What brought you to LM land

[bad habit]

Do you recall your first fish? where it was pulled from? and how did you discover the world of bass fihing. Maybe your dad or grandpa is to blame. . Everyone here started with humble beginnings...And i thought it would be cool to share these stories..

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/Pictures_of_twins_shea_087.jpg

Perhaps having a dad or a grandpa present might have started me fishin alot earlier in life, maybe not.....Instead i have a friend to thank...THANKS...Soon After I bought a 10' sears and roebuck aluminum jon boat. I then hauled it to a local pond and IT happened. The very first time I used this boat I caught this fish. The first LM I ever caught- 6lbs 7 oz . Soooooooooo lucky ! My friend had bought me the banjo minnow kit that last christmas and so i used one .Prior to that I only had trout and salmon gear. So I purchased a Quantum Heat combo (25$)from BI-Mart and equipped it with a 2" chartuese banjo,carolina stlye( after reading about carolina rigs in a magazine.) -then threw it in the jon boat .....That was 6-7 years ago -and the rest is history.:)

[basshunter]

I grew up on the Cowlitz river....fishing for steelhead and salmon. The crowds became unbearable. Shoulder to shoulder...fighting over smelly hatchery spawners. I havent fished for steelhead/salmon in over 10 years. Bass fishing (in my opinion) is more of a "sport". Angler agsinst the fish...and for me the fish usually win. I practice 100% catch and release by choice. I'v found fellow bass anglers to be very friendly and helpful. At times bass waters can get busy.... but never like it was for salmon. My nephew turned me on to Largemouth fishing. SM fishing is fun considering the # of fish per day but the hunt for LM is what keeps me going back. The photo isnt the first fish. Those pixs are long gone.

[built2fish]

Wow, where do I start. I also did not have a fishierman for a father to show me the ropes, but he was good enough to take me out as a kid and read a book while I explored the, then new to me, sport on my own.

Fishing and hunting seems to be hereditary in my family tree. Though I never was exposed to the many relatives I have on my mothers side that are serious addicts when I was growing up, I was an adict at an early age (5 years old).

I started with trout, got into fly fishing and then all hell broke lose when I caught my first bass ever. It was a SMB I caught off of the dock at champoege (or however it is spelled) park when I was 16 (about 10 years ago). It was a healthy 2lber that came on a lipless bluegill 1/4oz. Berkley Frenzy. The rest has been and has yet to be written.

Although he never knew anything about it and as such never taught me much of anything, I still owe it to my old man for taking me out and giving me the opportunity to get hooked (double meaning) on my own!

Thanks dad!

[Whopper Stopper]

My Dad is a flyfishing purest, so I chased Bass because teenagers always do the opposite of what their dads want-- right?. I grew up in Selah, just north of Yakima. There was a local gravel pit pond with no trepassing signs (which meant they had to be protecting a great fishing spot). Fortunately, I could get threr on my bike, innertube over my shoulder, and rod tied to the bar with my shoelaces. It was almost covered with weeds, but I learned if I could cast a Rapala to the gaps I could find the fish. If the gaps were in the shade I could find the bigger fish. Since then Bass fishing feels more like hunting than fishing. I still go looking for the gap in the darkest, nastiest lair and try to skip, pitch, yoyo my bait in there in hopes of finding the junkyard dog.

Trout fishing, Salmon and Steelhead all feel more remote and hit and miss. I never get the same feeling of anticipation I get when I'm approaching a favorite overhanging tree I can skip a bait under that I have been rewarded many times before.:excited:

[Bassinator]

My dad has been a bass fishermen since he was a kid.. He grew up around here and fished local ponds. Then he got into steelhead fishing and salmon fishing when he married my mom. I loved fishing and he tried to get me hooked on salmon and steelhead fishing but lets face it.. its just too much work. He then took me bass fishing and I was hooked when I caught my first three pounder on a rapalla floating minnow on top water when I was 15 years old. I owe it all to my dad.

[Lunkerlander]

I grew up in Albany and me and a buddy would walk to waverly lake, or the river and fish nearly everyday of the summer. Mostly caught suckers and squaw fish in the willy and blue gills in waverly with the occasional bass. One day when exploring the trails along the river we found a unbelivable bass pond. It looked like the lakes we had seen on fishing shows. We thought it was private and "snuck" into it for the rest of the summer. If we ever saw anyone we would take off through the bushes thinking they were after us for fishing their private pond. We moved to lebanon shortly after and when I was old enough to drive I went looking for the land owner to ask if I could fish his pond and relive some old memories. I come to find out me and old Jimmy were fishing the back side of a well know and well fished puplic pond called simpson's pond. Looking back I'm glad we didn't know.

[pirk fan]

Our family farm is on the lower Long Tom river. The first bass I ever saw was one my grandfather caught. His equipment was a willow "pole", some line, and a hook with a grasshopper attached. His technique preceded "ripping lips", and was more like "rip the whole fish out of the water so it lands behind you". Not terribly sporty, but effective. Most of the places we fished are now choked out with blackberries, but I still take my jon boat up the Long Tom and catch a few at least once every summer. Used to be all largemouth, but now, quite a few smallmouth show up in the catch.

[MXRacer105]

I have been fishing and hunting with my dad since I was young. Althought we didnt have a boat growing up, my dad's best friend has a bass boat, so we would go out with him from time to time. I can't even tell you when I caught my first bass.

My Grandmother often tells me a story about my first ever fish, I was around 4 or 5, and caught a perch on a worm. I cried when we had to put it back, I thought I was going to take it home and keep it as a pet. Haha.

Got out of hunting and fishing when I started riding motocross. Sometime around 18 or 19, I broke my tibula and fibula during the first week of summer.... could not ride, could not work, had to find something to do. Ended up really getting into fishing that summer.... a great site for the other anglers, a bank bound fisherman fishing with crutches and eventually a walking cast. For as much of a pain in the arse that was, it was a great time. Sometimes I would just take a lawn chair to a local pond and catch crappie and bluegill all day. I had to do something outside....

It has taken off from there I guess..... a sick, sick addiction.

[Gus Orviston]

around age 12 I was flogging a fly rod catch bluegill at a pond on the property we rented outside of newberg. About 35 feet out I could see a big dark line cruising near some stumps.. I about wet my pants.. I could not get the fly out that far no matter how hard I tried.

I threw my stuff down and ran 1/2 mile back up to the house, grabbed a spinning rod and jig and raced back. Adrenline flowing.. i missed casting a few times, and when I hit my mark.. 4 feet past the stump - he was gone (probably a she now).

I reeled in and at the 1/2 way point the Bass appeared under the jig and swallowed it. it shredded me.. biggest fresh water fish I had caught to that date. I kept it.. duh. Being quite poor it was eaten and used. I still have a pic somewhere.. it was only about 18" but wow it changed my life.

Following that I joined B.A.S.S. and got a monthly fix of pics and stories. I eventaully caught a few 5lb fish, and got into catch and release. named one "rooster" cuz i nailed him on a couple rooster tails, but he/she was always good on a rapala.

Bass fishing really effected me,, I would hop off the school bus and zip to the pond whenever I could.. skip school too to fish. Quit doing after school sports in the fall.. fishing was too good. Kept a diary of how many fish, earliest in the year, etc..

We move back to the US this summer.. and will be a stones throw from Hagg.. in fact I can see boats on the lake from the house site. I expect to get the kids down there a lot and get back into my roots.

GUS

[thefishslayer]

Little one from Minto Brown. I think i was using a banjo minnow, thought i had weeds

[Ken Drifter]

Started bass fishing as a kid in Texas. Cant remember the first one. A little different here in Oregon.

[flippinbaits]

my friend had a pond with bluegill and bass in them. Caught one GIANT fish that might have went 3lbs. Went back to my dad, told him it was a 5lber and havent stopped since. My dad always took me out fishing even if he didn't know what he was doing:D

so i gotta thank him

[Green Eyes]

Started fishing for crappie or whatever at Willow bar on Sauvies Island. Caught a very small sturgeon on the bottom jig of two on my line, while reeling it in right at the base of the rocks I was on a bass hit the top jig to keep the sturgeon from getting it I guess. Now I can't get enough small and largemouth fishing but seems I do better on smallies. That was about 30+ years ago, and I got my Dad into bass fishing before he passed away. Now I take my two daughters when we can get away. Great family fun.

[DJD]

I grew up in the north eugene suburb of Santa Clara and was fortunate enough to have a slough from the Willamette just across the street. At about age 13 my brother and I and a neighbor kid began fishing there for bluegills with a worm and bobber. In the evenings, we noticed an old black Ford pickup and a lone fisherman. We used to laugh at him because he would use these funny-looking red and white pieces of wood with hooks on them. He would come down, night after night and throw these wood things around the shoreline weeds. Never catching anything. Finallly one night we got brave enough to ask him what he was doing; bass fishing, he said! Sounding a little grumpy.
Later that evening, right at dusk, he made a cast to the edge of a large weedbed. We noticed he could make a popping noise with that thing when he tugged on it. After many tugs, an enormous splash produced about a 5 lb large mouth bass! Of course we then ran over to see what a bass looked like! It was many years later when I learned that a Bass Oreno was the old standby for a lot of years-have been a bass fisherman ever since that evening so long ago!

[raptorschild]

My dads boss had a brother who owned some duck hunting ponds near Mesa, WA.

They were loaded with bass, we got some nice ones. In fact one of the nicer bass about 4lbs was taken a pic of, and ended up in the California edition of Hunting and fishing news. The story was fabricated, and was told that I caught the fish in clear lake, in the dead of winter.

It turns out that lying has a way of coming back to bite you. F&H news is no more.

[Tar Heel]

As the legend goes, Grandma's Lake in Lake Forest, a small area of Chapel Hill, NC, got it's name when a crazed young man killed and mutalated his grandmother, and robbed her farm house. He tied her up in a sheet and threw her in "Eastwood Lake, in about 1947, and ever since it's been "Grandma's Lake to some, but Eastwood on the maps (aprx 30 acres).

Well when I was 4 years old, we bought a house on G'Ma's Lake, right where one of it's two major tributary creeks came into the lake. What a place to grow up! We caught frogs, snapping turtles, great big painted turtles, bugs, fish, rattle snakes, copper heads, water moccasins, black snakes, you name it in that creek, and we fished almost every day some parts of the year. Garbage gut, all kinds of sunfish, shiners, one of my favorite--pumpkin seeds-- red ear, warmouth, "rock fish" , awesome crappie some years-- we even caught some chain pickeral in a minnoe sciene in the creek, which were pretty rare in that part of the state.

That lake was sort of a center peice of the town in those days, and poor folk were allowed on many properties to practice sustainance fishing, and for us kids, it was plain ol fishin. They drained the lake once when we lived there and it was about 10-15 years after the drain project that it seemed to hit it's peak for large fish.

Some years it froze over solid, and the ducks would swim a hole in the ice where we could literally walk right up to canvasback, red heads, geese, black ducks, you name it--but no hunting allowed from the time we lived there on, anyway.

I started cane polling worms from the shore, and by the time I was 15, I was pretty handy w/ my grandfather's cane fly rod--til I broke it anyway! I'll never forget the time we took them flyrods down to the lake next to where some poor counrty folks who's buckets were empty using their worms, and we landed bass after bass slapping popping bugs next to the bank where they were standing.We was "big tahm firshmun"" as they laughed at us yanking in those 10-15'' bass, and it probably didn't help we we turned the fish loose!

[Double Stack]

Clear Lake, California- 1985. I’ve had the bug ever since !!.

[BassBware]

i caught it on the funkiest setup lol. i just grabbed one of the rods in the garage. it was a casting rod. and i put a spinning reel on it. i purchased a perch color luhr jensen speed trap and was fishing at wahkeena pond. after about an hr searching the banks on my inflatable boat i caught a 1 lb'r and a half lb'r on consecutive casts. i was hooked and starting watching bass fishing on ESPN and learned more about different setups and lures for bass. my biggest to date is still only a 5 lb'r though. hopefully my swimbait setup will get me bigger numbers now. but the girlfriend still wonders how i dont get bored of watching bass fishing on tv haha

[eggbouncer]

I was converted to bass fishing by a great guy by the name of Gary Yexley....one of the best fisherman I know. Taught me a ton!

[MXRacer105]

I was converted to bass fishing by a great guy by the name of Gary Yexley....one of the best fisherman I know. Taught me a ton!

He has taught me a lot to, good man, and a better stick.

And I am a lifelong fan of "Tried and True" jigs.

[Dan360]

I used to wake up early on Saturday and Sunday mornings as an impressionable youngster. I was about 8 or 9 and I'd turn on The Nashville Network to watch Bill Dance Outdoors, Hank Parker Outdoors, In-Fisherman, and even a little Fishing With Roland Martin (when I could stomach it).

I lived within 1/4 of a mile from a lake that had bass in it, so I saved up a summer worth of money from working in my parent's vegetable garden to buy a Shakespear Ugly Stik and a low-end Shimano spinning reel (with rear drag). I loaded it up with 8lb Stren Clear-Blue (its what Bill Dance used when he wasn't using Stren Kevlar). I bought a couple 1/8 oz Strike King Mini-King Spinnerbaits with a single colorado blade. I added a small double-tail trailer.

From there, I'd ride my bike to the lake and throw my spinnerbait along the edges of a weed bed that I could reach from shore. I was finally rewarded with a 10 inch largemouth. He was spirited and he was fun. I filled my 5 gallon bucket full of water and decided to keep him. He kept jumping out of the bucket and landing on the shore. I finall picked up by the lip and did what Bill would have done, I gave him a little kiss on the nose and released him back into the lake.

Been hooked ever since.