How Did You Learn To Fish?

[Senko lover]

How did you learn to fish? Who taught you?

I started out fishing for all species with night crawlers, my Grandpa's form of the game. We liked catching bass the best, but bream were a necessary evil and an occasional catfish was a big bonus. He taught me the basics of the game. I then quickly switched to fake bait, and acquired a spinning reel (soon to be upgraded to a baitcaster). I am mostly self-taught, but Scott Martin,  and Lake Fork Guy (not to mention the pros on bassmaster.com) taught me a lot with their YouTube channels.

Where did you start out?

[BasshunterJGH]

Bassresource, ***, YouTube. Nobody in my family is into fishing haha.;(

[A-Jay]

My Dad.

 

And I will never ever be able to thank him enough.

 

A-Jay

[Felixone]

I learned to fish saltwater from my father.  We used to all go as a family, and although I was very young at the time those are some of the best memories I have of my father.   He wasn't really into freshwater fishing so I have had to teach myself most of what I know.  I have a few local friends who helped me get started, but after that everything else has been online for the most part.

[Raul]

Nobody taught me, I learned to fish on my own.

 

How ? by practicing the little information I could find in the few magazines available in my hometown, magazines like Outdoor Life and Field & Stream ocassionally had articles about bass fishing. I did in one ocassion find a bass fishing special edition F&S magazine, oh boy ! I was amazed by the ammount of bass fishing infomation I found in those pages.

[gobig]

My grandfather got me into fishing. We fished saltwater for the most part. 

[whitwolf]

My Dad.

 

And I will never ever be able to thank him enough.

 

A-Jay

 

Ditto!

[Catch and Grease]

My grandpa started taking me... Would have never got into fishing if it wasn't for him

[geo g]

I loved the outdoors hunting and fishing.  I fished whenever I could and I watched a lot of others.  You can learn a lot if you keep your mouth shut, and just watch.  I have learned a bunch of techniques to use and a lot of things to just forget.  Even after 40+ years I still watch what others are doing, and I'm still learning. 

[tomustang]

I'm still learning how to fish, Find out something new and exciting from anyone

[BassinLou]

I am self taught. My parents til this day wonder who i got the fishing bug from....LOL. 

[bcarter261]

My first memories are going out fishing with my grandpa who was a very serious bass fisherman. He wanted to do lots of fishing, I wanted to do lots of driving around the lake. He had me fishing all over the place. I even won the local casting kids competition and he took me to the state competition where we met Bill Dance, KVD, and Hank Parker Jr among others. Great memories

[kickerfish1]

Father

[Jtrout]

My dad since I was really young he would have me n my twin brother up at 4-5 am going to the local streams where we would catch stocked rainbow trout on opening day.

[einscodek]

Myself.. self-taught and unconventional at times

but read ALOT  Jimmy Houston Outdoors (back in the day), Rick Clunn, KVD

then spent lotsa of time on the water thinkin this and thinkin that noticing this and that

and some plain luck sometimes doin the right thing at the right time but noticing it and learning from it

always willin to try new things.. like years ago gettin into bigger swimbaits etc

[skeeter1980]

Growing up In NYC,dad would take us upstate.We'd fish the reservoirs for anything that would bite night crawlers or minnows.lolWhen I moved to Delaware,I taught myself how to fish for bass,using lures.This year i'm learning to use a baitcaster.

[RSM789]

My Aunt & Uncle (my mom's older sister & her husband) taught me to fish & let me fish with them, but most of my bass fishing was self taught.  They showed me how to catch my first bluegill while they were fishing for stripers at the California Delta and later encouraged me that I could reel in my first big fish all by myself when I was 8 years old (it was a 5 lb. catfish on a little spin cast pole).  They rarely used artificial lures, kept & ate what they caught and were some of the best stewards of the environment I have ever known.  The did smile & shake their heads when I told them that I catch & release bass, knowing it was a generational difference between someone born during the Depression & someone born in the 60's.

 

Bassmaster magazine, circa 1975, was my bible of information for bass fishing.  I eventually ended up fishing a few times with guys my parents age while I was a teenager and it quickly showed me how little I really knew.  These guys showed me how to flip, how to fish plastic worms and that those different looking bass were indeed spotted bass that some homeowners smuggled in from nearby Lake Perris.

[atcoha]

When I was a wee lad, my grandpa would wake me up real early, fish the canals of south miami. Memories I hold dear to my heart.

When I got older, my step dad would take me fishing in the keys all the time. Had a blast, we still reminisce of some the the awesome dolphin days we had.

Never forget, I must have been around 11 or so, I hooked a monster snapper on a creek mouth in biscayne bay, I was yelling for him to take the rod!

He said, no, no, no, you better reel that thing in. That's pretty much what I told my boy when he hooked his first tarpon...reel it in or I am going by myself next time. He landed 2 that day. Tough love. Sometimes gives them the inspiration to do what they think they can't.

Great topic, brings back some great memories!

[DogBone_384]

As a kid, we just dug up worms from the garden & tried lures the bait shop owner recommended. Then came Field and Stream magazine. Fast forward 30 years or so later, Bassresource.com took over, with a lot of trial & error based on what I've read here...

[Josh Smith]

I don't remember my first fishing trip.

 

I was two or three when Dad started taking me.  We would go to a private pond as well as Little Flat Rock River.  I wore a life jacket and held a little Zebco while Dad went wading for smallmouth.

 

Eventually Dad went to a Quantum 1310 and I inherited his '70s 5000.  I'm actually in the process of rebuilding it right now.

 

Dad is still alive and well, but doesn't enjoy fishing much any more due to a bum knee and just age.  I figure I'll keep bugging him until he goes again.  Meantime I'm teaching my boy.

 

Josh

[BigMoneyGrip]

I've been learning for about 35 years now.

[Jolly Green]

Many years ago my grandpa taught me to drop minnows into Lake Erie and pull out perch two at a time, and shortly thereafter to love a good fish fry.

 

My dad taught me that bluegill aren't super picky: we once fished all weekend out of a large ziplock freezer bag full of cicadas that he had collected during a 17-year cicada summer in Cincinnati.

 

I've only been chasing bass for three years, and everything I know about it I learned from this site, a couple of books, and time on the water. Got a ways to go...

[Ozark_Basser]

My dad and my brothers really laid a foundation for what I know now.  Everything else has came from fishing with other people, my own creativity, and lots of research on the internet including bassresource.com. 

[Bluebasser86]

My dad taught me the basics like knot tying and unhooking fish, the rest is self taught and learned from videos and magazines. 

[flipin4bass]

My dad taught me how to fish on the old Macoupin in Illinois in the early 60's. I started with a 8' cane pole, which I still have, although it is dry and brittle...it sits proudly next to my Shimano outfits. By the time I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I landed my first bass, 2.5 lbs, with a Zebco 202 combo and a pre-rigged Crème worm. I miss those times.