Your Total Years

[Mobasser]

I believe I first went fishing in 1962, at five years old. Like many, I started with catfish and panfish.                                                   I started seriously fishing for bass around 1979, after looking through a Bassmaster magazine at a barber shop.                   That makes roughly  60 years as a fisherman.                        How many years have you been fishing, and, how many years have you fished for bass?

[MN Fisher]

You beat me by a couple

 

1965 with my uncle for pickerel in MA. Started hoofing down to the local lake for panfish using a combo I ordered from the back of a comic book.

Got a nice rod & reel for my birthday in 1967 (Mitchell 320 on a Shakespeare rod). Started hitting a stream nearby and catching trout in addition to the panfish.

Caught my first bass about then...but didn't really concentrate on them.

 

Fished lots through my teen years - pike, walleye and trout were my staples then.

 

Moved into my current house in 1986. Lots of shore fishing or renting 14' semi-v fishing boats.

 

Got my runabout in 1993, put a good 100hrs+ on it every summer. Started targeting bass about that time.

 

Financial issues - sold the runabout around 2009...got the canoe in 2018 and dove right back into bass as a primary target.

 

So fishing in general - about 57 years.

Bass as primary target - about half that.

[N.Y. Yankee]

Where I grew up, I was mostly fishing for trout in creeks and ponds because I only had short range transportation (a bicycle) and that is what was within reach. Once I could drive and go with buddies, we fished for pretty much everything in our local waters. Bass never was a real big target. Although we did catch them, we didnt have a lot of knowledge about it. Worms and Mepp's Comet Minnows were the main lures for us for everything. Once the scenery and finances changed, bass became more readily fished and now I have several types of bass fishing experience when you add in smallies in rivers with a fly rod. So I've pretty much been bass fishing since I was early 20's which has been 30+ years.

[roadwarrior]

Well, I started with my dad, grand dad and brother from the beginning mostly

 at Grand Lake in OK. My first roadtrip with the family was to Tablerock Lake

in 1958, a year before it was officially opened.

 

Pretty spotty until I was introduced to the Senko in 1996. A couple of years later

my daughter joined a riding stable with a 25-30 acre pond. I received permission

to fish and asked the owner if it had ever been stocked. He had owned the property

for 20 years, but as far as he knew, the water had NEVER been fished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TnRiver46]

I was fishing at age 2 and I’m 37 

[Darth-Baiter]

Two years as an addicted bass fisherman.  Right after I bought a kayak. 
 

I grew up in El Paso.  Not a lot of bass fishing there.  Some, not lots. 

[the reel ess]

My dad took my sister and me fishing with him when I was a toddler in the early 70s.. He worked shifts and would be off on Fridays when my mom was working. He would tie up to a stump and fish with minnows and a cane pole for crappie. I would nag my dad to buy me some worms on the way to the lake so I could sneak out and bream fish on Saturday morning. I'd fish a couple hours before breakfast while they would sleep late. I talked to a lot of bass fishermen who came by the dock and I wanted to do that so badly.

 

We got a pontoon boat when I was maybe 10 and started taking others crappie fishing with us and having neighborhood fish fries. I already had a Zebco 33 and fished for everything that would bite. I got a baitcaster when I was 13 and then the bass fishing was on for me. My dad bought an aluminum bass boat and he got into it with me. I'm 51 now. My dad died almost 5 years ago and it got difficult to get him to go with me because I fish too long and too hard even if they aren't biting. But I got him to go to a buddy's pond with me the fall before he died and he caught some bass and had a good time. A good memory to hold onto.

 

Anyway, I've been around fishing my entire life, but I've been serious about it more than 40 years.

[Kenny Yi]

maybe 12 years, im 20 now, im sure that number won't stop growing for a whiiiile

 

caught my first bass with my late father in my childhood community golf course pond, had a cheap spincast setup with a ballhead and tiny ika jig, he gave it to me because i wouldn't stop asking him what he was doing, accidentally casted into a huge weed pile, reeled in a helmet sized ball of weeds, and as my dad went to remove my mess, the weeds CAME ALIVE, a 2.5 pound bass

[Bluebasser86]

My parents have pictures of me sitting on a sandbar holding a fishing rod in a diaper about a month before I turned 1. I'll be 36 in a couple months. I started fishing for bass when I turned 9, tournament bass fishing when I was 16, won my first tournament at the same age.

 

Back when it was all about bringing home something to eat. My dad, and sometimes my mom, and I would wade the small rivers and use punch bait on a sponge or grasshoppers for channel cats.

My grandparents had a pond loaded with fish. Who knows how many catfish, bass, and big bluegill I caught out of there.

[A-Jay]

 

 

My first bass catch happened during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, not that I knew anything about that at the time.   I was fishing with my Dad & younger brother when I caught my first largemouth bass.  We were on the bank at a local county park lake. 

This is the place but not 'the day'. 

After joining the service in 79, the vast majority of my angling efforts occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, both inshore & offshore, for a variety of cold & warm water species. 

Still bass fished when I could but those opportunities over almost 3 decades,

were far less than they are now.   

Retirement is Bliss . . . . 

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gim]

Started fishing when I first moved here in 1992, 29 years ago.  I was 9 years old at the time.  Primarily for panfish and the occasional northern pike.  Started specifically targeting pike/muskie and walleye when I was in high school, and got serious about it in 2000. 

 

I never specifically went after bass until I was in college.  I was working for the state regulatory agency as a surveyor on several small lakes.  I was permitted to fish when in between survey counts.  The lakes I was on were small lakes but had decent largemouth fishing, that no one seemed to target.  This is how I started bass fishing and learning how to fish for them.  No one really taught me to fish for bass, unlike pike/muskie, walleye, and panfish.  It was just a species of fish that none of my relatives or family targeted.

 

Nowadays about 75% of my fishing is for bass and the rest is a combination of walleye, muskies, and panfish at certain times of the fishing season.

[roadwarrior]

5 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Retirement is Bliss . . . . 

 

[Mike L]

Growing up on the So Side of Chicago in the 50’s and 60’s there wasn’t a lot of fishing spots! Fishing wasn’t even a thought. 
 

When we first left we moved to Maryland in my mid 20’s and that really started my interest. My first real fishing trips were in the Chesapeake Bay. 
 

When moved to Florida in ‘79, I did what everyone does when they first move here, they get a cheap salt water outfit and target Snook, reds, trout and tarpon. 

In about the late 90’s I had enough of that and began focusing on bass.
I loved fishing small ponds and canals but always had the drive to fish competitively. 
From that beginning in my late 50’s I started entering BFL’s, BASS Nations and ABA tournaments and then a few Opens. All as a co angler. 
As I got better ( or at least I thought did) and started to win a few State and Regionals my health took a turn and now after 2 separate spinal fusion surgeries I started to slow. 
Now in my early 70’s I’ll fish a few but nowhere near like before. 
 

 

 

 

Mike

[DINK WHISPERER]

The first known picture of me fishing or at least attempting to is in 1988 when I was just 4 years old. I never had a father so it was always my uncle taking me. He was obsessed with bass fishing. I can remember being around 10 and getting into this tiny jon boat with him that was about the most unsafe thing ever and being terrified of it flipping over. 

It didn't even matter because I liked fishing that much. 

Now I enjoy all those things with my 12 year old son. There's very few things that can match just the 2 of us out there on the water free from all the stresses of life!

Take a kid fishing, it may just change their life!

[FrankN209]

I remember fishing with my dad when i was 5 years old, back in 77'.  I remember catching my first fish out on the delta using clams. I caught a decent size catfish. I've been fishing ever since. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

I’m 32, been fishing since I was 3 years old, won a kids tournie my mom took me to. She created a monster.  Been fishing ever since. But being a good fisherman 15 or so years 

[volzfan59]

My first memories of fishing are around 1964, bluegill fishing on Norris Lake in East Tennessee. I would have been five years old then. My dad was a Boy Scout leader then and we were on a camping trip. I vividly remember him and some of the Scout's. I continued to fish off and on from there.

Fast forward to the mid 80's, I bought a house next door to a huge tournament angler. I was racing stock cars then, but he took me out several times and I started getting more and more serious about my fishing. I quit racing in 1990, sold a brand new race car, trailer, one ton van and all of my pit equipment. Bought a boat and got really serious. I'm 62 now, still serious about my fishing, but I don't go quite as much.

 

 

[RDB]

I’m 58 now and started young.  Dad wasn’t a big fisherman so my early education was local farm ponds and by age 12, I was completely addicted.  I would collect every bass magazine and clip the articles and save in 3-ring binders by topic..I had a closet full and probably read them 100 times.  When I was 12, I convinced dad to let me save up to buy the neighbors old stick steering bass boat.  The neighbor gave me the boat and I made payments but dad wouldn’t let me use it until it was paid off.  It took me 2 summers mowing lawns and finally had enough money to buy at 14.  I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder to get something and it was a bit of a junker but I was really proud of it.  Dad had to tow it around at first but at 15 I got my hardship license and it was game on.  I fished religiously through high school but college and career got in the way.  I still fished when I could but didn’t get real serious again until mid to late 30’s and I think my passion has only grown as I have gotten older.  It is definitely my happy place.

[Sphynx]

Got a picture of me somewhere buried in the family pictures of me in diapers holding my first trout next to a sinfully proud maternal grandfather, I don't think I had a lot to do with bass until about 18-19 though, which is when I graduated basic training and got stationed at Ft. Hood, and met a buddy from Alabama who used to fish the SE circuit and sell boats before he signed up...from that moment forward if we weren't deployed, in the field, or on leave, we were finding places to hunt and fish on post somewhere, been fishing for bass since then, probably around 06-07, some years more, some years less as life and opportunities have come and gone, but if our latest plan works out, I'll be fishing 200+ days a year until I get my marble hat.

[Mobasser]

38 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

 

 

My first bass catch happened during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, not that I knew anything about that at the time.   I was fishing with my Dad & younger brother when I caught my first largemouth bass.  We were on the bank at a local county park lake. 

This is the place but not 'the day'. 

After joining the service in 79, the vast majority of my angling efforts occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, both inshore & offshore, for a variety of cold & warm water species. 

Still bass fished when I could but those opportunities over almost 3 decades,

were far less than they are now.   

Retirement is Bliss . . . . 

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A- Jay, great picture. Is that a spincast outfit you're holding there? I started with one also.

[ajschn06]

I don't know how early I started fishing, but I moved past panfish pretty quick..  We used to hit the river with my grandpa and he would always throw lindy rigs by the dam for walleyes.  Even as a 7 year old I found that incredibly lame and was throwing spinnerbaits even though there wasn't a bass within 500 yards probably...

[A-Jay]

16 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

A- Jay, great picture. Is that a spincast outfit you're holding there? I started with one also.

Thanks ~ 
Yes it was. 

That little Sears & Roebuck Ted Williams Signature (pistol grip) Spin-Casting rod & reel

saw quite a bit of action back in the day.

A-Jay

[Catt]

67 years ago I caught my first fish, a sunfish on cane pole.

 

Bass 65 years ago on a H&H spinnerbait walking a rice feild canel.

 

[Tennessee Boy]

I can't remember my first fish but I know it was a catfish caught from my grandfather's pond.  I guess I was around 2 years old.   That would be around 57 years ago.   I started lure fishing about 45 years ago mostly for bream and slowly shifted to preferring bass.

[FishinBuck07]

Probably around 35 years for me!  It was the one thing other than hunting that my dad and I had in common.