What mistakes did you make early in your bass fishing that probably cost you some money and some lost quality fishing experiences?

 

1. I started as a kid and spent my money on a bunch of short 5 to 6 foot pistol grip rods. I thought they looked cool and would easily fit in the car. Never really thought that they do not cast far or load up correctly. Today most of the rods I use are in the 7 foot range. I think I may still have those short rods stored someplace. 😒

2. Spent what little cash I had on cheap knock off baits, from Kmart, Walmart, etc. instead of saving up for more quality stuff.

 

Despite these setbacks, I still caught some nice bass.

I'm not so worried about the mistakes I made early on, more on the mistakes I'm still making.  I think the biggest one is getting so tied up in the fishing that I don't stop about mid-day and calmly think about what I've forgotten to try.  

Starting fishing in the first place cost me a lot of money. 
 

Honestly I just fish. I can’t say anything has been a waste of money or that it caused me to not catch a fish.  Skill trumps equipment.  

My only mistake, if that’s even the correct word for it, was thinking that I had to own every color of every soft plastic or lure. Clearly I never owned “every color” but you know what I’m saying. Found that I only needed two to three colors tops.

37 minutes ago, rboat said:

What mistakes did you make early in your bass fishing that probably cost you some money and some lost quality fishing experiences?

Locked the drag down with 8lb line

Went swimming with fishing poles

Tried to get fish to eat crankbaits floating on the surface

Called 3lb bass 8lbers 

Junk !

Grew up with a 7 acre farm pond loaded with big bass and broke my line on everyone them.

8# dry rotted Stren, flimsy rods with grooves in the eyes.

Finally met a tournament fisherman at the county Fair in the late 70's and invited him over.

He proceeded to slay these giant bass.

 

He gave me a nice rod and reel and some tackle and the rest was history.

Oh !The expense started after I realized I could actually catch some fish. 😄

 

27 minutes ago, MickD said:

I think the biggest one is getting so tied up in the fishing that I don't stop about mid-day and calmly think about what [the fish are telling me] to try.

Ditto, with a slight revision.

 

Edit: I actually find this helpful to do multiple times a day, specifically between different periods of the day such when morning shifts into mid-morning, etc

I felt like I needed to try every technique and fine tune everything exactly. Don't get me wrong there's a place for dialing in but you can also overwhelm yourself with options and think there's some "silver bullet" out there to find. If I had to start from complete scratch I would probably own like 80% less tackle than I currently do lol. 

My childhood reel was a Zebco 404 and I didn't understand drag, so, like @LrgmouthShad, I cranked my drag to maximum and the bigger bass broke my line. 

 

Like @MassYak85, I've over-acquired lures. 

 

I like @Bird's story and envy Bird. I wish I'd had someone when I was young to show me how to catch bass. My brothers and dad knew as little as me. So, we blundered our ways to eventual success.

Thinking that the secret to catching all the fish lay somewhere on the shelves of BPS or DSG. 

I bought a bunch of everything tackle wise not knowing much about what caught fish in my area.  Now, I needed to do this to find out for myself what works and what doesn't.  But the result is I now have a bunch of quality tackle that literally never gets used.  Could have saved myself a couple grand.

Biggest mistake was putting away my poles and picking up golf clubs.

 

Lasted a good 15 years.

 

Had some good times and raised some kids that are pretty good including one playing D1 currently.

 

But I'd sure like to get some of those back as I don't think I'll ever golf again and don't miss it.

Made friends with the Bait Monkey. A mistake made at the start that I continue to make.

Locking down the drag, been there.

I also thought every lake was like the stocked pond that Bill Dance caught a six pounder on every cast on his TV show.🤣

Started fishing at 4 or 5 in short britches hand lining stunted bluegills that hung out under the dock with a hook and pieces of spilled popcorn. Now, 40-50 rods and reels, half a gazillion baits or all shapes, colors and sizes. Metric crap ton of gear.  I fish fresh and salt waters, and recently inherited a fly rod. No mistakes, I fish there for I am. 

FM

I don’t make mistakes. I’m perfect. 

Not fishing often enough. I'd fish 4 - 6 days a week, but don't have a good excuse for that 7th day.

Changing lures too often. Broke myself of that by strictly limiting the lures I take with me. My catch rates went way up after that.

 

It allowed me to really focus on presentation and location by getting the mental clutter of "Am I throwing the right thing??" out of my head. 

25 minutes ago, Rucksack said:

Changing lures too often. Broke myself of that by strictly limiting the lures I take with me. My catch rates went way up after that.

 

It allowed me to really focus on presentation and location by getting the mental clutter of "Am I throwing the right thing??" out of my head. 

This. Everyone should read this. I didn’t truly get confidence baits. Till I started taking only that bait out and making it work. And dialing in the presentation now I fish with only a few things and colors really 

Not paying close enough attention to location

Not checking my line regularly and re-tying if damaged. 

Ignoring the lure weight rating on the rod. 

 

Can anyone relate to these?

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

Biggest mistake was putting away my poles and picking up golf clubs.

 

Lasted a good 15 years.

 

Had some good times and raised some kids that are pretty good including one playing D1 currently.

 

But I'd sure like to get some of those back as I don't think I'll ever golf again and don't miss it.

 

I used to be an avid golfer.  Three years as a letter winner in varsity at the highest level in HS here.  I was good.  But practicing every day or playing in a match will do that too.

 

It's so time consuming and expensive now.  I haven't played in several years.  I would like to pick it up again if I had more time (maybe when I retire in 20 years).  It's tough to keep your game sharp when you only play twice a month.  Given a choice, I'd rather fish.

 

As for the mistakes I made early on while fishing...I think the reliance on live bait.  Maybe it was a by-product of fishing for walleyes more often, but live bait is absolutely unnecessary anymore.  I find it to be a waste of money and time.

 

Grabbing the line to land a fish instead of the net.

I was able to avoid a lot of mistakes by reading up on it and taking advice from forum members. I still use my first baitcasting setup, pretty regularly too.

 

I’ll say mine is fishing too many lures or changing too often. I still struggle with that at times.

 

 

Fishing to fast......