Then and Now

[Columbia Craw]

I was talking to my bass club team partner who is forty years my junior.  The context was about how I fished when I started and have I changed and how have I changed?

 

After some reflection I realized I’m more of a student of bass fishing.  I’m more analytical.  I look at fishing as situational and what techniques would best suit each specific situation.

 

I also noted I am far more versatile now than when I started.  Part of that is the financial ability to acquire tackle to fish various techniques.  I really noted that I fish bigger lures than when I started.  I also fish deeper, much deeper than I did thirty plus years ago.  
 

My attitude has shifted and I fished more relaxed.  I used force feed the bass what I wanted them to bite.  I’m more open and let the fish cue me in. I think I’ve matured in my fishing style.  I love to learn and seek new options to catch fish. I really value information because intel was hard to get forty years ago and so was tackle.  Just some random thoughts now that the boat is put away. Anyone see changes over the years?

[Bluebasser86]

I think I adapt more quickly to what the fish want and spend less time in unproductive water. I had a bad habit of fishing "This spot here that was good to me one time several years ago but hasn't been in a long time but maybe today is the day", instead of going to places I knew would be productive or if they were on points or back of pockets spending too much time fishing my way to those areas instead of just going straight to them. Not getting too caught up in what the fish should be doing and actually paying attention to what they're doing has helped a lot. I'd get caught up fishing history too much and if it didn't work I'd struggle pretty hard at times.

[scaleface]

I catch four times more bass on 1/4 of the lures  than when I started , fishing on the same waters . The fishing was  better then too . The main difference's are 

 

lure selection 

boat positioning 

casting 

and better deep water skills .

[Bankbeater]

I grew up fishing only crankbaits.  When I got back into fishing I only used plastics. Now I've learned to use both. I would also just get out on the water and start casting. Now I slow down and look for a pattern. Most of the time I can find one.

[Catt]

The equipment has gotten way better ?

 

This was my original tournament setup, yeah that's right, I had one rod and one reel. If I wanted to change lures I sat in the bottom of the boat and retied. 

 

 

[A-Jay]

Now and Then ~ Changes over the years ?

 Man this one could go on for a while . . . .

 

Like so many of us, my personal addiction started young.

The early beginnings (circa 1960’s) as a boy bank fishing for anything I could catch to present times, so much has ‘changed’ in my fishing, as well as fishing in general, that it’s nearly impossible to list it all.  Clearly the equipment is light years ahead of what it was then, add half a century of time on the water (both salt & sweet), it certainly adds up.

 

 Looking back at it all, there’s a lot going on there.

But to just focus on ‘my fishing’ over the years, it’s sort of like,

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

The basic aspects of the sport that I fell in love with so many years ago,

remain fundamentally unchanged.  The preparation, the planning and attention to detail, the execution, the hunt for an unseen target that has free will to go where ever, and finally the success when I get a few; all still drive me Five decades later. 

While my ‘process’ is different, the premise & approach both still 'feel' the same and often take me back to simpler times.  And it's that; there’s no secret bait, wildly effective technique, or magic time to fish. Any & all success I may have is the result of preparation, determination and learning; often from failure. It really is a Labor of Love for me.

So “I will prepare and someday my chance will come.”

Hope to keep it going for as long as I can.  

A-Jay

[jimmyjoe]

 

   Then:  I try to get the fish to come to me.

   Now:  I go to the fish.

   Difference: understanding where they live and when they eat.  

   Thank you, @Catt    ?        jj

[DitchPanda]

I've been doing the bass thing for going on 20 years. Obviously my versatility has increased greatly...because of that so has my collection of rod/reel combos and lures. This year honestly taught me a lot about exploring new water even on my home pond. Like all creatures of habit I went back to the same productive spots all the time..the covid thing forced me out of that but I had surprising results finding several new to me productive spots I would normally pass by.

[Bird]

I'm somewhat of a minority here concerning baits. 

Still throwing the same baits I threw back in the 70's with the only exception being finesse and a couple top water. 

 

Equipment is significantly better today and baits look much more enticing with high tech finish. 

 

Fun factor hasn't changed. 

 

 

[BrianMDTX]

For me, the changes have been night and day. 

 

"Then" was 95% casting nightcrawlers and/or minnows (every now and then some crayfish or hellgrammites) either on the bottom or under a bobber and waiting to see if I caught a fish. Fishing was much more a relaxing pursuit than a real challenge. 

 

"Now" is radically different. I'm using many different lures and catching bass on all of them, and fishing out of a small boat vs. being a bank angler. All my rigs are new as of 2020 and I'm happy as a clam! 

[Mobasser]

I know I've changed through the years.  Years ago, I tried to force feed the fish, and fished too fast much of the time. Now, if I'm over a good spot, I can slow down and fish my baits through the cover very slowly if I need to. This has helped me land many more fish over the years, and made me a better jig/worm fisherman too.

[ThatZX14Fella]

Not much. I went from power fishing to more finesse techniques. I'm still terrible at reading the conditions and the fish, though. I also feel like I'm less about the fishing and more so just relaxing and enjoying using my gear. Other than that, I'm pretty much the same angler I've always been.

[WRB]

Then, 1 casting rod and reel and 2 lures. Slowly bought more lures or found them in the boats I cleaned at the landing. My 1st tackle box was metal with 1 tray for lures. 10 years later my tackle box had 14 trays full of lures.

The bass fishing changed radically with 2 inventions; Lowrance Fish Lo K Tor Flasher and bow mounted trolling motor that created the modern bass boats and tournament fishing.

Free spool bait casting reels with star drags and graphite rods. The evolution is non stop.

Now, bass anglers fish the entire bass ecosystem from shore to deep underwater structure using scanning sonar with GPS mapping. State of the art tackle rods, reels, line, hooks and lures are application specific.

I remember Ray Scott rejecting my Cosmic Clock and Bass Calendar as ridicules back in 1974 “you can’t predict bass behavior”. 

Always been analytical, good memory and a ability to focus....to a fault my wife will tell you!

Tom

 

[Tennessee Boy]

Then:  Find a specific tree on the bank and from there follow a specific heading on the compass until seeing the structure on the graph then drop a buoy.  Drive around some more and drop a few more buoys to get a feel for the shape of the structure.  Then position the boat and fish a spot that few other anglers could find.
 

Now: Drive straight to the spot using GPS and exceptionally detailed maps only to find another boat on the spot. ?

[Bigassbass]

I fished a lot of live bait when I first started fishing, but not for long I found plastics which I fished for years, then spinnerbaits and top water hard baits, I've s-layed them on inline spinners!  Now I have added cranks and bait casters, really fine reels and rods but I fish the same.  I learned to think like a fish long ago by that of course I mean what they eat, where they stay, etc.  I love fishing and really have fun with it might have to get a boat.

[schplurg]

I'm still in the "Then" phase.  

 

Been bass fishing 2 1/2 seasons. I'm quickly and steadily improving, 'bout all I can say so far. Expanding my knowledge of fish behavior is, I think, the primary reason. I focus on where to fish., then how, then what, in that order. I think I do anyways??  

[Catt]

I probably think what changed me more that anything was boats & motors. 

 

Take Toledo Bend for instance, I started out fishing in a 14' jon boat with a 9.8 merc. At 65 miles long & 10 miles wide I was extremely limited. 

 

When Skeeter came out with their Wrangler & Merc's Tower of Power now the whole lake was fishable.

[jbmaine]

I started with a worm and bobber, then inline spinners, spoons, and so on. Today I have tackle boxes with a lot of the new and cool stuff, but some times I'll throw the old trusty inline spinners or a jitterbug.

 I guess as far as I've come, I really haven't moved that much.

 Here's a couple of pics. The first is me and my dad on Mousam lake taken in 1956. I had the fishing bug from as far as I can remember. Even with the toy rod and real I was trying to catch something.

 The second pic is me on the same lake, this year.

 

[Junk Fisherman]

Huge changes for me primarily since I have become more of a smallmouth fisherman than a largemouth fisherman over the last 6-8 years.  Because I fish for smallmouth so much, I have taken those finesse techniques and deep water structure fishing to my largemouth fishing.  I used to be primarily a pitch and flip, bank beater, dock fisherman.  I don't fish that way nearly as often anymore and focus much more on deeper water.  Confidence in a variety of techniques and knowledge of the waters I fish have greatly helped as well.  Learning how to position my boat and fish in the wind with the help of a spot-lock troller and a Talon have been game-changers as well.  Back in the 90s when I would fish with my dad, if the wind was much over 10 mi/hr we were looking for protected bays.  He even said a couple trips ago how much different I fish now compared to when I first got a boat.  And all of this has resulted in me putting a lot more fish in the boat compared to when I first started out.  

[king fisher]

Then- I would fish on weekends, or other times when I didn't have  school and I had to ask my parents if I could go.  Now- I have to wait until I have time away from work, and I have to get the ok from my wife.  Both- Never enough time to fish.

[Bankc]

I don't think I've changed much.  Sure, I've learned more, and adapted that to my fishing.  I'm definitely a better angler now, and much more versatile.  But I've always had the same approach, which was the approach my grandfather taught me, and his father taught him (who also was around to learn me a few things).  And that was to pay attention to your surroundings, think like a fish, and experiment to find what works.  

 

So I wouldn't call it a change, so much as a growth.  I haven't really stopped doing anything I did back then, but rather added more stuff to try and more ways to think.  

[TheBasslayer]

I'm too young to really know what it was like in the 60's to the 90's , but I can tell that I know a lot more stuff now than I did when I first started out 4 years ago.

[Lead Head]

Then-

My father and grandfather were canepole and bobber fishermen. They went fishing for food, not fun. I loved to fish, but never liked eating fish all that much. When I first got out on my own with bass gear and a rundown old boat, all I did was chuck and wind spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. At first, I think it was the river I fell in love with more so than bass fishing. Eventually, a buddy taught me how to use soft plastics, and that changed everything. It started an obsession. I started researching and reading, watching anything I could on TV or vhs tape. 

 

Now-

I can effectively present most techniques. I'm mostly on a big dirty river so my weaknesses are definitely offshore structure type fishing like dropshots. I'm still happy as can be just being on the water. Usually pitching a jig to cover but ill mix in cranks/spinnerbaits/frogs pretty liberally. 

 

One big difference from then until now.

Then, I felt pressure to catch fish, and a skunk hurt my soul. 

Now, I feel 0 pressure to validate myself by catching fish. Fishing is relaxing and stress free for me.

[soflabasser]

Good subject. I have fished for over a quarter of a century which has been most of my life. In the beginning I did not even know how to tie a hook and my old man use to do it for me. With time I learned as much as I could from him, others, and from my experiences while fishing. At this point in my life I am comfortable fishing in small mountain rivers all the way to deep sea fishing. With that said fishing is hobby you learn for a lifetime so I plan on learning as much as I can and hope to continue improving.