Bass Fishing Gear: Essentials for Successfully Catching Bass
A lot of our readers are likely seasoned bass fishermen who already have extensive tackle boxes and bulk supplies from the best brands. That’s just how fishing works. You catch a few bluegills, maybe catch your first bass, and suddenly, you find yourself tossing new lures, rods, and random gizmos into your cart every time you get to a store with a fishing section. It’s an addiction really.
However, some of you are new to bass fishing, or you might be new to fishing in general. You might have a cheap rod combo and a little pre-made tackle set, but you haven’t been bitten by the fishing bug just yet, or you have, and you don’t know where to spend your money to get the best results.
This is for you.
We’re going to go over the essentials that every bass angler needs to take that step up from a casual fisherman to someone who’s chasing impressive personal bests.
Rod and Reel Options to Maximize Your Investment
Once you start moving up in the fishing world and want to take it seriously, those $15 combos at Walmart aren’t going to suffice. So, you’ll need to spend quite a bit more on rods and reels to get the performance you need to succeed.
We know that’s a lot to ask for in the modern world, and you probably want to make sure any good rod you invest in is really going to make a difference. So, here are two combos we think every bass angler should have as an essential starting point.
Keep in mind that you’ll want to buy a variety of specialty rods as you develop, but these two will handle 99% of your bass fishing needs.
1: Medium Spinning Combo
The first rod you’ll want to add to your collection is a high-quality medium spinning combo. We prefer ours to have fast tips to pick up on little taps from less aggressive bites, and that helps with setting the hooks. Graphite is going to be a better rod material for strength and sensitivity, but graphite has to be handled properly, or it can develop micro-cracks that break the rod under minimal stress.
For a reel, you’re mostly looking for something made to high standards. You don’t need to buy the most prestigious spinning reel, but we do recommend getting one that is above your standard big-box combo reel quality. KastKing, Pflueger, and a variety of other brands make some great spinning reels that aren’t extremely expensive. The gear ratio on your reel needs to be fairly moderate to make the most use of it. A 5:1:1 is perfectly fine.
This will be the rod you’ll want to use for lighter lures and rigs. It doesn’t have the power of the next setup we’ll talk about, but it’ll be able to throw the smallest bass lures or larger options with ease, and it can easily switch over to live bait fishing. In essence, this is your general-use rod.
2: Heavy Casting Combo
Another rod every serious bass fisherman is going to need is a heavier casting combo. This will be used for chucking larger lures, fishing the algae mat when you need a very strong hook set to get the fish through the vegetation, and other common tasks that are a bit too much for a lighter spinner. You also get better casting distance and cranking strength.
To be clear, we do not mean a casting system like your grandpa used back in the day with a little push-button spincast reel. We’re talking about baitcasters.
If this is your first baitcaster, invest in a training weight so you can take it out and cast it all over the place, even without water, and get used to it. This is one of the hardest pieces of equipment to learn for most fishermen, and bird’s nests are common. You don’t want that to happen while you’re actually fishing.
For the reel, you can find decent options from a variety of brands, but we wouldn’t recommend going any lower than the $60 range. Cheap baitcasters are getting better, but they’re still going to be a pain to learn how to fish with. You’ll also want a faster gear ratio than what you use with your spinning equipment because many of the lures you’ll be using need to zip through the water quickly.
For the rod, a heavy rod with an extra-fast tip in the 7-foot range will cover most of your uses for it. It’ll toss frogs on algae mats and yank them right off the top, plunge heavy jigs through vegetation and pull them back in, and cast a good swimbait clear across the pond; all while maintaining the tip sensitivity to detect hits and set hooks quickly.
Line Needs for Bass Fishing
When you first start fishing, a simple spool of 8-pound mono is enough to get you by. However, it is not going to do much good when you get serious about fishing. It’ll hamper your lure presentations, snap when you need it most, and generally disappoint you.
Keep in mind that you’ll want to buy a variety of specialty rods as you develop, but these two will handle 99% of your bass fishing needs.
1: Medium Spinning Combo
The first rod you’ll want to add to your collection is a high-quality medium spinning combo. We prefer ours to have fast tips to pick up on little taps from less aggressive bites, and that helps with setting the hooks. Graphite is going to be a better rod material for strength and sensitivity, but graphite has to be handled properly, or it can develop micro-cracks that break the rod under minimal stress.
For a reel, you’re mostly looking for something made to high standards. You don’t need to buy the most prestigious spinning reel, but we do recommend getting one that is above your standard big-box combo reel quality. KastKing, Pflueger, and a variety of other brands make some great spinning reels that aren’t extremely expensive. The gear ratio on your reel needs to be fairly moderate to make the most use of it. A 5:1:1 is perfectly fine.
This will be the rod you’ll want to use for lighter lures and rigs. It doesn’t have the power of the next setup we’ll talk about, but it’ll be able to throw the smallest bass lures or larger options with ease, and it can easily switch over to live bait fishing. In essence, this is your general-use rod.
2: Heavy Casting Combo
Another rod every serious bass fisherman is going to need is a heavier casting combo. This will be used for chucking larger lures, fishing the algae mat when you need a very strong hook set to get the fish through the vegetation, and other common tasks that are a bit too much for a lighter spinner. You also get better casting distance and cranking strength.
To be clear, we do not mean a casting system like your grandpa used back in the day with a little push-button spincast reel. We’re talking about baitcasters.
If this is your first baitcaster, invest in a training weight so you can take it out and cast it all over the place, even without water, and get used to it. This is one of the hardest pieces of equipment to learn for most fishermen, and bird’s nests are common. You don’t want that to happen while you’re actually fishing.
For the reel, you can find decent options from a variety of brands, but we wouldn’t recommend going any lower than the $60 range. Cheap baitcasters are getting better, but they’re still going to be a pain to learn how to fish with. You’ll also want a faster gear ratio than what you use with your spinning equipment because many of the lures you’ll be using need to zip through the water quickly.
For the rod, a heavy rod with an extra-fast tip in the 7-foot range will cover most of your uses for it. It’ll toss frogs on algae mats and yank them right off the top, plunge heavy jigs through vegetation and pull them back in, and cast a good swimbait clear across the pond; all while maintaining the tip sensitivity to detect hits and set hooks quickly.
Line Needs for Bass Fishing
When you first start fishing, a simple spool of 8-pound mono is enough to get you by. However, it is not going to do much good when you get serious about fishing. It’ll hamper your lure presentations, snap when you need it most, and generally disappoint you.
There are three different types of line you need for various reasons.
1: Mono
Mono isn’t good enough to do everything for you, but it will still make up the bulk of your line supply. It’s cheap and easy to find in large quantities, and even though it’s not the best, it does get the job done in a lot of situations.
Mono is best for when you want soft-plastic lures to slowly drop in the water, aren’t trying to optimize your fishing attempt as much as you can, and as leaders or backers.
This is why we recommend keeping at least three spools of different sizes in your tacklebox at all times.
You’ll want a thick, strong, mono line that you use as a leader on top of braid. This can keep you from cutting your more expensive braided line every time you re-tie. Just cut the cheaper stuff on the end off, tie some more on, and attach your lure. You’ll preserve your supply of the good stuff a lot longer this way.
Then, grab a good 12 to 14-pound mono that you’ll use on its own. You can use this on cheaper setups, keep a reel spooled up with it for when you don’t want to mess with your more expensive supply, or just have it handy in case you run out of your high-performance line mid-trip. It’s not the best, but keep in mind that this is what people had for decades, and they caught fish just fine.
Finally, keep a spool of an 8-pound line sitting around as a "backing" line. Fluorocarbon line is very popular nowadays, but it tends to break every time it gets even remotely kinked or twisted. To keep from losing an entire spool of line with one bad cast, a lot of anglers have started using mono or braid to start spooling their line. Then, they’ll attach their fluoro line for the last ten to twenty feet or so. If the fluoro breaks, they do lose every bit of line they just cast out. When you buy an expensive spool of fluoro and lose it all on your first cast, you’ll understand why we recommend this method. Also, you can do this with braid, but braid is expensive, too. You might as well use mono for your backing.
2: Braid
Braided line is what most anglers tend to go with, nowadays. They can fit tons of high-strength braided line on a reel spool, it floats and presents topwater lures impressively, doesn’t stretch, is abrasion resistant, and looks pretty cool if you care about that.
However, braided line is expensive. You’ll spend three or four times as much for a decent braided line than you will an equal amount of mono. Luckily, it lasts a long time, and you can even respool it on the opposite side to double its lifespan.
When you’re just starting out, go with a basic 15-pound to 20-pound spool of braided line. You don’t need several spools to switch between, and the recommended strength range will cover almost all of your fishing needs.
Anytime you’re using topwater lures, fishing for exceptionally large bass, or fishing in a spot that will cut your line on rocks and debris, you should be using braided line. It’s also best used in conjunction with backers and leaders. A mono backer will help keep it from slipping on spinning reels, and a fluoro leader will help lower the visibility of the line in the water.
Pick up more sizes as you go, but this will get you started.
3: Fluorocarbon
Fluorocarbon is necessary when you’re targeting finicky fish. It’s invisible in the water, and it has an incredible tensile strength with a very small diameter. It can even go toe-to-toe with a braided line in the strength department.
However, it breaks very easily. If it gets kinked or twisted, it’ll fly off the end of your rod with a simple cast.
This should make up the least of your line supply. You’ll mostly want to use it as a leader in clear water, and you’ll only use it a few feet at a time.
Lure Supply for Bass Fishing
Next, we want to talk about the best bass fishing lures every angler should have. This is the fun part about buying fishing equipment. Some lures are ridiculously expensive, but for the most part, you can add some really nice lures to your collection without feeling like you’re blowing money.
As a simple note, we recommend buying a large number of various worm hooks and types of weights to go with your lures. You’ll need them to make rigs. Just buy something of decent quality, and make sure you have a variety of sizes to choose from.
1: Soft-Plastics
This is the cheapest lure you’re going to get, and you’ll likely fill up multiple tackle boxes with different varieties. These come in bags in bulk, and each bag will set you back a few dollars.
There’s no single lure in this category we can recommend over others. You need a variety. Grab some U-Tail grubs in various sizes and colors, trick worms, creature baits, flukes, and whatever else you can find as your budget allows. They’re cheap, and they’ll probably be your most commonly used baits on spinning equipment. You can even use them to make trailers for some of the other lures we’ll discuss.
2: Jigs
Jigs are some of the simplest and most productive lures out there, and they’re very flexible. We recommend getting a variety of them in different sizes, colors, and head styles. There are swim jigs that are designed to get reeled in straight, footballs that bounce over rocky terrain with a slow, unpredictable bob, and various other types. They come with skirts that fluctuate as they move, and you can add your soft-plastic lures to the hooks for different presentations.
We do recommend buying jigs that have weed guards. These are little bristles that keep the hook from getting caught in debris while not hindering fish. You might want to snip the guard down a little, though. Some manufacturers make them too long.
3: Swimbaits
These are the easiest way to mimic local baitfish. They’re literally little fish designed to paddle through the water just like the real thing, and many of them look real, too. They’re easy to use, and they can nab giant bass when you put effort into your presentation.
4: Spinners
If everything else fails, bust out a spinner. These lures are designed to be reeled straight in, and they resemble jigs on long wires. They have a blade that spins and flashes in the water, too. When combined with a soft-plastic trailer such as a fluke or u-tail, these are surprisingly effective. They’ll trigger reaction bites left and right.
Knowledge is the Key to Success
Finally, you can’t buy the most effective fishing gear: Knowledge. A lot of what determines your success as an angler is whether or not you know what you’re doing.
Now, you can’t buy that, but you can buy access to all the information you need to absorb. Check out BassForecast fishing app for top-of-the-line tools for weather predictions, area-specific tips, maps, and more across the entirety of the United States.