>>2105797You don't really need that much to fish freshwater. Even the most bargain rods from Walmart perform adequately. They might not have as many ball bearings in their reels, as the high-end rods, but they perform well enough for bass.
To get started, buy a 7ft medium-heavy rod with a fast action (meaning a flexible tip). For line, I recommend 20lb braid. Braid is more expensive, but it is strong, small in diameter for its test meaning you can spool more of it than a similar test monofilament, and most importantly is memory-free, meaning you don't have to worry about spooling it incorrectly and you won't have tangles caused by line memory.
You also want to pick up a leader line. I recommend 10-15lb flourocarbon. The purpose of leader line is to have an invisible or harder to see line tied to the end of your braid, and attach your lure/jig/hooks to the leader line, so the fish don't see your braid. Learn to tie a blood knot or FG knot to join those two lines together seamlessly.
For your lures, I recommend any type of skirted jig, a spoon, a chatterbait, and some 3/0 hooks with Senko worms. The jig with a crawdad soft plastic for bouncing around the bottom in grass or heavy cover, spoon/chatterbait for mid-top water (add split shots to line for deeper water), and 3/0 hook with a worm weight for texas rig, or just straight worm/hook for wacky rig.
Learn about cover and bass behavior on youtube, or read the pastebin some anon posted.
It's your first time, so take it slow. If you get caught on a rock or something in the water, gently flick the rod, don't yank. If you notice a huge clump of tangled mess in the middle of your line when you reel back, that's a wind knot. Don't cast agaist the wind. Untangle the knot, or if you can't, cut the line and tie an fg/blood knot. If your line is wound up below your spool or you notice loops forming on the wound-up reel, that means you've let the reel spin backwards and the line slacked around your reel.
