If you bass fished as a kid, what was it like?

[Swamp Girl]

I fished with my brothers by tying our pistol-gripped fiberglass rods and Zebco reels to our bikes and fishing Ohio farm ponds We mostly waded, casting Creek Chub Plunkers, a wooden popping lure, and rubber worms with a couple pre-rigged hooks. We nearly always caught some bass. Once I caught 21, a record for me. I always wanted to catch a 17-incher like my brothers caught. I hooked and lost a few because I knew nothing about setting the drag and the drag on my Zebco 606 was junk. I was 17 or 18 when I caught my first 17-inchers. I enjoy much better fishing nowadays, but I have nothing but fond memories of those first years.

 

How about you?

 

 

[A-Jay]

If you bass fished as a kid, what was it like?

 

Like this ~ (circa 1965)

A-Jay

[WRB]

Live on a lake shore and fished about the same time as I could walk a life time of fishing. Bass about 7 years old when catching my 1st, the bass hooked me into a lifetime of pursuing them.

Tom

 

[islandbass]

Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to fish as a kid. The memories started at age 34, lol 😝 

 

I did have the tables turned however. The usual story is that the parent takes the child. In my case, it is the opposite. I took my dad so he could fish. I learned he had always wanted to also. I got him into some smallies and on one trip he caught two species of salmon, a pink and a coho! Unbelievable and amazing. 

Update: I can’t believe I found the photos of my dad fishing for salmon the for the first time. 
 

Fishing along the banks of the Green River, WA. Pink and Coho salmon were running at the time. If I recall correctly, it was late October, 2009. 

 

Here he is with one of the pinks he caught. 
 

 

The last fish he caught this day smashed his jig so hard that I knew it couldn’t be a pink salmon. And to our surprise it was a magnificent coho. Unfortunately, it wriggled out of his hands and fell onto the sand and so you can’t really see how bright the fish was, but the smile on my dad’s face said it all. 
 

 

Edited November 2, 2024 by islandbass
Update

[king fisher]

Bass fishing as a kid was an indescribable passion.  A journey full of mystery with that one great giant bass of my dreams always one cast away.

 

Every bass hooked was a miracle, every bass landed a life long memory, every day fishing an adventure, every new stretch of shoreline, creek bend, or piece of cover a fantastic discovery, and every lure a treasured magical creation.  That is how I remember bass fishing as a kid, and how I still think of bass fishing to this day.

[casts_by_fly]

Every year we would start fishing at ice out and quit when hunting season came around. A bit of trout fishing in the spring, but mostly bass. We fished a bunch of local ponds all the time and usually caught a bunch of bass. I fished the local creeks for bass in the summers with ultralight and fly gear. We also fished club tournaments for a couple years when I was 9-11 years old. After we stopped doing that it would still be the same lakes, just not in tournaments. 

[WRB]

I can’t explain why big fish became my goal. My mentor was Jason Lucas who emphasized developing fishing skills like casting accuracy’s and working lures to catch bass. 

I would walk the shoreline and see pressure wakes from bigger fish leaving and smaller bass staying curious to see me. I wanted to catch those bigger bass all my life. So watched them closely and focused on catching them.

Being at the right place and time was a result of a lifetime trying to catch the biggest bass in the lake. Have no idea why this became a goal but it did!

Always judged fishing success by size not numbers.

Tom

 

[Pumpkin Lizard]

Had a five acre pond in my backyard stacked with stunted bluegill and bullhead in CT.  Some neighbors offered to transplant a bunch of bass from another pond. A few seasons later we were catching 3-5lbrs. Neither of my parents knew anything about fishing so for the most part I was self taught. I read Bassmaster, Outdoor Life and In Fisherman religiously and would go out and put almost everything I read into practice. 

 

In the summer I would fish every night. Literally every night. I had a dalmatian who insisted on going with me.

 

Had another public lake a mile down the street and we belonged to a private club with a beach and canoes. I used to get up early in the mornings and ride a 10 speed with three rods and a huge tackle box. I had a cinder block with a rope tied through it staged in the woods for an anchor. I used to try to catch a limit by lunchtime and I kept a journal of everything I caught.

 

One of my Dad's business buddies lived in Atlanta and he had Bomber Bass Boat. One year he had me down for a week of fishing on Lake Oconee. He fished some tournaments and taught me quite a bit that week. Honestly I consider that one of the greatest things anyone ever did for me.

 

I was extremely lucky.

[Kirtley Howe]

I grew up in a very small town in central southern New York state. When I say a small town, I mean REALLY small...population of 950 at that time. My father hated fishing, and never went fishing himself, but he did drive me to some fishing holes and showed me the basics. After a few trips, he said I was on my own, I walked or biked all over the place, fishing the local creeks and a few ponds I could get access to. Fishing became a total passion for me. My life consisted of school, homework, chores and fishing. Every spare moment I had was spent fishing. I would wade 15 miles of creek on the weekends. On weekday during warm weather, I fished from when my chores and homework were done until 9 or 10 pm. My mother used to joke that I would grow webbed feet because I spent so much time in the water. I caught carp, creek chubs, suckers and pickerel....and then I started catching bass. From then on bass were my main target. I remember that for my 9th birthday, my parents got me a left had open faced spinning reel (no such thing as interchangeable handles back then), and that opened up a whole new world for me. I could actually target a cast! After that, I never looked back. I have great memories of those days.

[Mobasser]

My brother and I stayed at our grandparents farm several summers to help out with chores. We fished two farm ponds almost every evening. My older brother was my teacher, and taught me all the basics of bass fishing.                                              Sometimes a kid from a nearby farm went with us. We almost always used surface baits from our dad's and Grandpa's tackle boxes.         My brother was a patient teacher, and I have great memories of those times.

[Swamp Girl]

8 hours ago, king fisher said:

That is how I remember bass fishing as a kid, and how I still think of bass fishing to this day.

 

Then you haven't lost the wonder, my friend.

 

6 hours ago, Pumpkinseed Lizard said:

I used to get up early in the mornings and ride a 10 speed with three rods and a huge tackle box.

 

Ah, we had the same childhood!

 

6 hours ago, Kirtley Howe said:

. Fishing became a total passion for me.

 

I sure smiled when I read this sentence. I pity kids who spend their childhoods inside walls. When I was 15, my dad took my brother and me to a wilderness island at the end of the most northern road in Ontario and left me there for five weeks. When he came for the boat, he brought my bike and I rode home with my brother. That's the way kids should be raised, feral and free.

[DogBone_384]

I fished with some of my friends in my neighborhood at Eaton's Pond in Braintree.  I dug up worms from my parents' garden and as I got older got lures from Kings Department store and BraWey Sports.  I forget what rod I had, but I have a Shakespeare Sigma spinning reel on an Ugly stick I've had since JHS/HS (?).

 

As we got older we rode our bikes to Wampatuck State Park and fished Aaron Res., even camping by the shoreline a few times.  This was in the late '70s, early '80s.

 

Compared to today, it was very innocent and simple. There was no YT or Tackle Warehouse.  The rest of the world didn't matter, we were just out having fun.

[Swamp Girl]

15 hours ago, WRB said:

Always judged fishing success by size not numbers.

 

I judge fishing by size, numbers, the animals I saw that morning*, how well I paddled, the joy of walking through the woods, how the rising Sun slowly lighted the young day, being in a quiet place away from the hurly-burly of people, and how well I cast.

 

*Canada geese, beavers, ducks, deer, and a snapping turtle yesterday morning with owls, woodpeckers, and ospreys heard

[Catt]

Y'all had rod-n-reels!

Musta been nice!

 

Growing up in Southwestern Louisiana sporting good store were local Mom-n-Pop stores & catered mostly to saltwater anglers.

 

I started with a cane pole, a cork (not a plastic bobber), shiners,  crawfish or earthworms.

 

Round '62-63 I graduated to Zebco 202 "ZeeBee" spincast.  Lure selections were even more limited. 

 

Bass fishing was mostly walking rice canal levees, marshes, swamps, & river banks. 

[BrianMDTX]

I wouldn’t say that I “bass” fished as youth. I’d say I fished. Bluegill, crappie, yellow perch, catfish, bass…it was all good to me. 
 

 

Once old enough, my friend and I would strap a two-piece rod on the handlebars of our ten speeds, carry minimal tackle and bike 14 miles from our neighborhood in Baltimore to Loch Raven Reservoir. We were much more successful on bluegills, crappie and yellow perch than bass. Still loved it. 
 

But going with my dad and brother (sometimes accompanied by my dad’s friend Mr. Fred, or my fishing buddy, Mark) to Wye Mills Community Lake on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, was my favorite. Relatively small at 50 acres, but they had cheap rowboats for rent and definitely held bass. I caught my PB at 13 there that stood until 2020. No scale, but likely 3 to 3-1/2 lbs. I thought it was a monster. 

[GaryH]

Started fishing with a few friends that were about the same knowledge as I had about fishing, which was none. We would pack a lunch bag and head out to the local creeks and streams with worms and then our bread from our sandwiches. We mainly had suckers and carp. Then one year when I was around 10 yrs. A friends dad took us to a lake and low and  behold I caught a bass. Well after cutting grass and shoveling snow I saved up enough to buy a Zebco set up and the journey was on. 

[12poundbass]

Pre 16 I rarely bass fished. My stepdad was and still is a walleye guy so they were mostly our target species. Plenty of fond memories of trips to northern Michigan fishing Black lake and eventually migrating to the UP after they bought property on Big Bay de Noc. 
 

Once I turned 16 and had a set of wheels the bass game was on. My friend lived on a lake so we’d take their pontoon out and bass fish all the time when we weren’t fishing. We also had access to a small private lake with only one house on it. When not on the big lake we’d be out in a row boat on the private lake losing having a blast. The mosquitoes would rob us of a pint of blood a week but we didn’t care, we were catching bass and being boys.

[LrgmouthShad]

I grew up with hunting, not fishing. Around the time I was 17, some friends of mine suggested we try fishing. We went but they lacked patience. Since I am accustomed to sitting in the woods waiting on deer, the initial lack of success did not deter me. Shortly after, I mentioned to a family friend that I was fishing but not having much luck. He invited me to fish at a private lake off one of his kayaks. He taught me the improved clinch knot but most of the time he just handed me a fly rod with a sinking leader and had me troll around the lake backwards with a fly so that I could see the fish strike with the rod held between my legs. I caught a lot of fish doing that. He encouraged me to fish for anything that would bite, but I became passionate about trying to catch bass because I watched many YouTube videos about catching them. I was a gamer prior to fishing and my parents much preferred me fishing, so my Dad bought me a spinning rod and reel I could use for bass. I could go whenever I wanted. Fast forward to COVID and whenever I wanted became an awful lot. Then I joined BR. The winter of 2020, I caught my freak PB bass out of the same private lake I first started fishing on. 

[Pat Brown]

Spinning rods and either manns worms or crank/Jerkbaits.  My dad had other stuff but I just looked - never got to touch.

 

It wasn't til we started making annual trips up to Michigan for small mouth that I really got decent with a crankbait.  Jerkbaits I just fished like crankbaits at the time 🤣🤣🤣

 

They still caught small mouth.

 

Fishing for catfish with my friends was my second love in my teens. It was a welcome respite from the hardships of adolescence and my friends and I would go out into the woods on the banks of Lake Michie in Durham, North Carolina and we would fish for big catfish in the sticky hot summer sun!  We used chicken, liver and cheese flavored hot dogs on spinning rods and we caught us a lot and we ate them too! 

 

Caught my first and only chain pickerel doing this and it was a really good one. 

 

Never caught a large mouth on chicken liver during this but it turns out the lake is great for largemouth bass! 

 

In 2018 and 2019 my wife and son and I started trolling crankbaits on John boats at local lakes for fun to get outside and do something besides sit around at our house and we did that maybe three or four times over the course of those two years and had a lot of fun doing it and maybe caught a few crappie and maybe one bass doing that. 

 

Mostly just enjoyed being outdoors. 

 

Covid hit and I became self-employed and successful and bass fishing was sitting there. Staring me in the face. 

 

Living in Greensboro. I'm surrounded by some of the best quiet and unheard of largemouth bass fisheries on the Eastern seaboard and I have been deeply ensconced with these fisheries since about 2020! 

 

I've never fished for anything with the intensity and the passion that I've devoted to the largemouth.

 

[PaulVE64]

My Dad and Uncles every summer took vacations together. I was blessed to have over 100 1st cousins and around my age were my 2 brothers and another 5 boys within a year of me. 

We'd all go out in the boats on some lake in Ontario just before dark and start fishing for walleye, pike and smallies.

Was a great part of childhood for me.

 

[Catt]

During the 50s & early 60s all we knew about bass fishing was tule dipping, jigger pole fishing, & doodle socking. Traditional bass fishing wasn't until mid 60s.

[scaleface]

I didnt have access to ponds , fished the Mississippi and some back waters a lot. Rode my bike to these places and fished mainly with crappie jigs. Caught white bass and crappie mostly but would get the occasional largemouth, smallmouth or walleye. My rod  n reels were horrid , didnt cast very far so did a lot of diddling around rip rap ,   bridges and whatever brush I could find. 

[LonnieP]

I would dig up night crawlers under the dried cow pies on the farm I grew up on. Then I would ride my bike to a neighboring farm pond down the road or either a private lake a few miles away. Used a pistol grip rod and a Zebco 404. Early teenage years I started using a spinning combo and discovered plastic worms and the Texas Rig. 

[Mike L]

All you guys are very lucky.
If I ever told my Dad I was going fishing he probably would tell me not to forget to close the man hole cover in the street before I left.

Growing up on the So Side of Chicago the closest I ever got to a fish was when my Ma would serve fish sticks for dinner. 
 

 

 

 

Mike

[BrianMDTX]

@LrgmouthShad If you don’t have patience to fish, don’t even think about deer hunting lol. Especially bowhunting.  At least fishing you’re casting, reeling, etc. Sitting motionless in a tree for 6-12 hours is not for the faint of heart!