Kid A

Welcome fellow Oreognian! Where do you primarily do your fishing around here?

Im in the same boat (horrible pun, I’m living that bank life) as you. So far for me, the ned rig has been my only way to actually land fish. Detecting bites with it is super easy, unlike weightless senko or wacky rig which seem to be tough to detect bites on. As others or have said, don’t want to overload you with options, but the ned rig is super easy to setup and super easy to fish it. Biggest downside is you snag a lot, but I’ve resigned myself to losing some rigs to land some fish. Get yourself some 1/15oz ned rig shroom head hooks and some Zman TRD finesse worms and you’ll be landing fish in no time! Good luck out there!

Broke my skunk today. Landed 4 bass on a ned rig at a new spot I hiked to. None worth taking any picture of, but felt good to break a skunk streak of 5+ days. Downside was I lost about 4 Ned rigs as well to getting hung up, but I’ll take that at this point lol. Threw the SLX DC some more. Not bites on top water, cranks, or spinners mix. But also no backlashes so successful overall.

Makes me worry I bought a lemon. Even loosening it all the way and just flicking the handle it didn’t spin as freely as it should. It was a bit dusty/dirty so might just need a disassembly and cleaning. Thanks

So basically loosening the tension knob will be what increases cast distance as you get more comfortable managing the line during cast? I threw it for a couple hours yesterday and had it pretty tight, but the cast distance was pretty poor. Side note, being this is my first baitcasting setup I have no frame of reference, but it seemed very gritty/not smooth when reeling in. I was throwing crank baits so naturally there was more drag in the water, but I really had to crank pretty hard on retrieve. This normal? I get my non-DC slx tomorrow or Tuesday so I’m interested to compare.

Man, you all rock. Going to take the time to read through all these responses later tonight. Really appreciate everyone’s input! Spent about 4 hours out on the water today and got a 6 incher, progress ?

Nope, I have not. This will be my first foray into the baitcaster world. I definitely expect to lose a bunch of line. Mono seems the smart play on the reel I will be using for crankbaits.

Fantastic! I will definitely go pickup some swimbaits and give those a shot. I'm pretty overwhelmed with the enormous selection and differences in crankbaits, any suggestion on ones I should definitely be throwing around these parts? Appreciate all the suggestions,

Wow, great write ups! As someone who has had zero bank fishing luck on the willamette this last month this inspires me haha. Will definitely be following your posts as a fellow Portlander!

Cheers, appreciate all the suggestions!

Ok so I have been teaching myself to bass fish over the last month or so with some very limited success. I have been scouring this forum in regards to setups, techniques etc, and of course have basically lived on YouTube. Don't know anyone who bass fishes so I'm pretty much self sufficient in this endeavor. Decided to for a finesse setup first. Been throwing primarily ned rigs, wacky rigs, weightless senkos, and grubs on 1/8 jigheads. These are thrown on a 7'0" Aird-X ml/f with a Daiwa Legalis 2500 that has 30# Maxcuatro braid to 6# flouro leader. I also have a non-ideal 6'6" L UglyStik GX2 with a Daiwa BG2500 with a 6# flouro that I can rig and throw stuff on. I wanted to try my hand at a first baitcast setup, so I ordered the following combo: SLX Rod/reel combo: SLX 7'0" mh/f with SLX 151hg reel (7:2:1) Shortly after ordering I also found a great deal on a barely used combo: Fenwick 7'2" HMX m/mf with a SLX DC reel (also 7:2:1) My plan is to use the MH SLX combo for ploppers, buzz/chatter/spinner, and texas rigs. And the M/mf combo for more crankbait type stuff. Most of these rigs I have 0 experience with. So anyway, I will have 3 dedicated bass rods at my disposal and my questions are as follows: What would you all throw on each setup/what can I throw on each setup comfortably? And thus what line would you think is ideal for each setup based on what I might be throwing? Would you switch the DC reel to the MH/f rod instead of the M/mf rod for any reason? Also would love some "essential lure" suggestions for each setup if you have any. I have everything I need for soft plastics, ned rigs, wacky rigs etc. But don't have much in the way of crankbaits, ploppers etc. I will be primarily bank fishing on rivers for the foreseeable future. Although I am heading down to the Umpqua over the Labor Day weekend to my friends property for a long weekend of fishing. I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of other questions I wanted to ask...thanks for your input!

Thanks man. I live near the falls on the Willamette so basically just around there. Cedar Oak boat ramp, Mary S. Young, Clackamette park, and Willamette park have been where I've gone without much lucky thus far. One day I did go on a crazy hike over the train tracks and out to the small fingers off Rock Island. Even though it's where I caught my only good size bass so far, I won't make that hike again haha. At least not the route I went. Will hit up the Columbia and some point, but just been sticking to the areas near me so far.

Hey all, New bass fisherman from Portland, OR here. Been using this amazing forum as a resource while teaching myself to fish for bass over the last month or so. Have had some limited success, but it's certainly been challenging. I am primarily limited to river bank fishing at the moment, and pretty much will be for the near future. Been primarily throwing finesse type rigs on a ml/f rod. Mostly ned rigs, weightless senkos, wacky rig and weighted jig grubs. Looking forward to learning a lot more and landing some more bass!