked, but it was shallow enough that I just went with what I knew. Once I popped it past the barb it was smooth sailing, very little blood or pain. If the water here was cleaner, I'd have just kept on fishing.

Not to rub salt in that wound, but it was 85 degrees this afternoon.... Don't feel too bad, it was more of an annoyance than anything. Took a few minutes to work the hook out the other end and then had to call it early to disinfect it. Good as new, currently! If the weather holds tomorrow I'll be back out there for some payback.

What's that expression again, "you wouldn't know a good treble hook unless it walked up and stuck you in the leg"?

Stuck myself in the ankle 40 minutes into fishing this afternoon. Popped the lure free of a hangup and felt the bait slap my leg, didn't even feel the hook penetrate. Definitely a bummer to see it went past the barb. It thankfully didn't get too deep or at a bad angle, so I was able to push the point out the other side and clip it off. Pardon the spots on the pic, camera is a bit fudged.... If anyone wants to know if the Gamakatsu EWG trebles are good: 10/10 penetration with little effort. Will buy again.

My advice as well. Keep your rod hand tucked down and manipulate the rod more with your wrist and elbow, not so much your shoulder.

This was a wonderful read, thank you for posting it. Interesting to see your journey and your perspective. Myself, I've always had an interest in sharing my passions and teaching others, even at a young age. My time at university was always with the goal of a teaching career in mind (sadly, the state of teaching as a career in FL is...pretty bad, so I moved in a different direction). So for me, stage 5 has been a companion of sorts to my growth as a bass fisherman, that love of teaching has been a part of my fishing from the time I first started to consistently find fish. I would say that late last year is when I really hit "the moment" where I wanted to go out with other people specifically to teach them, not just taking them with me and teaching them while I fish, and I'm working towards that goal now. I actually haven't been bass fishing for very long, only about 5 years now. I spent 20 years before that focused on bottom fishing offshore for big snapper and grouper. Since I'd already experienced that "big pull addiction" from saltwater, I went through stages 1-3 pretty quickly. I started bass fishing in May of 2016, spent that summer fishing nearly every day once I figured out how to get bit consistently, and in September of that year I got my first "big" bass at 7lb 5oz, which was a big jump from my then-current 4.5lb PB. Landing that fish really cemented me into that "I need to catch a big fish, even if I don't catch a lot of fish" mindset. I'd kind of slept on bass as a game species up to that point, considered them fun to catch but no real challenge. Remember here that I grew up fishing for 20lb+ red snapper and big grouper that would swallow a trophy bass whole. But that first 7lber I caught was like a whole different animal compared to the ones I'd caught before, the spectacle and fight that bass put up really made me love and appreciate them like I hadn't before. That fish is responsible for switching my addiction from primarily saltwater with freshwater as a fun side-gig, to the opposite. Stage 4 made me laugh, it's a mindset I started having most of last year and into now. Like you, I fell in love with moving baits and while I still throw other techniques (and still love a jig bite), it just doesn't get me quite as excited as, say, a lipless crankbait. I've had days where I've said "I'm going to throw a crankbait and if they don't want it, I don't want them either!" ?

They get bigger than that! My current PB is 8lb 10oz, less than a pound away from the IGFA world record. We'll see if I can inch closer to that record this year....

No PBs for me yet this spawn, but got a few good ones. Landed this healthy 6lb 10oz girl this afternoon just after 3 PM today in central FL. She was feeding shallow, got her on a bluegill pattern 1/2 oz Rattlin' Rapala lipless crankbait. I don't like to play fish too long with treble hooks, but she did not want to come in. Had her up to the bank 4 times and she would just rip drag and run back out deep. Finally got her wore down enough to land on the 5th try. Took a quick weight and picture, and she swam off strong! She ended up being the biggest bass of the day (and my biggest of 2021 so far), but right before I left I landed a 7lb 2oz tilapia. That was a drag screamer, too. This is the time of year they get super aggressive and will hit artificials, very fun fight and an underrated game fish IMO.