Thanks for all the tips, and a few extra.

You guys helped a ton. Took a long break and converting from salt water to fresh has been interesting to say the least.
Had to regear, find sales, track so much >.<
Getting back into it was a mess without going back to live bait by default.
Got so used to small bigs, blue gill, etc until a ton of help on here.
From knots to lures/ trailers/ line/ gear.. Just wanted to say thanks for the community.

Added tips:
Practice your retrieves.. there's no perfect method.
Learn your grass work.. wacky rigs have been easier here, everything else was frustrating for the laziness of the fish.
I almost gave up on chatterbait style but it did finally land a good one (pic), I do wonder if a mini would do better.. but smalls will hit,
Not to link external but check out z-man 9 chatter tips, pretty good info.
Always watch for deals.. I wish I had a more inclusive list to check, but bass resource (latest deals thread) seems to be the most updated I could find mentioned on reddit without it just being affiliate promoting (feel free to provide better sites/ resources.. we could use them.)
Practice knots.. though I'm still thinking of setting a rod to a snap for some lures, so cumbersome >.<
BPS still has some "ok/ decent" deals til he 26th, if you work with customer service even more so. Can try to get dicks to match bps prices on their bogo deals if you find them.
Always keep a banana on you, not only is it a good sense of measurement, if you stuff it in the fish it's also a few extra ounces on a scale, plus a tasty snack!

Tl;dr thank you all! Finally figured out some gear and so much help from you all, and landed a whopper (for me at least lol)