Intermediate bass fishing advice?

[harms.whey]

Hey guys,

Recently re-registered on the forums here. I went under the name of ibz_rg a while ago. I just moved down to San Antonio, TX (for military reasons), and I'm looking to get heavily into bass fishing while here. I've casually fished for most of my life. I was raised in southwestern Ohio, so the catches typically consisted of largemouth and smallmouth bass, channel catfish, shovelhead catfish, blue catfish, rainbow trout, crappie, and blue gills. I've always found bass to be my favorite to catch, and I've heard there are some good lakes for them in Texas. I'm starting fresh here as far as a rig goes, and I'd like a little advice as to what I should be trying in the line of rods, reels, line, and lures. My dad recommended starting with an Ugly Stik rod, any $30-50 reel that looks to be quality, some 8-10 lb. test line, and a small variety of lures, such as spinners, cranks, and rubber worms. If anyone has any more specific advice for Texas bass fishing, it would be much obliged. Thanks, guys!

 

[cjam93]

Hey man if it were me I would steer clear of ugly stick. There isnt really anything wrong with them, it is just compared to other rods they fall a little short. The main advantage of theirs is the price. If you can tell me what kind of price range you are looking into I can for sure try to give you an idea of what you should check out. Other than price range, what kind of reel do you want to use? Baitcaster or spinning?

If it were me then Id go with a 7ft MH fast action casting rod. I would get a 6.3 reel and spool it up with 20-30lb braid. My reason is a 7ft mh is considered the most universal rod. It may not be perfect for crankbaits because the fast action tip, but it will still handle them ok, it will handle spinerbaits well, and is great for texas rig and carolina rig. The reel at 6.3:1 is fast enough to pick upslack line when worm fishing to set the hook, but is slow enough that crankbats wont feel like you are reeling in a brick wall. (keeping in mind they still want be very fun to fish, you need a moderate action rod and slower reel for them to have a lot less pull)

I like the braid because it is good for almost everything. Look up how to tie a J knot, and get a few different mono lines. Id get 10lb and 14lb . That way if you are cranking you can tie on a 10lb leader and the mono will give you a little stretch so the treble hooks cant pull free, and the 14lb will be good for worms and spinnerbaits when you will need a little stronger line to pull fish out of cover and to not snap on hook sets.

I have not used a factory rod in quite some time as I build my own rods now, but if they are still as good as they used to be then for me I would look into a 13 fishing (brand name) rod. I believe the omen is $100. One of their rod lines are $100 the omen maybe the wrong name, Id look on tackle warehouse. Then for a reel you can go on amazon or the auction site and get a Lews Tournament MB for $115 or so. That reel is new for $140 and preforms as good as many of my more exspensive reels. If that is a little to much let me know I can suggest some other routes to go as well, that is just the first thing that came to mind for an excellent budget priced set up. Oh and for braid you cant go wrong with power pro or suffix 832.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

I use ugly stik on all my setups. for the price there isn't a reason not to. I have a 7' ugly stik, abu Garcia bait caster (you got me on the model I cant remember) and 10 pd spyder braid. spent approx. 100 bucks on the whole thing and its a bass slaying setup. Bass pro shops rods are also great choices too, little pricier but awesome nonetheless.

lures I almost exclusively use jigs and texas rigged worms. occasionally I'll through a spook or crank on but most of my luck comes from bumping cover with worm and jig rigs.

 

[Frank Castle]

Ugly sticks are great but lack sensitivity, something crucial when fishing worms, jigs and finesse lures. I have always had a thing for Berkley IM-7 graphite, especially the Lightning rod series. Rapala makes a great series of graphite rods as well and full of backbone for ripping fish from heavy cover - something you will encounter a lot of in Texas. I'm not a huge fan of braided lines and I think they are very bad for the environment, but they don't stretch like mono and fluorocarbon. If you don't like mono, try Seaguar Fluorocarbon - they invented it and still have the best fluoro to date.

As far as reels, you simply can't go wrong with Shimano regardless of the style, but mostof the Japanese manufactured reels like Daiwa and Okuma are built very well and are easy to clean and find replacement parts if need be. I have a variety of Quantum, Mitchell, Pflueger, Pinnacle, and m my personal favorite, Abu Garcia,especially the older Ambassaduer series baitcasters.

Plastic worms will catch fish anywere there is bass, the type and height of bottom vegetation will determine the style of rigging you will want to use. Wacky worms seem to work wonders, as well as a weedless Spider-Slider head rigged with either a 4-inch slider worm or a 4-inch Berkley Powerworm. Crankbaits have caught me some of the biggest Large and Smallmouths I have ever caught (particularly Rapala's Shad Rap 2.75" firetiger shallow-runner), but nothing really compares to live native chubs or shiners, hellgrammites or de-clawed crayfish. Jig-and-Pig is also popular down south and I have recently seen a new "lure" called the Umbrella rig, which is actually a series of several lures attached to a wire frame resembling an umbrella designed to imitate an entire school of baitfish.

 

[harms.whey]

Appreciate the help, fellas. I'd like to keep the budget in the low $100s to around $150, which is why I mentioned the Ugly Stik. I've heard the GX2 is a decent rod, so I thought about going with that. $40 doesn't sound like a bad price to me. Frank, you mentioning that braided line is worse for the environment kind of makes me want to stay away from it, so I might try some mono line. Definitely going to look into that Shad Rap as well. Keep the advice coming, though!

 

[cjam93]

Ugly sticks are great but lack sensitivity, something crucial when fishing worms, jigs and finesse lures. I have always had a thing for Berkley IM-7 graphite, especially the Lightning rod series. Rapala makes a great series of graphite rods as well and full of backbone for ripping fish from heavy cover - something you will encounter a lot of in Texas. I'm not a huge fan of braided lines and I think they are very bad for the environment, but they don't stretch like mono and fluorocarbon. If you don't like mono, try Seaguar Fluorocarbon - they invented it and still have the best fluoro to date.

As far as reels, you simply can't go wrong with Shimano regardless of the style, but mostof the Japanese manufactured reels like Daiwa and Okuma are built very well and are easy to clean and find replacement parts if need be. I have a variety of Quantum, Mitchell, Pflueger, Pinnacle, and m my personal favorite, Abu Garcia,especially the older Ambassaduer series baitcasters.

Plastic worms will catch fish anywere there is bass, the type and height of bottom vegetation will determine the style of rigging you will want to use. Wacky worms seem to work wonders, as well as a weedless Spider-Slider head rigged with either a 4-inch slider worm or a 4-inch Berkley Powerworm. Crankbaits have caught me some of the biggest Large and Smallmouths I have ever caught (particularly Rapala's Shad Rap 2.75" firetiger shallow-runner), but nothing really compares to live native chubs or shiners, hellgrammites or de-clawed crayfish. Jig-and-Pig is also popular down south and I have recently seen a new "lure" called the Umbrella rig, which is actually a series of several lures attached to a wire frame resembling an umbrella designed to imitate an entire school of baitfish.

Out of curiosity why do you say braided line is bad for the environment? Do you just mean if people cut some off and throw it in the water or what?

 

[cjam93]

Appreciate the help, fellas. I'd like to keep the budget in the low $100s to around $150, which is why I mentioned the Ugly Stik. I've heard the GX2 is a decent rod, so I thought about going with that. $40 doesn't sound like a bad price to me. Frank, you mentioning that braided line is worse for the environment kind of makes me want to stay away from it, so I might try some mono line. Definitely going to look into that Shad Rap as well. Keep the advice coming, though!

So you know mono will also be less sensitive than fluorocarbon, but fc is less sensitive than braid. Ugly Stik is not bad for what it is, but just know that with mono and an Ugly Stik the sensitivity will likely be very low. Another cheaper suggestion I would recommend is an Abu Garcia Black Max combo. My dad had one for a long time and it preformed great for him. I honestly am not a fan of Abu at all, but that combo was a good set up for him and I forget the price but under $100. It being a combo of course includes reel and rod.

If you are doing a baitcaster I would not go lower than the Black Max reel. A cheaper baitcaster than that will just be a headache with birds nests and back lashes.

 

[harms.whey]

Oh yeah. Forgot to mention that. I'd like to go with a spinning reel, just because that's what I'm used to. So maybe I will go fluorocarbon if I go US.

 

[cjam93]

Oh yeah. Forgot to mention that. I'd like to go with a spinning reel, just because that's what I'm used to. So maybe I will go fluorocarbon if I go US.

To be honest, I dont really like fluorocarbon on a spinning reel because of the memory. It will break in, but when it is new line it can be very likely to blow up on you as any spinning reel with a high memory line will do. FC is great for being clear and the sensitivity is nice. If you go with fc I would look into a product called KVD Line and Lure conditioner. You spray it on your line the night before you go fishing and it helps the line be more manageable.

I dont mean to argue on here, but I do have to say that I have been fishing pretty seriously for a number of years now, and I have spent a lot of time on bass resource (a great fishing forum btw) and I have never heard of braid being bad for the environment. If anything it could be if people are throwing it in the water, but that would be true of mono and fc then as well. Braid has zero memory. That makes it much more manageable on a spinning reel, and will actually increase your casting distance.

For a spinning reel I would suggest a Shimano Sienna 2500. I have had two and they served me great. They are like $25 and work very well for the price.

 

[Frank Castle]

Yea, definitely....you get a snag with mono or FC, you can usually snap the line off at the knot or straighten the hook, but braid needs to be cut, usually leaving 10-50 yards still hung up in the water. Straightening the hook w/ braid isn't likely either since you won't be using sissy hooks with heavy duty line, right? Imagine catching a Tarpon on 300 yds of 80lb braid and getting spooled - I hate to think of how much sea-life is going to get tangled in that mess and die or sustain injury, you know?

C cjam93 I love the sienna series...I forget what size I have but it's the 2nd smallest model...totally owns trout and smallies, landed me a 18.75", 5.5lb smallie earlier in May while I was targeting crappie. I only had 4lb line and he sucked up my minnow when I only had 12 feet of line out LMAO. That was certainly a fight that had my adrenaline pumping. Fish was so smart...he kept darting back and forth between sunken trees, a dock and rock pilings trying to hang me up on anything he could. It was crazy...reminded me why I like bass fishing w/ light line too.

On a side note my #1 preference for mono is Trilene XT. It's stiffer, tougher and abrasion resistant and many of the heavier lines can endure 10 lbs their recommended breaking strength. Anything Berkley is usually top notch for the $$$