On 7/24/2022 at 4:48 PM, scaleface said:

One thing that most  inexperienced anglers  do wrong  is not match up their lures with their equipment very well . I see it all the time and made the same mistakes myself . Its hard to be successful  if one cant present lures  effectively and effortlessly .

Absolutely.  There's so much to learn in the beginning.  I've made that mistake often.  When you're just starting, a fishing rod is a fishing rod and lures are lures.  Failure drives you on to more reading and studying and understanding. The good news is that after buying so much "wrong stuff" it all eventually fits together. 

At the moment, in the market for a heavy rod for flipping and punching.   

On 7/22/2022 at 1:55 PM, Masaccio said:

Wisdom and experience is great.  As many of you stated, it's important to go your own way (while keeping eyes and ears open for sage experience and advice).  Whatever anyone thinks about a particularl fishery, it may be important to hear that, but ultimately ya just have to put the pedal to the metal and follow your own muse. 

I'm getting serious about checking out alternate fisheries in my area.  Regarding poles and lures, I'm realizing that lots of dots need connecting before plunking down money.  It seems tedious, but also interesting. Time-consuming, but addictive. 

Question:  is it reasonable to think that because of the short growing seasons in my area (northern NJ, USA) that bass generally don't get as big up here as in more southern states?  And if that's reasonable, do I need to ask about the value of expert fishing advice as pertains to more southern climates.  For example::::  I want to learn shaky head.  A good beginning, according to what I've read is a long straight-tailed worm.  I get that.  It looks good to me.  But is 6" too big for the bass that I'm most likely to find in my area, as opposed, to, say, Florida.  Should I got with a 4.5" instead? I'm all about "go big or go home", but that can totally be self defeating.  July is such a great month to explore finesse techniques and I'm really excited about this. Thanks.     

PS:  Is there a setting that allows email notification of responses to a post?  

I live in Iowa…6 inch worms on shakey head will get eaten by 10 inch fish to over 20 inch fish. My PB is on a shakey head with 6 inch worm. All the “southern” stuff you read about works for Northern strain. We just don’t get as many 6-8 pound class fish.