For me it's a toss up between bass and stripers here in the states.  I enjoy hardfighting gamefish.  I also don't really care for fishing in the ocean.  Bass are acrobatic, aggressive and put up a good fight.  Sometimes they are easy to catch, sometimes they require a stick of dynamite.  A lure that worked last week won't get a second look tomorrow.

Two reasons:

1.  Tournaments.  Whether you pay an entry fee to fish a tournament or not doesn't matter.  There's just something about bass fishing that brings out the competitive nature in all of us.  I've fished for bream, catfish, trout, and a bunch of other kinds of fish with other people, and just wanted everybody to catch fish and have a good time.  But anytime I get in a bass boat (or even stand on the edge of a pond fishing for a bass) with a buddy I want to outfish them so bad it hurts.  Even when we go by ourselves, we're fishing against the fish, but we're fishing against anyone else who has ever picked up a rod and reel and targeted a bass.  We want to catch more and/or bigger bass than everyone else.  Bass fishing is competitive.

2.  The bait monkey told me to.

After carefully considering the whole situation I honestly can't answer   :-/

Bass aint the hardest fighters, aint the hardest to catch, aint the most voracious

But they sure is fun to catch