I just started my fishing journey at the big age of 27 years old this year. I'm currently living in Northwest Florida where parts of it are beaches, piers, and saltwater bridge fishing. The other parts where I'm currently living at are swamps and ponds. I don't know why saltwater fishing came absolutely naturally to me. When I moved more onto the swamp/pond side however I started to try to pick up bass fishing. Are they out of season right now or something? Am I missing something? I'm attaching a picture of what I have so far for bass fishing, I've mainly been trying to do a 3/0 worm hook Texas rig with these soft plastic worms, I've tried the crank baits, I've tried spinner baits and I'm not seeming to get anything. In terms of technique, I usually try to cast the bait, let it hit the bottom, reel a little, let it hit the bottom again rinse and repeat. Could it have to do with the line I'm using? I'm using 15 pound test Berkeley big game. I'm also using the Abu Garcia Black Max Baitcaster reel with a Shakespeare Tiger 6'6 Medium-Heavy rod. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? 🤔
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That worm wacky rigged is pretty deadly. A fluke in a natural color rigged and a plopper or chopping would be my additions to your kit. I try to fish top, middle, and bottom of the water when I’m new areas.
So worms, you can fish them a handful of ways. Common is to Texas rig and make sure you bury the hook tip right so you can pull through grass. Bass are ambush predators so fish in their cover areas.
For the crawdads, you need a Ned mushroom head jig. You fish these by hooking the crawdad on the ned jig with the tail near the jig head. Letting it fall to the bottom. Let sit, maybe give an upward lift with rod every so often and let refall. Cast around rocky bottoms or logs.
For hardbaits, keep casting. Fish around piers, docks, cover, and keep working them. Bass tend to be active early morning and early evening during the warmer times of year.
Keep at it.
You dont have to be an idiot, the fish have to be there to be caught, maybe try few different spots and try to go the brighter/fluorescent/UV color way, since most of your lures are of natural colours.
I use 1/0 or 2/0 hooks for 5” worms but that shouldn’t really affect things too much. Try a different rigging. Whacky or threaded
Bass tend to get sluggish in the summer heat. You’re probably doing everything mostly right but they’re just not biting. Summer exceptions can be at dawn and dusk when the water is still cooler. Good news is that it’s starting to cool off in many places and the early fall bass season is right around the corner. Other best time of year is usually between April-May when the bite I’d on in full force.
Side note, you’ll want to keep those soft plastic baits in the original packaging or at least a ziploc bag or they’re likely to start melting into each other.