My inlaws bought a house in CT on Rogers Lake in Old Lyme CT.

I know ZERO about freshwater fishing. I saw a guy land a 4 lb bass on Sunday about 20 ft from their dock, so now I'm hot to trot to catch bass while I'm there.

If I was going to spend $50 (~ 6 pogies) on freshwater fishing tackle, what should I get?

A bobber and shiners!

A bobber and shiners!

Exactly what I would suggest.
Unless you are going for smallmouth then loose the bobber and replace the shiner with a crayfish.

Figure out what kind of bait there is and then buy Rapala F6 and F7 in those colors. If I could only own two lures for all of my freshwater fishing, it'd be one Rapala F7 with black over silver and a Rapal F8 with black over gold.
http://di103.shoppingshadow.com/images/di/50/67/77/673054745157416e73585257325f3174564d67-149x149-0-0.jpg http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/m/mqfSl5Ki7m_IkKiydFTCDoQ/140.jpg

Here is a couple pictures of my son with a 4 plus pound large mouth he landed on an f7 black over silver. Sweet plug! Second to shiners

Senkos, they don't cast very far, don't hold up well but can be rigged weedless or whacky styles and flat out catch. Lots of rookies can catch on them as there is no required action by the fisherman. Seriously once I tried these maybe 4 or 5 years ago I now always have a pole with it rigged. I used to be a berkley powerworm desciple and still use them a lot but not nearly as much now that I found senkos.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Depending on the structure IN the lake as well as the structure OF the lake, there are a multitude of possibilities.

Can NEVER go wrong with a shiner and bobber. If it's legal in CT (check first) you might be able to save $$ on shiners and use baby sunfish as I do here in MA.

Rubber worms for sub-surface fishing and rubber frogs for surface fishing are also good choices. Basically any lure that creates some vibration when being reeled in will work. The key is to have a selection of lures so you can find what will work best.

Then there's the lake itself. Does it have weed beds? Lily pads? Overhanging trees and tree branches? What other fish species are present, so that you can have other options if bass don't cooperate?

The more you know, the better you will do!

There's three distinct types of structure on the lake. Right out in front there's lilly pads and two rocks that drop off from 2 to 10 ft of water. The guy that got the big bass was fishing the two rocks. I saw several bass boats with people who looked like they knew what they were doing fishing the lilly pads.
There's tons of small sunfish right off the dock. I wonder if I could kite fish the sunfish :D

The third distinct structure is the hole in the middle of the lake that's 90 ft deep and I guess holds big trout. I'm not bothering with that yet.

One of my favorites on LMB is the senko worm or the pig and jig. On the pig and jig, Really slow up and down retrieval. Pull the tip up and slowly let it down and reel back down on the slack.

A bass is a bass, many tactics work for stripers and large or smallmouth bass. Same with water temps and sunlight, seasonal patterns for largemouth aren't all that different from Stripers; less the migratory part of the equation.

Get up early and you will be rewarded with some topwater action, rapalas, skitterpops, zara spooks or frog or rats on the edges of pad fields. Like stripers, freshwater bass are structure orinentated and more territorial, unless your on a very large impoundment where they might move more with bait populations.

Like stripers after the morning shallower and upper column bite, move out and deeper; crankbaits, jig-pig, carolina rig deeper edges of structure or deep weedbeds. If that water holds smallies, that deep hole might be fun with a live green frog or yellow perch and split shot. If you like conventional gear, can't beat a spinnerbait hit when buzzed just under the surface on a calm early summer morning on the edge of cover; that is the ultimate slam. Later in the fall with the water rises over the tops of weedbeds that same spinner bait fished tick, tick, tick on the top of the weeds will call some great hits.

Jig&pig is still one of the best big bass freshwater baits going, boy I'm almost tempted to get a freshwater license and get back to my routes.

Andy:
I'm in the same boat; I fish 1/year for 3 days in Maine at my wifes family's camp.
Smallies and LMB.

4" black or pumpkinseed senko. rigged weedless w/ no weight.
cast and let sink. when your line starts to move set the hook. (Thanks to John "Goosefish" Lee for setting me up w/ this rig.....

I outfished the locals 5x1 the last few years and thats all I bring!

Thanks everyone I have good list to get me started.

LMbass hate Lizzards