How Did You Catch Your First Bass?

[Jrob78]

I haven't the slightest idea, I was way too young to remember. 

[LonnieP]

Night crawler and a bobber with a Zebco 202 over 40 years ago

[haggard]

Fish #1 7/30/17, went to camp, slept in the trailer, set the alarm for 4:30 am to be on the water by 5am.

 

At that point youtube had taught me everything I knew about fishing, which wasn't much. Had not much idea what I was doing or where to fish, but luck worked that morning and 17 minutes later just after sunrise landed the smallie. Hands were shaking I was so excited.

 

4 inch green pumpkin worm, TX rigged with 1/4 oz bullet, 3/0 hook, PC66MF2 with a Caenan 151 baitcaster, 10 lb test Trilene XL mono. I know it's silly but I deliberately keep that setup exactly the same and plan to never change it, sell it, trade it or forget it. I suppose it'll wear out some day but hopefully long after I do

 

 

 

[Logan S]

Mepps Comet.  No joke, on my very first cast for bass. 

 

Had fished for and caught plenty of bluegills and other sunfish along the banks of a pond with bait...After several trips my dad told me there were bigger fish in the pond but I needed to fish for them differently.  He took me to a tackle shop on the way home one day and picked out a few things, including the Mepps Comet.  Next time at the pond I rainbow-lobbed (first cast, I was really awkward ) that Comet way out in the middle and about 3 cranks into that first cast a bass smashed it.  It was the coolest thing in the world to me and hooked me on bass fishing right then and there.  I was probably 7 years old?  Don't really remember but I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I think...

 

Pretty sure its the only bass I've ever caught on a Comet too...And I only ever caught a handful of other bass from that pond in many other trips before moving away. That first cast bass was just meant to be or something .  

[jbsoonerfan]

No idea, too young to remember. My first was on live bait. The first artificial I can remember was on a 6" purple worm with a pink curl tail on a straight retrieve.

[scaleface]

I dont remember the first lure but it was probably a crappie jig .

[WRB]

My grandmother made up flag shape strips of chamois dyed with red iodine we used on cane poles to catch bluegill and crappie off her dock and my first bass was caught using it.

Tom

[OCdockskipper]

A Mister Twister red curly tail worm (not the phenom, the longer tail version).  Rigged weightless with an open hook, we thought trolling through the weedbeds in our little yellow dingy was the way to catch them.  We mostly caught weeds, but did catch a couple of keeper bass.

[MIbassyaker]

I was about 15, fishing a little distance below a spillway on the local river where I grew up.  We fished mostly live bait -- nightcrawlers under a bobber, or on the bottom for walleye and catfish, or frogs for pike.  i would occasionally catch a walleye, rock bass or pike on an in-line spinner or curly tail grub, but live bait was usualy the ticket.  On the afternoon in question, I was fishing nightcrawlers. I had a decent channel cat on the stringer already, and was casting the crawler under a bobber ahead of fallen trees, letting it float past as close as I dared...

 

I remember it vividly: my bobber went down, and I thought it was snagged on a tree at first....but then I saw it was moving against the current. Excitedly I begain hauling the fish in, and found it pulled harder than I expected....and then it jumped! Like 3 times!  WHen I got it to shore, I saw it wasn't quite as big as it felt -- about 14 inches and brownish...I recognized it as a smallmouth bass, which I had seen on TV and in magazines, but never in person.  We didn't even know there were any bass in the river. 
 

After that point, I tried to target smallies specifically, but wasn't successful. I ended up catching my first largemouth at a lake the next year (I think?). But I never caught another smallmouth after that first one, and a few years later I left for college. I was able to fish for largemouth off and on in the various places I lived after that point. But I didn't catch my second smallmouth until I moved to Michigan about 10 years ago.

 

Today, that spillway on the river back where I grew up has been removed, and there is no longer any public access to that area long the bank. But I hear smallies have, in the 2 decades or so since,  colonized those stretches of the river pretty well and are now much more common than they once were.  One of these days I'm going to get back there and catch a few more. Maybe do a float. It feels like unfinished business. 

 

 

 

 

[Bluebasser86]

No idea, started fishing when I was still in diapers. I remember some of my favorite lures being a rigged Creme Scoundrel, rootbeer colored roadrunner, and an Original Rapala. I was probably 5 or 6 in this picture and a seasoned vet at by then, catch and release wasn't a thing at this point in my life either.

[kenmitch]

Lake Elsinore, west end of the lake, fishing submerged brush, in the 70's is all I can remember. Rewinding my memory bank I can only see bits and pieces of that day. I can visualize the area of the lake, the bass I caught, and remember my dads long lost brother telling me it was a LMB. My memory bank has been scrambled more than once in the last 40+ years!

[TimberTodd]

Whole nightcrawler hooked through the head with a single splitshot 18" above the hook.

[JustJames]

I used to be bait and wait most of my life until I moved here in US. Even at beginning of my fishing here still bait and wait type and mostly saltwater at jetti or charters boat. 

My first bass came from Saltwater rig  “spider hitch dropper rig” with 6” worm (kind of drop shot). Up until now I still use this rig when drifting for catfish.

[Smalls]

My dad started taking me fishing before I could walk. He’s a perch/panfish fisherman. We’d go and throw perch harnesses and sit til something bit. 

 

One day a bass came and ate my worm, almost ripping my spider man rod out of my hands. He called it a “junk fish” and threw it back.  That was it, though. I couldn’t care less about bluegilll or perch, anymore. 

[scaleface]

My first bass is in my  avatar photo . 

[the reel ess]

I really have no idea because I've been fishing longer than my memory. So probably on a minnow or worm on a cane pole. That was my first rod. We mostly crappie fished when I was coming up.

 

Later I got a Zebco 33 and an assortment of Mepp's Comets, Rooster Tails and "Shysters". I caught a good many bass on those that I remember as well as crappie and white bass.

[Columbia Craw]

Mepps spinner about 55 years ago. Four casts , four bass. 

[bowhunter63]

Crawdad crankbait 1973,Was 10 years old.

[J.Vincent]

With a Nightcrawler dangled below a Red and White Bobber

[thinkingredneck]

Hard to remember.  Probably on a crappie jig.

[Basseditor]

Suick Muskie lure while Muskie fishing. Even though it was a big bass, I was disappointed at the time. Because I don’t live in Muskie territory now, I’m 100% B.A.S.S.

[JFlynn97]

1st bass ever followed my crank bait up to the bank but never committed to a strike, once I reeled the crank in he veered off and plopped himself under an algae mat next to a big branch that was in the water no more than 2 feet from the bank. Kept my eye on him while I took off the crank and tied on a senko to make sure he wouldn't swim off again, and plopped the senko right in front of his face and he absolutely annihilated it. All that was followed by a hectic 30 seconds where all logic went out the window and I did all I could to get him up the bank all while yelling about hooking into my first bass.

 

Definitely a moment I'll never forget!

[river-rat]

On 2/25/2019 at 3:36 PM, Catt said:

 

Exactly the same with me. Black and Yellow H&H. I was 10 years old in 1962 and remember it like it was yesterday. I've been obsessed with bass fishing ever since.

[HoosierFisher]

The first one that I can remember was on a Rooster Tail. That wasn't on purpose. My first one while targeting Bass was a Texas rigged Senko believe. I remember being excited that I actually caught something on a plastic worm. 

[J._Bricker]

On a cane pole soaking a worm under a red/white bobber on a pond near Cherry Point, North Carolina.....