Who introduced you to bass fishing?

[islandbass]

I had always wanted to try fishing since I was a kid but it was always on the back burner because of life and no one in my sphere fished. Fast forward, age 34, I tell myself it’s now or never. I read every book in the local library in fishing. I decided to become a trout angler. So with my new and handy “Walmart special” rod and reel combo, as I called it, I tied on a size 5 floating rapala minnow. 
 

I didn’t even know what I was doing, lol. All I believed was that the lure I tied on would catch trout. As I was retrieving, I felt something different, some weird, very soft something or other. It was a hit, but I didn’t know. As my lure came within visual range, I saw a green colored fish on the end, and it was only a few inches bigger than the rapala! 
 

That did me in. I dropped trout fishing for now and focused all efforts on bass fishing. It was so cute, lol. 
 

I also had the the blessing and wonderful opportunity to turn the tables.  I took my dad fishing and he loved it. Every time he would visit, I’d take him. He’s caught smallies, silver and pink salmon ? and trout. 
 

I’ve posted reports he about his exploits but the pictures in them might no show up anymore. Memories with him I’ll always cherish. 

[T-Billy]

Bill, Rowland, Babe, Al, Jerry. My grandpa started me fishing when I was just a wee little guy. Watching these guys on tv Saturday mornings after cartoons got me chasing bass. I looked forward to watching all week long. Bill was always my favorite. I still enjoy his show 40 years later. I recently got an autographed Tennessee hat from him.

[12poundbass]

I’m not sure. My grandpa took me fishing when I was real little but he was a pan fisherman. My stepdad is a walleye guy, so I’m not sure how I became a bass guy. My friends in my middle to later teens fished for bass so maybe then? I remember my first bass I ever caught, but that didn’t hook me at the young age of 5 or 6.

[bulldog1935]

On a family vacation sweep from grandparents in TN, west to friends in MO and on to cousins in WY, Dad took us to Gibson's to pick out our first rods and reels.  Mine was Heddon 236 spinning combo.  

At Lake of the Ozarks, I walked up to a cove, saw a sunken log, skittered a Johnson's sprite across the top of the log and let it drop, landing a 3-1/2-lb smallie on my first cast.  Seems that reading water is instinctive for me.  Went on to rainbows on spinners in Big Thompson R. and more rainbows in WY lakes on flies below clear bobber.  

 

Dad saw the interest in me, bought a 14' semi-vee and we started fishing.  We mostly trolled for white bass, and got really good hitting early morning jumps on Lake LBJ structure (also why I bought my first fly rod).  With the coast 3 hours away, we took the boat to sloughs along Aransas causeway, and regularly fished the jetties with our neighbor, who was another lifetime fishing partner for us both.  Hill country river crossings for endemic bass on fly rod was all mine from the first time I could drive alone.  

 

Bass plugging growing up came from watching Virgil Ward, Canyon Lake and the lower Nueces R was our best bass water.  We also had access to a couple of south Texas ponds (tanks) for crazy fish catching on spinnerbaits.  When I went to college, my dad joined the local bass club. 

 

Dad's retirement included a nice bay boat, and annual fall trips to Key Allegro and S. Padre for a month-at-a-time.  

Grown, I made friends with a couple of coast guides, and traded them fly rod instruction for backwater trips.  

In church, I ran a fly-fishing life group, and took 4 to 14 friends somewhere in the hill country twice/month.  I also give back on GRTU board, and run Trout in the Classroom for Texas.  

 

This is my dad on his 78th birthday trip to Estes Flats, and 2 years ago on his 90th birthday trip to Arroyo City (he looks 10 years younger holding his overnight stringer).  

 

[Mike L]

10 hours ago, slonezp said:

You wouldn't last 1 minute in that neighborhood nowadays. I did plenty of work down there 20-30 years ago. Wouldn't step foot down there now. When I was a teenager we would cruise Marquette Park(just west of you) looking for girls. Marquette Park is a craphole now.

Yeah

I imagine it is. 
I haven’t been “home” in 15yrs. 
We drove down 69th street then and Mrs Mike was freaking out, yelling at me all the way to get out of there!

Sad..When we were kids, Me and my brothers would try to climb the monument on 67th & California (never made it) we would sleep under the tree line along the viaduct near the west end. 
 

Haven’t thought about that in years.!

Thanks Pal

 

 

 

 

Mike

[Bubba 460]

 

I was bass fishing when Eisenhower was President in his first term (1953 to 1961). Not having a father my older brother (15 years my senior) joined the Navy when I was three. When he got out of the Navy and being an avid hunter and fisherman, he landed a job in the big "Atlas Sporting Good Store" in Wash. DC. This would be the equivalent to Bass Pro stores of today on a smaller scale. One of his close friends back then was "Lefty Kreh", who went on to become a famous fly fisherman. It was my brother who would occasionally take me bass fishing with him as a young kid. He showed me how to tie knots, " Watch close boy cause I'm only gonna show you this once". As I got a little older he would take me more, we would wade the upper Potomac for smallmouth. Lefty Kreh went with us once with his fly rod. I caught the biggest bass that day and being a boy it made me feel like a big shot. We would fish for brook trout in the winter while it was snowing, made a fire and cooked them right on the bank in butter. My brother had an weekly article he wrote for a newspaper called "Cross Comments" about fishing or hunting tips. He put on fishing demonstrations/seminars  with Lefty and other well- known local fisherman. My brother went to Florida in 1965 to manage a fishing resort. A year later I took a Greyhound bus to work there as well, which I did for a year. I was a boat handler for bass fishermen or take crappie fishermen out to one of our many man-made fish reefs.

 

Good grief, look how long this is, maybe I just should have said, "My brother got me into bass fishing."

[redmeansdistortion]

My uncle got me into it.  He was (and still is to some extent) a live off the land kind of guy, raised his family mostly on wild game, fish, and produce that he grew or foraged.  On his property there used to be a small pond, and at 6 years old that's where my addiction began.  When my family would go visit, I'd be out there fishing rain or shine.  As a pre-teen, I discovered a creek at the back of his property and got another addiction, trout.  I was happy as a lark as long as I had a fishing rod in my hand.  My uncle is now 80 years old, still hunting deer, elk, and turkey, still chasing salmon, steelhead, perch, and walleye, and still fishing bass during the summer.  He and I get together every November to fish Atlantic salmon in the Au Sable River.  

[Bankbeater]

My dad got me into bass fishing.  When I was growing up we fished for cat or panfish except when we would go down to Bull Shoals, Table Rock, or Lake of the Ozarks.  Then we fished for bass.

Over the years my dad got more and more into bass fishing, so when I got back into fishing and would go with him, we fished for bass.

 

[crypt]

my Dad....the coolest dude ever......

[CrankFate]

I had always fished for bass, as a kid, but was not good at it. Back when I was in high school I happened to work across the street from where I caught the bigger bass that I’ve posted in the reports. At that time, 30 years ago, the water was closed to any fishing. But seeing bass in there, every day. No way I was not fishing there. That was when I first really got into catching LMB. It took me some time. But within a few weeks, I was able to start pulling them in. I worked there every summer, as a teenager. So I fished there every year. By that time, after spending every one of my summers in the Midwest, as a kid, I had a decent grip on what to do.

[slonezp]

12 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

I’m not sure. My grandpa took me fishing when I was real little but he was a pan fisherman. My stepdad is a walleye guy, so I’m not sure how I became a bass guy. My friends in my middle to later teens fished for bass so maybe then? I remember my first bass I ever caught, but that didn’t hook me at the young age of 5 or 6.

OP asked who introduced you to fishing. Not bass fishing. I've been fishing since I was a toddler. Targeting bass happened in my 20's. 

 

Funny, I haven't targeted bass this year until today. Been live bait fishing with dad and my grandson this year until today. Went out with my son today. First time this year. 2 dozen bass in 5 hours. He got the biggest but I got the most. I figured out the pattern and he rode my coattails. ?

[MN Fisher]

First intro to fishing? My uncle who would take his three boys and me out ice fishing for pickerel and panfish on Stoneville Reservoir, Auburn, Mass starting when I was about 4 or 5. Fished summers on Indian Lake, Worcester catching LMBs, White Perch, Yellow Perch and Sunnies. Back-tracked the stream that fed into the NW corner and found Brook Trout. Conned dad into taking me to Wachusett Reservoir a number of times (pic I've posted a couple times.) Even surf-fished Cape Cod for Stripers during vacations there. Lake Winnipesaukee, NH was also another vacation spot while living in Worcester.

 

For many years, I was a multi-species angler - moving to upper Minnesota in 1974 added Walleye and Northern to my repertoire. Straight River in Park Rapids kept my Trout habit alive.

 

Fished occasionally while stationed in Omaha in the Air Force, but basically wet lines with little to show for it.

 

After I bought my house in 1986, shore fished Minnetonka for what-ever I could catch.

 

Targeting Bass started when I bought a old 14' runabout with a 40hp. I still sometimes go after Crappie and Sunnies, but Bass is now my main target when I take the canoe out...though I am looking at getting a boat probably next spring which will expand my range on the lake.

[GRiver]

My grandparents, they raised me. First it was trout, we would go camping at the lake and that got me started. It was all over from there. 

[TheBasslayer]

Honestly I mostly taught myself mostly everything I knew when I started, and my grandpa taught me a couple of things about fishing. 

[Sphynx]

Guess it depends on whether you mean fishing at all, or Bass specifically, if you mean at all, I have pictures of me with my grandfather's catching trout on camping trips and stuff that pre-date my ability to have a memory, so I literally never knew what it was NOT to fish, as far as bass however, I was 19 years old at Ft. Hood Texas and had just gotten my EIB and was getting sent to Ft. Campbell for a couple of weeks for Air Assault school when we got a new guy from Alabama to our platoon, and he and I went camping and he was a semi-pro bass angler before the Army, and he gave me a crash course in bass fishing that would have been worth big bucks on the market, if we weren't in the field training for Afghanistan, we were in the field catching fish, shooting turkeys and pigs and every other outdoor activity you can imagine, it was probably the greatest time in my life, he and I still talk several times a week and try to meet up a couple times a year to go do bucket list fishing or hunting trips, it's getting more difficult to do a lot of the hunting these days, the price tag for multiple deployments tends to be paid in medical conditions and joint/tendon pain, but we are very active in checking off the fishing side of things, I think next year we are tackling Florida for a few prime bass spots and some saltwater adventures. 

[Smells like fish]

For me it was family, tv and outdoor magazines. My dad has never been a steady bass fisherman but he fished occasionally. My cousins always fished. The early 90’s turning 10 years old there was plenty of fishing shows on and in my early teen years I may have had as many a dozen magazine subscriptions to guns, hunting, fishing and trapping rags. Bass fishing itself has always been of interest but when I turned into a lure addict in 2005 is really when it became a bigger part of my life. 

[12poundbass]

3 hours ago, slonezp said:

OP asked who introduced you to fishing. Not bass fishing. I've been fishing since I was a toddler. Targeting bass happened in my 20's. 

 

Funny, I haven't targeted bass this year until today. Been live bait fishing with dad and my grandson this year until today. Went out with my son today. First time this year. 2 dozen bass in 5 hours. He got the biggest but I got the most. I figured out the pattern and he rode my coattails. ?

To be honest I thought it was into bass fishing. To answer the OP question it was my grandpa. He took me out full fishing when I was 3 or 4. I still remember to this day and him cleaning the days catch on his 50 gal drum. 

[ironbjorn]

Me, myself and I. It started with getting the itch to try to catch a fish when I was a teenager, and that quickly turned into wanting to catch bass, and then getting good at it.

[Bluebasser86]

I grew up fishing for everything. Fish were food and bass were a poor option for taste and because they had stricter limits, so we didn't target them often. When we moved to the area I'm in now, I made a friend who fished for bass at a small, semi-private lake that his parents would take us to often. We fished Warden's Roostertails a lot, especially the 1/8oz Red ones. I can remember one day catching 11 bass and thinking I had really done something. I got more and more into it, started reading tons of magazines and am really self taught on a majority of what I know now. 

[cheezyridr]

On 7/30/2021 at 9:31 PM, Bird said:

Something I'll never forget. 

Was at the county fair as a teenager and was talking to an older gentleman behind a booth and he had a Jimmy houston logo on his shirt. 

I quickly pointed out that I loved Jimmy and fishing and that I was actually planning on fishing the farm pond later.

 

He asked if he could join me and how's the fishing in the pond ?

I replied that the pond had nothing but small bass and bluegill. 

 

He arrived at dusk and threw a large Zara spook and caught two 5lb bass on consecutive casts.

From that day forward, I've been fishing with this guy for over 40 years and learned the art of bass fishing. 

 

that was a really cool read

[PressuredFishing]

On 7/30/2021 at 4:26 PM, MN_Bassmaster78 said:

Just curious, I was wondering when you all were introduced to fishing and who introduced and taught you the basics? My biggest mentors so far have been my dad, my neighbor, and various people on youtube and here on bass resource. I first started fishing around the age of 14

seeing people having fun catching bass with large lures (compared to my roots of fishing with a bobber and nightcrawler)

[king fisher]

I only met the man once and never even asked his name.  I was 12, fishing for trout with a worm and bobber, from shore at my local lake.  He walked up to the shore with a Helen Flat Fish tied on his rod, and caught a 2 pound bass.  I thought it was the biggest fish in the lake, twice the size of the planted trout I was catching.   I was instantly hooked on bass fishing, and since that day, the Bait Monkey has never left my side.  

[WRB]

The 2 top Big Bear Sportsman’s Club bass anglers were Boots Prior (cowboy boots) and Red Cowan the manager of Pleasure Point Boat landing. Boots and Red were very good friends and competitors for the top honor.

Boots took my brother Bill under his wing and taught him to cast and retrieve a Creek Chub Injured Minnow top water plug. Bill was 4 years older then me and worked at Pleasure Point.

Red decided to teach me at age 12 to casting retrieve a Hawaiian Wiggler #3 weedless spoon. 

Game on between Boots and Red who could out do the other.

Red went around the bay were we fished and posted signs “Boots Bass Hole” In spots he fished. Boots and brother Bill won the contest. Started me out to be competitive.

Tom

[schplurg]

I introduced myself to bass fishing. I was fishing for stripers when I started. I went to my Dads once and decided to try for bass with a popper. Caught my first one after a few visits and was hooked.

 

That bass introduced me I guess. It was an exciting catch!

[TcRoc]

My father as we had 2 large ponds on the property at my childhood home. But I would not say he was the influence on my fishing today .. have to hand that to my youngest son getting me back into fishing .