Favorite Bass You've Ever Caught and Why?

[Bass_Akwards]

For some people their favorite bass might be their PB.  Others it might be because of how it fought or where you caught it.  Others may have other reasons.

Mine is this little pig.  I've caught bass that could eat this thing whole, but never have I caught one with these proportions.  It looked like a mini version of Kuritas world record when I caught it and this photo taken with a camera phone doensn't even do it justice.  It was 15 inches long and 15 inches girth. It was caught way after spawn and was just a natual little tank.  I want to catch it in a few years SO bad.

I was wondering what other peoples favorite bass they've ever caught was, and why?  Post a pic if you have one!

[Beastie Bass]

I see why that's your favorite fish! It looks like a football! My favorite bass was not my biggest, but did show the most attitude. I caught the bass in my profile pic twice last year! The first time was right before spawn, the second time was late fall. There was an easy 2 lb difference! In springtime she hit a crank, in fall it was a frog. She had a big rip in her dorsal fin and a small amount of discoloration behind her gills. OH YEAH, she came from less than a foot of water both times! What  a memorable fish!

[joshuaryan]

Cool, fat bass.  Mine has got to be my 7 lb PB.  There is nothing more exciting that catching your PB in my opinion.

[Dwight Hottle]

Bass_Akwards that bass has world record proportions written all over it. My favorite is my pb.

[Tin]

There is one bedding female that beds on the same cement stairs leading into the water from a retaining wall. She is blind in one eye and goes around 3 pounds. I caught her 3 years ago and found it funny.The next year I took a random cast to the set of stairs while bs'ing and telling a friend the story and she was there again. Last year I motored over to the stairs just to see and there she was. I won't catch her anymore and she is usually done spawning early before any T's thankfully.

[Fat-G]

Mine is actually the one I caught last week. I just like how healthy this one was.

[fourbizz]

I caught my favorite fish several years ago.

My best friend Adam and I were night fishing in May. It was an awesome night. Clear, warm, and calm, with a full moon. We were all alone on the lake and whacking 2-4's on very aggresively fished 3/4oz football jigs. Sometime around 11, the bite slowed some on the jigs, and I switched over to a 16" worm T-rigged on an 11/0 Owner hook. I had it rigged on my heavy worm rod with 50lb braid and the drag locked. Over the course of the next hour or so, I caught several small fish, but went through probably 10 worms @ $2 a piece because of small fish grabbing the tail . It was getting expensive and obnoxious.

We were going down my favorite night fishing wall, and I got another little annoying bluegill bite. I didnt set the hook. I tried to shake it out of the little turds mouth. But it kept going peckpeck peck peckpeckpeck, so I said screw it and drilled that fish as hard as I possibly could. POW! and I am seeing stars and my eyes are watering. It took me a second to realize that I had broken my rod just in front of the reel seat, and with the subsequent release of energy, gave myself a bloody nose with my reel. Dazed, I realize that the fish is still on, so I grab to tip of the rod, get it in the boat, then start bringing the fish in hand over hand. At one point it jumped, and I barely got sight of it in the light of Adam's headlamp as he stood ready with the net. It was a good one, I was thinking around 6. I successfully lead it to the net, which Adam sets on the floor of the boat near my feet. I take a second to process what had just happened, unbind myself from a mess of braid and broken rod, and wipe a sizable amount of blood off of my face. As I stand there in a daze, Adam goes "HOLY S * * T ! ITS HUGE!". Now mind you, he had never seen a fish over 6, so I assumed that he was just overreacting because of that, the darkness, and the adrenaline brought on by that chaotic 30 seconds. So I dismissed it mentally, and after about 10 seconds finally looked down at the net. This is what was in there.

11lbs 4ozs, brought in by hand. It was very cool.

And this is another memento she left for me.

I have caught bigger, and I have had more exciting strikes, but overall, she was my favorite. We got out of the boat to get an accurate weight, and I just layed there on the rocks for awhile soaking in the night. It was a good one.

[florida strain]

p.b. because i caught it on a catfish set up ,dock fishish at night w/ chicken liver.

[guitarkid]

a 23" largemouth out of my pond, because it is not only my biggest ever caught, but also the fact that nobody knew there was bass that big in that pond.

                      -gk

[Bass_Akwards]

Wow!  All awsome specimens, but am I wrong in saying Dwights Smally is one of the most rediculously stunning looking fish ever?  Ive seen it in his avitar but never in a photo as big as this one.

Just look at that thing!  Smallys are asthetically amazing to begin with, but when I see one that big it just blows my eyes away.  The colors and the markings and shape are all mezmerizing.

Nice work Dwight.  Nice work everyone.  I want to hear more of these great and memorable stories.

[hookingem]

how much did that smallie go. she is amazing looking

Bass_Akwards that bass has world record proportions written all over it. My favorite is my pb.

[dave]

Not one fish but, a certain limit is my most memorable. I was fishing with a good friend who is a guide. He caught a small fish and then I commenced to catch a limit of four-five pound fish. After the third fish, he is scrambling though his tackle box an asking me, if I think the particular bait he was holding would work. That felt really good. The guide asking me if a bait would work.

[SDoolittle]

My favorite bass is the one I haven't caught yet. It's the one that keeps me from sleeping the night before I go fishing. It's the one that keeps me coming back for more.

[Catt]

After 3 or 4 trips to my father-in-laws camp on Toledo Bend I still had not caught a single bass on this lake. I was unloading my tackle from his boat when I picked up my rod off the wharf and decided to throw the worm towards a small cypress about 15 yds away... tap-tap, drop the rod, set the hook on a little 2 1/2-3 lb bass.

That was 38 years ago this month

[Lund Explorer]

My favorite came in July of 1980. I was fishing in a small buddy tournament on Chippewa Lake here in Michigan, it weighed in @ 6.56lbs and took big bass honors for the day. It wasn't just the size though that made it so special, as there were several story lines tied to it.

I caught this fish a little after noon on that day in a perfect little deep water spot. There is a fairly steep drop off that ran along the shoreline that suddenly makes a 90* turn into the middle of the lake. This inside turn which bottoms out about 20' deep is a neat little place that I've caught a number of big fish from.

A half-hour after putting this one in the box, we were fishing along this drop off when we came up on the club's president. His batteries were dead and wanted to know if we could tow him in. As there was about an hour of fishing left, we told him to hang on to the side of the boat and we'd drag him along with us. So he Prez asks us how we're doing, and my partner tells him that we only had six fish, but he had a really nice 18" fish. The Prez lamented about how bad their day had been, and said he was impressed on how good we were doing. Hey, I never said anything and just kept on fishing.

Well, we get to the weigh in and people are bringing their fish into to be weighed. Every time someone would ask if they should weigh a Big Bass, the Prez would mention my partners fish, and they'd just pass. Then another friend of mine came to the scales and not only weighed in a healthy sack but had a nice fish that was bigger than my partners. Once they were done, he came over next to me and poked me in the ribs a few times repeating the "Don't ya wish you had a fish that big?". I told that of course I would love to as it would add to our sack. Then it was our turn.

As I returned to the scales, the snickering stopped and was replaced by a few select comments. But to this day, I swear that I didn't lie..... I just didn't brag! :

Oops, I forgot to mention that this bass was caught on a 4" Sassy Shad and a 3/8oz jighead.  Imagine that, a swimbait 20 years ago.

[cart7t]

It was a warm summer evening a number of years ago.

I looked into the water and saw her.

Maybe it was the way the moonlight shined off her scales and made them twinkle just the right way.

Or her ruby red gill plates.

It could've been the way she flared her dorsal fin, you guys know what I mean...   

the green of her skin, those eyes staring out on both sides of her head..  that mouth.... her cute, wide tail fin....

I could go on. 

[santacruz]

It came out of a lake by my mom&dad's house was dug out for fill dirt for a road.I was waiting cause I know the guy who owend the land and knew he put fish in it.So I waited about three years fished a couple times nothing,then the next year I fished a culprit  7" worm and boom a three lber.I knew from that point on this lake was ready and oh yea it was.Have pulled many 5+ lbers out of it.

[titelines]

Fishin in an irrigation canal in northern Calif maybe 8 feet wide, 4 feet deep, using a (1963) Heddon Midget River Runt shallow diver, fast current, boom!, a 4 pounder grabbed it no more than 6 feet from where I was standing, nothing like that has happened before or since.

[bassman31783]

Mine has to be my PB. For about 3yrs I had been trying to beat my PB of 7lbs 4oz & I just couldn't crack it. I had caught so many in the 6 1/2 - 7lbs & even had a few on that would have been better but never got those in the boat.

On 4/2/09 I called up my fishing bud & said let's go fishing tomorrow. On my way from Denton to Tyler that night at 1am I got stopped by a cop for going 74 in a 60 (which I thought was 70). The next morning my dads truck battery was dead & I began thinking "is what kind of day it's going to be?" Well on 4/3/09 my fishing bud & I made it up to Fork after getting weathered out of our 3 day March trip. I remember getting on the water, going to a decent spot (but not either of our favorites) & saying a little prayer that it would be a good day. 5mins later I feel that familiar bump bump & set the hook. Immediately I knew it was a nice fish & told my bud to "forget the video camera, get the net". Once we got it in the boat I knew without a doubt it was the biggest fish I had caught. Ended up being a shad over 9lbs. Since that day I have caught 3 other bass that have broken my previous best of 7lbs 4oz. Now I'm just needing to break into the DD club which will happen soon.

[HuntFishAK]

I have 2 favorites. First one is my PB, but not only for that reason. I was shore fishing on a local lake using a topwater. After hooking the fish, I knew it was a big one. Just off shore, a couple guys in a bass boat were messing around with something when they heard the splash from my fish. I had to get in the water to land this fish due to the way the bank was undercut and there was no way I could lift this and not break my rod. So there I was, knee deep in the water with those two guys watching me. I finally got ahold of the fish and ripped that thing out of the water like I was weighing in at the classic. Needless to say, those guys looked a little jealous. Best guess on the weight was around 6.

The next was at the same lake. Matter of fact, it was my first time fishing this lake. I was with my neighbor (FishermanTony on this site). We were walking by the swimming area of the park and there was one of those floating docks anchored up. Tony tosses his Sammy right next to it and after a few twitches, a smallie drills it. After he lands it, I eyeball that same spot. I toss my Sammy over, and another smallie hits. What made it better was that there was a tournament boat that saw the whole thing. They left. True story!

[Bass XL]

It was a warm summer evening a number of years ago.

I looked into the water and saw her.

Maybe it was the way the moonlight shined off her scales and made them twinkle just the right way.

Or her ruby red gill plates.

It could've been the way she flared her dorsal fin, you guys know what I mean...

the green of her skin, those eyes staring out on both sides of her head.. that mouth.... her cute, wide tail fin....

I could go on.

:'( What a great poem

[hoss87]

mine has to be my 4lb 5 oz largemouth that helped me with my first tourney win. my least favorite is actually my pb 10lbs 2 ozs. i pitched a brown jig to a laydown felt the tick and set the hook. started reeling in and it felt like a garbage bag. that was the fight. except for one little jump. at the boat. i was disapointed.

[J Francho]

Favorite?  Tough call.  There is a fish on my home water that I've caught 4 times in the past three years.  It has a distinct mark on its side.  She's a big girl,too, weights ranging from 5-2 to 6.

Another memorable fish was a 3-2 rat I caught on Keuka Lake during a tournament.  Temps plummeted 30 F over night, and winds were howling, snow flying.  Took Lunker Bonus that day, LOL.  Only bass I caught.  One or two more dinks, and I might have won.  I think one limit was weighed in.

When I was 8 or 9, I caught a really big bass (in hindsight, probably a 3-4 lber) on a Zebco 404 and bamboo rod.  Later, my dad showed me how brittle the aged mono was, breaking it in his hands!

Finally, we had a big rock bass that bedded right next to our dock every spring.  I like to think it was the same fish, but who knows.  After a skunking, I'd spend hours watching this fish, wondering if she'd bite.  Never tried.

[Osprey39]

Hmm, I have a couple that come to mind. 

The first I was fishing with my dad and my best friend at Caballo Lake here in New Mexico.  We had been working a shoreline for quite some time with zero luck.  I wanted to move but my dad was ever the gas miser and he didn't want to.  We eventually came up to a small point that had some small dead bushes on it.  I had put my rod down and I was sitting in the driver's seat drinking a soda while my buddy and my dad continued to fish. 

When we got to that point, they started catching fish.  No size to them, but they caught about 5 in 15 minutes.  I decided to get in on some of the action so I picked up my rod and pitched a jig into one of the bushes.  My pitch missed the spot on the bush I was aiming for and I got a bit of a backlash which I started to pull out.  My jig was laying over a limb, barely in the water.  The water was dirty and didn't have much visibility.  As I pulled some of the line out and it sunk into the water where I could no longer see it, I saw a gold flash near the bush.  I figured I'd spooked a carp out of there.  Then I saw the line start to move sideways and I knew it was a bass.  I just took up the slack right over the backlash and set the hook.  My rod bent and sure enough, I had a fish on.  I started to pull it away from the tree and it was kind of like a dead weight.  I reeled it up to the surface and this fish was huge by New Mexico standards but it was obviously on its last legs.  It came up to the surface and it was just slowly beating it's tail on the water, unable to do much more than that.

My dad flipped out.  He's yelling at my buddy who had grabbed the net to be careful netting it.  My buddy scoops it up and got it in the boat and that's when we noticed its left eye was dangling out of the socket.  We all just stared at it for a minute in amazement.  My dad had an old school Chatillion scale on the boat and we weighed it.  The scale showed a little over 9lbs.  We took it into the marina and weighed it on their scale which had more resolution and it came out at 9lbs even.  That is still my biggest bass to date even though it didn't put up much of a fight.

Now my other favorite was on Elephant Butte Lake.  Again, I was fishing with my dad.  The water was gin clear and you could see a lure way down deep.  We were fishing near a cliff in about 20 feet of water and I was throwing a chrome and blue Rat-L-Trap.  I was yoyoing it off the bottom and as I got it closer to the boat and pulled it off the bottom, I looked down and I could see the lure.  I saw a big flash by the lure and the lure was gone.  I set the hook and immediately the fish goes for the bottom.  I managed to get it turned and out of the rocks and it started swimming around the boat.  It made a couple of runs on me but I got it up to the boat and we netted it.  I didn't weigh that one but I would have guessed it between 4 and 5 pounds.  It was a pretty nice fish but the reason I mention it as a favorite is because even though that was about 18 years ago, I can still see that Trap way down in the water and that fish coming out and hammering it like it was yesterday.  It's a really vivid memory for me.

[shootermcbob]

I have two that really stand out. I started fishing about 4 years ago. My father-in-law had just passed and he used to take my daughter fishing. I had no interest before in fishing, but knew it was the right thing to do. I bought a zebco 33 combo, and a friend at work suggested a couple different baits, including a tiny torpedo. I took the daughter several times, but we had no luck, even though we always had fun. More and more I knew I was getting hooked, but I wasn't catching anything. My friend at work suggested going before daylight and using the jitterbug and torpedo.

this was in early fall, about mid-September. I went the next Saturday and was at the bank fishing about an hour before daylight. I remember the air being very crisp and the fall air smelled so clean. My first cast i am reeling in the 3/8 jitterbug and listening to it come through the water, blurg, blurg, blurg, then about 5 feet from the bank, a huge splash and a bass just inhales the jitterbug. I am reeling, the fish is pulling drag, I am reeling, heart beating out of my chest. I pull in a 1.5 to 2 lb bass. I can still remember it all, including the embarrassing fact that when that fish hit the jitterbug, I screamed like a girl! ;D ;D

The second was last year. I was having some success almost every time out, but most of my fish were caught right next to the bank, and very little fight was necessary to land them. I was telling my wife that I wished we had a boat while we were watching a fishing show and the hosts were fighting the bass for 25 or 30 yards. She pointed out the obvious...we can't afford a boat , maybe in a couple years. Of course, she was right. But someone was listening, because the next day, I made a long cast with my favorite fish catcher... a black jointed jitterbug. The rod was a bass pro crankin stick topped with a cabelas prodigy baitcaster.  As soon as the lure hit the water, a huge bass drilled it. I fought that thing for maybe 30 yards of water.... again, heart beating out of my chest. When I landed it, I knew it was huge. By far the biggest fish I have ever caught. It was 5 or 6 inches longer than a plano 3700 box and very thick. I went to cabelas the next day and bought a digital scale. I have no idea what it weighed, but I can't imagine anything being as much fun as catching fish. (Of course, watching my kids grow up and spending time with the wife are always #1 priority and #1 fun)

I am always amazed at how much of an  adrenaline rush I get when I catch a fish. I am not a yeller or screamer like Iaconelli, but I get that out- of -breath excitedness every time I catch a fish.