I'm a new guy here and have read.....and read......and read way back on many sections of this sight and totally agree that the folks here are super. Sharing info, techniques, encouraging others, etc. Like you, I was a bass fisherman when I was more involved with the sport 20+ years ago and viewed the panfish as fun but not the main event. My focus changed due to 2 trips to the same lake on successive weeks with my fishing buddy at the time. The first week we started our bassing as usual but they were few and far between that night but the crappie were eating everything we were tossing; I had no cooler and we threw everything back. Broke my heart to do it but it was mid summer and hot. The next week we came prepared with a cooler and ice and it was a replay of the week before except we went right to the crappie and bluegill. My buddy had brought his light pole rather than his bass rod and I only had one rod at the time, best described as a medium action bass rod. I used his rod for a while and it was amazing how much more I could feel with it. We kept many, many fish, mostly crappie, including the best bunch of bluegill I had caught up to that time. We were amazed at the 'gills; we could hardly get our hand around them to unhook 'em. Next time we went I had my new very-light spinning rod and left the bass rod at home. Always took the cooler back, too.
Now I'm fishing that lake again after roughly 15 years and am still getting the nice bluegill and sunfish, but having a tough time finding the secret to the crappie. I'm going to downsize my bait offerings to see if it makes a difference. I'm catching just a few, can't say I've got them figured out, so I'm looking for tidbits I can apply from the boards here. I just know that the nice folks here will mention something to someone else and I'll slap my forehead and wonder why I hadn't thought of doing it that way.
Great board here, no politics, good humor, lots of ribbing and give and take fun insults; whats not to like?