To be well equipped for bass fishing what should one have in his tackle box? ie...the right combination of bait.

DAS- I will call upon the available Pro Staff Members to answer your post.

Would you like to narrow this down a bit, like Smallmouths in river systems? or LMB's in Reservoirs? Otherwise, this could get expensive.

Well equipped could mean six to a dozen of everything, plus we have already touched on the rods/reels/line for many different methods. Also, we recently talked a lot about hooks. If you are looking at some of those things, you could try our search feature.

Thanks for posting. JoeMo

Well, I do a little of both river and pond fishing. Right now I pretty much use the sinko's and my shiner lure. What I would like to have is an arsenol for any type of fishing condition. Like clear sunny days, cloudy days, clear water, or clouded water, etc....

DAS,

Looks like we both have some of the same questions. A while back I asked the prostaff-- "If I were starting fishing and needed to put together a tackle kit, what would be the essential baits...baits that are versatile and can be fished in a variety of conditions." So, for the time being, check out this thread:
http://www.bassinusa.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000052

And I'm sure that some of the staff will have some good advice to add.

Rob

In general, I will post a list of things I would get if just starting out. You have to be really careful here. It is so easy to get into this sport and go overboard with buying every lure you hear guys catching fish on. Don't make that mistake. I have a ton of stuff but it is basically the same stuff. I am very serious about my brands of jigs, spinnerbaits and plastics. I rarely use any name brand stuff. I have hooked up with a bunch of small garage tackle businesses and get some really great innovative and high quality stuff. I use few topwaters and cranks.
Here is a list of things I will recommend for putting together a decent assortment of baits:
2- 1/8oz and 1/4oz Spinnerbaits- Firetiger, chart/white, white
2-1/4oz Buzzbaits- white, black
2-1/4oz rattle traps- chrome/black, smokey Joe
2-1/4oz Bandit footloose Cranks-Chart/purple, shad
1-Sammy 85- Aurora Shad
2-1/4 to 3/8oz Spit N Image-Threadfin Shad
2-1/2oz Fat Free Shad- Firetiger, Threadfin shad
4-1/8oz jig n pigs- Black/Blue/Purple
4-1/4oz jig n pigs- same
a good assortment of 4" tubes in several colors- Smoke/clear, pumpkin, watermelon etc
I like Green Eyes Worms Works Hand Dipped tubes
4" straight tailed worms either Sliders or Handpours in a few basic colors
6' Straight tailed worms
4 and 5" Senkos or Salty Stinkers stick baits
a few 3" grubs
EWG 2/0 and 3/0 hooks
A bag or two of soft jerkbaits
some brass weights.....just add water! you could most likey get all this stuff for under 130.00 or so.

Rob- Thanks for giving DAS a link to that thread. Some really good information there.

MMT- Outstanding post. A really good read on covering the necessary baits, while not going overboard on the $. Also a good idea to list qty of each.

DAS- These fellas have got you started and I am sure that other Pro Staffers will come aboard shortly. Post back and let us know how you are coming along. JoeMo

Thanks MMT- I will start building my arsenal a little at a time and I will keep the board posted as to how I'm doing. I'm glad that I found this web page.

Remember what I said, don't go overboard. Choose baits that catch fish not fisherman. If you have any questions or need the addresses of some of those smaller companies, give me a shout.

Good advice, MMT. Isn't it true that making tackle decisions over a period of time allows you to be more selective and the angler tends to assimilate the information better?

When you make any expensive purchases like Senkos or Pointers, I think it's smart to learn all you can about the product before you get to the lake, whether they are faceted glass beads or trolling motors.

I'm glad that DAS will make his purchases that way. Much obliged. JoeMo

I too agree on not going overboard, although it seems like as a person gets more into
things as it keeps growing. I'm always trying to cut back, and rearrange tackle boxes to save room. Yeah, right - it always seems to comes back within a couple of weeks later.

When fishing tournaments my partner once asked why I brought all the tackle when it was rare for me to use but a few items. This started me thinking,. I realized it was just a few items for fishing the Mississippi River tournaments in which we competed. I used one style of worm in 3 colors, one or two sizes of sinker, and one size of hook. My other lures were 2 types of crankbaits in 3 colors, and 2 sizes of spinnerbaits in one color with 3 colors of blades. Almost would fit in the pockets of some of these jungle pants.

Anyway, it made me think enough that I developed a seminar on a basic lure kit. Here is a brief summary of that kit, which should be able to fit into a fair sized soft pack bag using worms wraps, and other space saving items:
Tubes: black/red flake, watermelon, and pumpkinseed. (size 4 inch)
Plastic worms - ribbon tail action: black, watermelon, grape and pumpkinseed. (size 4 and 7 inch)
Craw worms: black/blue, black/chartreuse, and pumpkinseed. (size 4 inch)
Jig: black/blue, black/chartreuse, pumpkinseed/orange. (size 1/8 and 1/4 oz.)
Jig Trailer - plastic and/or pork: black, pumpkinseed
Jerk worms: white or shad, and watermelon. (size 5 or 6 inch)
Rattling shad style crankbaits: shad and firetiger. (size 1/4 and 1/2 oz.)
Crankbaits with bills - shallow, medium and deep: shad, firetiger, and crawfish. (size 1/8, 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 oz.)
Spinnerbaits: white, white/chartreuse, and shad (size 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 oz.)

Hooks for tubes - 2/0 and 3/0 XGap style (4/0 for some bulky styles like Larew Mega
Ring Tube)

Hooks for worms - 2/0 and 3/0 offset style, I use the XPoint and Daiichi as these are
extremely sharp.

Hooks for jerk worms - 4/0 and 5/0 Copperhead (Bleeding Bait and/or Black)

Worm weights - 1/8, 3/16, 1/4 and 1/2 ounce, but my coverall is a 3/16.

Recently I found a jig head which is great for the craw worms. It is one made by Gene
Larew, which holds the worm very tight, and helps it last much longer. The only problem
is getting it off. I would recommend rigging one of each color on a separate head if
wanting to change. I use these in 1/8, 1/4 and 3/8 ounce sizes.

To top all of this off, I recommend some Kodiak Crawfish and Minnow Paste. This stuff
has proven itself time and time again to me, and the people with whom I've fished. I
really think it helped greatly when I caught the All Tackle Catch and Release World
Record Largemouth Bass for Ice Fishing a few years ago. However, we won't start
getting into the ice fishing end, as that is another subject all together.

By the way, I know the subject of a fishing log has been covered before, but keeping a log will be a great help in forming a bass fishing arsenal. I've got a computer log program which can tell exactly all the details, fed to the database, on each lure used. If that isn't possible, a written log can be equally helpful.

Hope this helps.
Dan