I winter in FL and guys here call bass "ditch pickles", where did that come from?

Sounds like something the inshore guys would say to poke fun at bass anglers.

I’ve lived here for 41 yrs and have never heard that. 
 

 

 

Mike

I've heard the term for bass for many years, and I'm on the polar opposite side from Florida.  I don't now the origin of the term though. But I think it's meant to be derogatory towards bass.

 

That is a new to me also and I thought I have heard every degrogatory term for bass.

I was shocked when living in the Seattle area for a year in '69 how the locals felt towards bass, trash fish. The northwest is all about cold water fishing and bass are like carp to those folks.

Tom

From what I can tell, the term was first used by snowmobilers back in the mid to late 1990s when Arctic Cat changed the color of their ZRs from all black to green. Since snowmobilers frequently run the ditches alongside roads because of the excess snow accumulation, that particular model got the nickname "ditch pickle." 

 

When it transferred to bass is hard to say for certain, but in 2010, a fly-fishing only tournament for bass was created in Vermont named the "Ditch Pickle Classic." According to Urban Dictionary, the most common definition of "ditch pickle" is, "A slang term for Largemouth Bass, a green fish that often lives in small murky ponds or in ditch waters."

Ditch pickle is a nickname for bass. A lot of people use that nickname to be funny and it should not be taken seriously. Catfish, walleye, and other species have nicknames as well. 

I've heard it many times and I'm a good ways from Florida. A lot of guys here call bass "bait".

Derogatory or not, I like slang nicknames like that.

 

I love hunting pheasants, but still laugh every time somebody calls them "ditch parrots."

A lot of guys in Alabama use that term. Haven’t heard it much here in FL. The guys in bama that use it are mainly crappie guys that don’t care about bass. 

Ha, that's why profile name is what it is.

Haven’t heard bass called that but the common one around here is green carp. Here in Minnesota it seems that if it isn’t a walleye most people would rather leave it for dead on the shore. Really a shame how people treat most fish in this state, seen so many bass pike musky catfish ect thrown up on the bank because people think they are going to eat their precious walleyes. Then they want to blame the other fish for the lack of walleye, definitely not the fact that vast majority of walleye fisherman keep their limit of fish every single time they are on the water, but that’s a different topic don’t mean to hijack