Hey all, new to the forums! I've seen pictures of people fishing and they all look happy so I figure I get into it. 

 

Hello and Welcome!

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

I learned how to bass fish on my own.

 

Originally grew up targeting walleyes and muskies, learned that from my parents and grandfather.  Transitioned to bass one summer working for the DNR while conducting lake surveys (was permitted to fish during periods of down time).

 

While I almost always had access to our family fishing boat growing up, I often day dreamed about when I could buy and maintain my own bass boat.  That became reality in December 2015.

Welcome!

 

Started off as a youngster on panfish in a sandpit. Dad would take brother and I to stocked trout pond every spring...that was really fun! Never really fished for bass until the early 1990's.

 

Lived in NE Missouri...buddy from work was originally from Alabama and then Texas...he really got me in to bass fishing.

 

Helped that another buddy of mine worked for Cabela's, in the Bargain Cave, no less. I got bunches and BUNCHES of new and slightly used gear.

 

Fishing really slowed down for me when kiddos were born. Got back in to fishing in the last few years.

Welcome! My dad grew up fishing, and he started taking me when I was old enough to go.

I didn’t grow up fishing bass specifically. I learned from my father as soon as I was old enough to hold a kiddie pole. We would wade streams for brook trout, fish live bait for pike in the big lakes, fish in park ponds with Texas rigs, take charters on the Great Lakes for salmon, troll for walleye in the river. That’s how I fished until I got my own boat when I was around 22 or 23. When I would take my boat oht, I found myself wanting to fish for bass more and more. Something about catching a big ol bucketmouth really captivated me. Much more than any other types of fishing. So for the last decade, I’ve leaned heavily into bass fishing. I still do other types of fishing occasionally, but I’m a bass fisherman through and through. 

 my dad had passed.   my mom was frazzled.  older friends picked up me and my bro and we spent a week in AZ.  one guy took us night fishing.   we skunked but the host hooked a good one..  

 

years later that one tiny experience stuck with us and we just started learning on our own.   living in El Paso certainly didnt help. haha..we had Elephant Butte lake..and that lake wasn't great for the experienced fishermen..we really sucked at it, but we kept plugging...

 

now?  I'm better. 

On a whim, my dad bought a bunch of cheap rods, reels, and lures and spread them on the kitchen table with his considerable fanfare. None of us knew how any of it worked, but he loaded us into the station wagon and drove us to the metropolitan park where he worked summers as a ranger. We proceeded to fail, but kept plugging, fishing everything from wee creeks to farm ponds, never knowing what we were doing, but persisting and dreaming of big bass. 

 

3 minutes ago, Darth-Baiter said:

we really sucked at it, but we kept plugging

 

Darth's experience parallels mine. 

My father fished a lot as a teen and continued on up. He later married my mother who had an uncle who fished and the both of them fished a LOT. Once I was old enough he started taking me along and it grew since then. I had a few off years when I got more into dirt bike racing and cars/girls etc. but eventually came back in my later teens. 

 

Already introduced my youngest to it and constantly am asked to go fishing, which I try and do as much as possible. Attention span is about 30-45 minutes but its some of my best 30-45 minutes.

Got into fishing because my dad did.

 

Can't say he really taught me anything because he was a guy that I didn't see a bunch.

 

I guess I self taught myself by trial and error and books from the library as a kid.

 

Took many years off to hit a little white ball around a course.

 

Now I'm back.   

Dad got me fishing when little . Mostly crappie and catfish but I was always infatuated with bass lures. I would go to tackle shops and just stare at them.As soon as I got  a car , I began bass  fishing.Started with ponds and Mississippi river back waters. Then got a little aluminum  boat with a two hp johnson. Added a Plueger two speed trolling motor and  started hitting small lakes. There was a bass club in the area and I got involved with that for a couple of years. 

I started canoeing to go canoe camping in Maine and NY when I got too old for backpacking. I enjoyed the solitude of canoeing with my wife on uninhabited waters and started doing it locally without the camping aspect. When my wife stopped wanting to go I needed something to do while on the water so I started bass fishing. I’ve always saltwater fished, this was my first try at fresh. Takes a good while to learn when you have no one to teach you. Learned mostly trial and error, books instead of the internet.

My path to bass fishing started in my home state of NC with my dad taking me bass fishing on rental Jon boats at the local lake when I was barely able to hold a rod (I threw a few into the lake) and from there, life twisted and turned around with casual catfishing and salt water fishing with live bait and some small mouth fishing visiting family up north in Michigan and fishing charters in there but very little proper bass fishing.

 

Life happened and I started a family and had a really cool son named Jacob and somewhere around 2018 my super cool wife decided we needed to do more fun stuff around the house outdoors in our own backyard and she suggested we go fishing at the local lakes which had rental Jon boats.

 

I remembered fishing fondly and thought it a great idea and we bought 3 spinning rods and some crank baits and rented a jon boat.

 

paddling proved difficult and we didn’t do much fishing and we went and bought a little trolling motor like I remembered my dad having and started trolling around our little crank baits on the little local lakes.

 

We caught a few crappie and a couple small bass but mostly just had fun and didn’t have much success.

 

COVID hit in 2020 and suddenly we all had a lot more free time and wanted to get out of our house and there bass fishing was waiting for us to get a little more serious and that’s what I did.

 

i watched some YouTube videos and learned that we needed senkos!

 

we went to Walmart and I bought some yum dingers which had to be just as good I figured.

 

i also bought some 1$ spinnerbaits because Roland Martin told me on YouTube that spinnerbaits catch big bass.

That spring I caught a single 2 lber on a black and blue senko on a main lake point and then another at the back of a pocket and I felt a fire that made me want to figure out how to catch a real big one.

 

the sheer volume of what I didn’t understand or know was so exciting (still is) and I remember that feeling of walking up to a bank BELIEVING big ones were there for the first time.

 

well one windy spring day in March - I was right.

 

we took our rental Jon boat out into the wind and saw that a point that extended out into the main lake across from the marina was breaking the heavy march winds and I told Meagan and Jacob that’s where we would find them.

 

i knew from Roland that the fish would be ‘prespawn’ and that with the murky water and heavy winds a spinnerbait was a good option for ‘searching’ for fish (all knew terms to me at the time - I really felt like I was starting to put it all together 😉)

 

Well I remember bombing my 1$ spinnerbait up a point to bigger rocks that extended out into the main channel and slow rolling it back and feel like I was hung and then the snag pulling back and my drag slipping.

 

fish on.  Meagan and Jacob didn’t think it was a bass - catfish for sure they said as they readied our net.

 

when that 6 lber came up all pale and round and big eyed - it changed everything for me.  I wanted to know what it was like to catch another one bigger instantly and from there it got crazier and crazier and I have been consumed with the pursuit of large bass ever since- with what I consider - magnificent success for which I am dearly grateful.

 

welcome aboard - let the fish teach you how to catch them and always be open minded and you will have lots of success!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

For me it was back in 1969 fishing a small pond for bream with cane pole and bread and hot dogs.

 

Man I thought I was doing great until one day the little bream I was playing around with in the water on the hook got eaten by a big old bass. I had no idea really what happened. It was an explosion of water right under me. And all I had left was an empty line swinging in the wind.

 

I began scratching my head and the wheels started turning and I began to realize there was something bigger and badder out there. And I was not prepared for it.

 

That was the beginning right there.

 

I went back with a cheap plastic rod and reel and same thing happened.

 

That's when I started to really learn.

 

I hope you will find interest in it and dive in! Lots of fun.

 

 

8 hours ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

I began scratching my head and the wheels started turning and I began to realize there was something bigger and badder out there. And I was not prepared for it.

 

Love this.

 

It amazes me how far @Pat Brown has come in just a few years.'

 

I'm really enjoying these origin stories. When it comes to knowing nothing, I knew the least: I remember sitting on a riverbank in Michigan, waiting for a bite. My lure was a cheap red and white spoon, which I'd cast and let flutter to the bottom. There it sat and sat and sat, while I hoped some fish would find it and inhale it. 

My grandpa, a Red/white Heddon SuperSonic and San Carlos Lake in 1982…..been progressively more expensive ever since!

I started fishing as a very young child.

We had a 7 acre farm pond and a big creek below the house that was full of fish.

My job a couple times per week was to catch fish for dinner with my Zebco.

It got me out of garden work 😁

 

All the big bass from the farm pond broke my line.

I became a serious bass fisherman in 1977 when I met a tournament fisherman at the county Fair.

Invited him to the farm pond that very evening and he put on an absolute clinic, catching giant bass with a Zara spook.

 

He revamped all my fishing gear and took me with him on his Skeeter couple times per week.

He's been my best friend ever since.

He old now and not in good health but I still fish with him several times per year in my boat.

 

 

Started off crappie and catfishing with my dad(That was all he fished for) then one Saturday(or Sunday maybe?) morning, when I was about 9 or ten, I woke up and was flipping through the channels on the tv and all of a sudden I heard "The music". It played as I watched men on shiny sleek boats hauling bass upon bass across the bow of their High horsepower rocket ships and then Ray Scott said "I'm Ray Scott don't go away we'll be right back with Bassmasters." and I was hooked.

Hello and Welcome to Bass Resource ~ 

I started out as just a wee little lad . . .

A-Jay

Welcome aboard… Started out as a kid. Nobody in the family fished. My friends and I would fish creeks with a wide assortment of baits bread, corn, pieces of hot dogs and numerous other item we could get. Then as a young teen we started fishing for trout until I caught a bass and I was hooked.

I've fished as long as I can remember. My folks had a camp on a lake when I was a kid. That's where I learned to fish. The camp is long gone ( sold when I was a teenager) but the missus and I still fish the same lake. Here I am up at camp with Dad around 1955 with a " toy " fishing rod.

same camp a few years later.

At the same lake last week.

I grew up in a very small town (population of 950 people at that time) where the cows outnumbered the people by a large margin. I was kind of a loner as a child...I didn't fit in with any particular group, so I pretty much was left to my own devices. Most of my entertainment consisted of reading...anything and everything....and some TV watching. One of the things I read was Field and Stream magazine, simply because it was available, and on TV I discovered a show called Gadabout Gaddis (the flying fisherman). Those two things fired up my imagination, and I really wanted to try fishing. No one in my family fished. My father HATED fishing, as when he was a child he had to go fishing to provide table fare for his family. As a result he hated fishing and would not eat fish as an adult. But, he was willing to drive me to a few places to fish. I bought some cheap tackle with my paper route money and money I made doing things like shoveling sidewalks and started by fishing the creek that ran through my hometown. At first I used live bait and tried for anything that would bite. I caught carp, creek chubs, shiners, horned dace, bullhead and the occasional pickerel. The one day I caught a bass, and I was hooked. I begged my parents for better gear, and from then on my birthday and Christmas gifts were fishing related. My prize possession was an open faced spinning reel called a Hi-Spin. It was the first left handed (no swap the handle to any side back then) open face spinning reel I had ever seen. I am sure that my parents spent a lot of money for it at the time. By today's standards it was a piece of junk, but to me at that time it was really high tech and just about the best thing I could ever imagine. After getting that reel, I went from liking fishing to being a fishing fool. It is a passion that has continued for my entire life. I am still not what I would consider an expert fisherman. In fact, most of the time I think I am barely competent, but that has not stopped me from loving the sport and always trying to improve my skills. Oh, as a side note, I still have a Field and Stream award certificate for a 3lb  2oz largemouth bass that I caught from my hometown creek. Great memory......

5 minutes ago, Kirtley Howe said:

on TV I discovered a show called Gadabout Gaddis (the flying fisherman).

I used to watch him every chance I could.👍

I must have been born a fisherman.  I have always wanted to fish.  

 

I grew up in a small town, and my dad was a farmer.  We grew wheat and raised cattle.  He loved to hunt, and would always hunt a draw for pheasants, when he finished feeding the cows, or get up early and jump a spot on the river for geese before starting his chores.  I would tag along with him from the time I was able to walk.  He loved to be outside and so did I.

 

When summer came he was to busy for anything but work, so he had never taken up fishing.  I wanted to fish and my grandfather who lived on the coast of WA had a boat and liked to troll for trout.  When it came time for me to go fishing he bought me a rod for trolling and would take me fishing when we would visit him on the coast.

 

The problem was the rod may have been good for trolling, but I could not cast with it.  He assured me I would never want one of those stupid spinning outfits, and trolling was the only sporting way to fish.  That was fine for when I could go with him in his boat, but back home in Eastern WA I needed a rod that could cast like my friends had.

 

I would talk my dad into taking my brother an I fishing on sunday afternoons.  We would never catch anything.  My Dad did not know how to fish, and even if he did our rods would not get our worms an bobbers more than a couple feet from shore.  Our fishing trips would always end the same way.  We would become bored, feed the fish the worms we had dug, and go hiking along the bluffs around the lake, shooting cans with our bb guns and my Dads 22.  That was always a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I really wanted to fish.

 

Finally we found a place where I could catch bluegills from shore with my rod, and I was hooked.  When I got old enough to be in the boy scouts, my dad bought me a spinning reel before I went on a camping trip to a local lake.  Neither of us new how to use it, but the owner of the hardware store picked out the reel, and put line on it for me.  My scout master showed me how to tie an improved clinch knot, and gave me some crappie jigs to fish with.  I caught dozens of crappie that camping trip and could talk about nothing else but fishing for the entire summer.

 

Now that I had a rod that could cast, I didn't have to wait until the next camping trip to fish.  I could ride my bike to the nearest lake and catch trout.  It was a long way to ride my bike so my dad would take the long way to the ranch, and drop me off at the lake and pick me up on his way back home.  He never liked to fish, but he did love to eat fresh trout. Many days I would fish from sun up until sunset, catching my limit of trout almost every time I went.  I never fished with lures, and was certain worms from the garden were the best way to catch fish.  Some friends of mine lived a mile from the lake, and would ride their bikes down to fish off of the little dock at the launch.  They had a few lures, but we could never catch fish with them, so were dependent on digging worms.

 

The next summer the boy scouts went on a camping trip to the same lake where I caught all of the crappie the year before.  The owner of the hardware store gave me a couple Cordell Big O['s and a heddon sonic to try and catch bass with.  One of the other scouts new how to bass fish, and three of us paddled a canoe over to a riprap bank.  We walked for miles on that riprap bank catching lots of bass.  My best friend caught a 3 pound largemouth, and I thought it was the biggest bass in the world.  To this day I consider a 3 pound bass a big bass.  I eventually I lost all of my bass lures, but was lucky enough to find a Heddon River Runt lying on the bank.  Someone had snagged it when the water was up, and there it was just waiting for me.  That lucky lure was my only bass lure for the remainder of that summer.

 

After that camping trip I was a bass fanatic.  I started reading magazine articles on bass fishing and spent every spare money I had on bass lures.  By the time the next summer came, I was ready.  I no longer spent all day sitting on the little dock fishing for trout.  I would walk miles of shoreline casting for bass.  One evening a caught a 2 pound bass on a Jitterbug.  It was my first bass on a surface bait, and it was at that moment the Bait Monkey became my best friend for life.

 

The next spring I discovered the power of a spinnerbait, and would go on to use one as my go to lure for the rest of my life.

 

When I moved away from home, I expanded my fishing to include fly fishing for trout, and started fishing mostly rivers with a fly rod. but I still made it to my home water in the summer to fish for bass with the latest tackle I collected all winter.

 

When I was 25 I moved to Alaska and started guiding hunters and fisherman there.  I spent many years living in the Alaskan bush, and even though I didn't ever think I would ever get the chance to bass fish again, I still kept up on all of the latest tackle, techniques and tournament success of all the best bass anglers.

 

When I was 50 I was working the winters in Mexico and the summers in Alaska.  Eventually I was so busy in Mexico I could only get a week or two a year in Alaska.  I was only saltwater fishing in Mexico, but wanted to find a place to bass fish.  I eventually found a lake, and broke my old PB of 5.5 pounds, with one easily over 10 pounds.

 

After I caught that 10 pound bass I was instantly 13 years old again.  It was as if I had never left the bass fishing club.  The Bait Monkey moved in, and I started reading every article, and watching every video made on bass fishing.

 

I will always like to catch many species of fish, and will miss the wilderness of Alaska more than I ever care to admit, but Bass fishing is what I was born to do.  I am a bass fisherman, and that is not just what I do, but who I am.

 

This is the dock where spent my youth fishing.  The dock is gone now, but it is still a magical place.

 

 

  

 

 

Howdy and welcome.

 

I remember only 1 time my dad took my fishing when I was a kid, I was about 4 or 5. We went to a pond that was across the road from my aunt's farm. He caught a bluegill and threw it back.

 

Upon leaving, he began cutting donuts in the field, and my door to his old chevy van flew open during the cutting. I tried to hold it closed with my little arms, but to no avail. I did have my seatbelt on, but it was both scary and exhilarating!

 

He looked over and saw me, and I hollered "Hold on Bazoo!" I still remember him laughing as we cut a few more.

 

When I got home, I told Mom, and Mom was not happy, and they had an argument. Daddy was probably half lit, which was normal for him. But, it's the only happy memory I have of him.

 

He passed away when I was still 5.

 

Fast forward a few years, and an uncle took me fishing once. I remember sitting on some riprap and getting skunked.

 

Then... When I was about 12, my mom had a boyfriend, a nice guy named John that lived up the road. We ended up moving in with him, and we lived there for 2 years, happy, until he too passed away.

 

During those 2 years I really got my love of fishing because of 2 factors. First, there was a pond on the property, and second, John was a sportsman.

 

I remember only once that he took me fishing, we fished for bluegill, and I used a small hook, and gut hooked one. He ripped the hook out of it and threw it back. It flopped and turned until it floated.

 

But I used to go down to the pond after school and fish with bass lures. I caught a few on crankbaits that I recall.

 

One, I hooked in the eye, and I was scared and started to cry. I went to the house to get mom, and she got a pair of dykes and cut the hook. She admonished me not to be fishing any more, but of course I did.

 

I got an allowance occasionally and I bought lures. Somehow, I ended up getting a tackle box and a handful of things, one being a Bill Dance Fat Free Shad. It was my pride and joy.

After John died, we moved across the county to a farm when I was 13/14. There were cows on the farm, and the guy that was running them had another farm up the road about a mile and a half. I was granted permission to fish it. It had 2 ponds.

 

Occasionally, mom would take me and wait, but most often, she'd be willing to only make 1 trip, leaving me to walk either going or coming.

 

By that time, I had a pretty good interest in fishing and a decent amount of tackle. I watched fishing shows on Saturday mornings, and I subscribed to B.A.S.S..

 

I fished those farm ponds pretty often, once a week or more. I caught bass and catfish. Cats I targeted with worms or liver, but bass became my passion. I loved the lures, I loved the challenge.

 

When I began working at 16, one of the guys there was into bass fishing and would take me occasionally.

 

I found a spot up the road from work and would hit it several times a week during lunch with a co-worker.

 

Then it seems all at once, I had some life changes that got me out of bass fishing. At 24, I got married, I lost all my fishing spots, and I got deeper into guns, and my buddies sort of drifted off.

 

I ended up taking a break of about 15 years. I got back into when I had a son. He's 6 now, but when he was 3, I decided it was time, and I got us poles and got back into fishing.

 

I want him to grow up fishing and hunting, and having some of the experiences I didn't get to when I was a kid. He's a pretty decent little fisherman.

 

My problem now is making sure I don't burn him out on it. I don't ever make him go, and he doesn't go all the time I do. I fish nearly daily, but normally only a couple hours each day.

 

He's got a passion for it too already. Sometimes he says, "Dad, let's go to the river!" He loves to play on the river, or in the woods.

 

Yesterday he coaxed me to roll a boulder in lol. It was about 1'x1'x2', just at the limit of boulder moving for old dad.