I lived in Maryland most of my life where I did 100% river smallmouth bass fishing, shopped at the local sporting good store or walmart and used Monofilament line with a decent rod/reel and honestly only needed a small handful of spinners, crankbaits and worms. I moved to TN for a year and picked up a used bass boat and hit the lakes and realized that what I had known all my life didn't help me at all. My frustration started with line I couldn't get any of my lures to go deep enough (at the time everything was showing about 30-40 feet down in a very clear lake that was 80+ feet deep) I was told not to use monofilament line. I switched and bought more lures depending on the stores recomendations. I've since moved to Dallas TX and ready to try again (assuming my boat wants to cooperate this year) and have either walmart or a Bass Pro shop within a few miles of me. The BPS is overwhelming to say the least. Can somebody help me understand what lines to use when and even what bates are good for lake fishing. The lake I will be fishing at this time I would guess is an average or 30-40 deep depending on the time of year and isn't the clearest. Some sort of starting point of lures, lines and brands would be great since the BPS seems to have 10 of everything.

Well here is some general tips. If you want to go deeper using Fluorocarbon is going to help, it sinks very well and will help get the added depth.

Before you start going to crank bait route to get deep, I would check out fishing with jigs, and drop shotting. And maybe use a lip-less crank bait along the way. Those are pretty easy to learn (all 3) and are basic as far as equipment goes.

Also, look into plastic worms, T-rigged and Carolina rigged will help get you to the deeper areas.

ok so there is no other advantage to fluorocarbon line other than boyancy? What about braided I always stayed away since I was fishing in clear waters.

Flouro also has a smaller diameter than mono so it cuts trough the water better helping baits get down faster and deeper, and I agree with Meister I your fishing 30-40 feet try using your electronics to locate fish and try drop shotting or flutter spoons, c-rig depending on depth of the fish,

I live and fish in PA and we have the Susquehanna, Juniata, and Deleware rivers here and of course lakes and I know exactly what you are going through. Fishing the river for smallies is a lot different than largemouth in lakes, even the smallmouth in lakes act different. The first thing you found out was in lakes the fish will go deeper than they do in a river system because the moving water has more oxygen and the temps are more consistant. Flourocarbon will get lures down deeper faster but you can get by without it, I do for the most part. What you need to do is find fish and apply the right tactics to the mood of the fish. In the summer if you are finding fish in 30' of water chances are that is where the thermocline is, and if the fish are that deep they are probably in a neutral or negative mood and while a deep crank may get the fish to bite if you got it down there, a better option would be a football jig if they are on the bottom or a flutter spoom if they are suspended and in that case you nrrd to vertical fish for them. The other option is finding cover in the 3' to 10' zone that would hold fish as there are a number of fish that do stay relativly shallow most of the year. I once won a tournament in August fishing with a Rattlin' Rogue in no deeper than 5' of water and the majority of them were caught in 3' of water so I know you can find them in shallow water. If you still are having a rough time you may want to bite the bullet and hire a guide for a day or two, you will learn spots and tactics on how to get them to hit and it will be money well spent and remember, it isn't just about the line but I will admit, using flouro and braid in certain situations is the way to go, I use braid for heavy cover jig and frog fishing but there are a lot of other times to use those lines but I'm not one to use super lines only when I really need to.

My motto is K.I.S.S.

Spinning tackle: Yo-Zuri Hybrid #6

Baitcasting: Hybrid #12