Bass Fishing Not Very Popular?

[dennis_rf]

Did Covid do sth to fishing over in the US? Here in Germany we saw huge numbers of newbie fishermen during lockdown. Even considering that in some states you need to do a weeks long course and pass a state run exam to get a license. So partially it’s relatively hard to get into. In the US I could see larger numbers starting as it’s easier to get into? Where are the masses?
These folks over here were lured into lure fishing by only being allowed to go outdoors and probably YouTube.
Beginners tutorials had a huge boom as well. And sponsored / pro angler YouTube competitions (tournaments are illegal as fishing as a sport is illegal and considered animal cruelty, officially everyone is just doing it for food. Madness.) so there was suddenly a huge amount of media making lure fishing look cool when everyone was looking for a way to kill time outdoors. From what I’ve noticed the majority didn’t sign up on the big German forum, they rather just consume what their favorite influencer is telling them to use and buy. Then they stick around Facebook and private WhatsApp chat groups. Since… you don’t really really need the enthusiast tackle knowledge to go fishing, do you? also if you’re just superficially researching Budget tackle, I don’t think you’d stumble into TT or equivalents. Some just don’t invest that much time in their hobbies, I guess?

[DirtyD64]

Living in Arkansas, fishing is more of a play/occasional event to do more than persistent hobby. The area of river I fish maybe has 10 other fisherman that hit it. Of those 10, maybe 2 consistently fish. I am the ONLY one that predator (bass/walleye/panfish) fishes in the winter. Pretty long stretch of river. When I do see new anglers, they try it a few weekends then branch elsewhere. Hunting is a much more common hobby than fishing here.

[Dalleinf]

Bass fishing is popular. I loved fishing for bass during 3 months in North Carolina, 2013.
It was great. Met many people on fishing trips and still have 1 US kayak fishing friend that I still follow on social media etc.- bass sure look popular also in 2023.
Wish we had bass in Scandinavia.
Sadly, we do not have bass where I live, and many bass lures and techniques work best for bass.
I mostly fish for trout and salmon, so I mostly frequent TT for general tackle-talk, tuning, trout and BFS. I guess other non-US anglers here on TT have similar non-bass reasons for being here.

Guitar is played all over the world in pretty much the same way - I guess, without being a musician :-)
You can play guitar 365.25 days per year, on average.
I can fish maybe 100 days a year - with a lot of luck and understanding :-)

Apples and oranges...

[MK49]

Did Covid do sth to fishing over in the US? Here in Germany we saw huge numbers of newbie fishermen during lockdown.

I think it's the same here in northern California. I wouldn't say huge, but I started seeing more people.

[slipperybob]

Do we include white bass, stripers, and hybrids wipers.

How about Rock Bass?

Living in four seasons upper midwest, half the time or rather barely three months out of the year there's ice fishing. So panfishing probably trumps, but it's easy and light to ultralight gear is all that's required and the techniques are mildly easy.

Our bass are so much smaller and a 12 incher is already normal fare. Anything over 15 inches is on the big size and rare are anything over 20 inches. The not so popular techniques like the Float'n Fly or basically anything to do with bobbers catch a lot of fish. I admit I've strayed away.

When it comes to white bass. They are oversimplified. Inline spinners and jerk baits like Rapala X-raps are very popular for them. In some river systems the clouser minnow fly seems to be the ticket. Simple soft plastic swimbaits like Northland Mimic Minnows or plain round jig head with a soft plastic curly tail grubs nails them easy. Overall the fish for whatever is biting style works.

Drop shot used to be a great fishing technique until the State banned it. It worked too well. Only seems like recently with the popularity from the bass fishing world did the State allowed it.

Now when it comes to ice fishing, it's all about vertical jigging...so the techniques and actual lure jigging makes a lot of difference from person to person. I've been BFS ice fishing for like 20 yrs and no one really knows about it. I have custom built rods just for that while everybody else is still stuck in mainstream spinning gear or the recently popularize in line reels system that's really a rehash of old school inline ice fishing rods and oversized spools.

[Oktayne the Red]

Hello fellow guitar player! TGP can be a rough place. How many of those 44 replies were just parrots and chameleons trying to sound like the cool kids and hunting for likes?

This place is more about bass gear than technique or any other fishing. The saltwater sub here is dead/depressing, and I feel anything I have to add to any other posts isn't relevant because I'm a saltwater guy, 99%. Like the "do you use spinning tackle" thread. SoFL inshore SW fishing is ruled by spinning tackle, completely the opposite of bass fishing. My take is both spinning and casting tackle have their place, although I still prefer casting tackle as much as possible.

Any of this relevant? I dunno. I mostly wanted to say hi to the guitar player, pick on TGP a little, and point out that Tackle Tour (or the membership?) is more about the gear than anything else, and, IMO, pretty heavily bass focused.

[dragon1]

Sadly, forums have declined with the advance of social media. This is due to "instant gratification" that most of the media platforms offer today. The guitar forum you frequent is likely populated by older guys who don't do as much modern social media. Also, we experienced a crash(actually, 2 crashes) a few years back and a lot of our regulars didn't return. Unfortunately, we have also lost some to death, others to retiring and still others to changing family dynamics. It is the sad reality of the "your way, right away" mentality that our world has adopted in this latest generation. Forums just aren't as popular as they used to be. I still love TT, though.

Holy SCHITE homie...good thing for those crashes, otherwise some of us, ahem, would be well into the 20k+ post count...LMAO, were did all my years fly off to?

[hoohoorjoo]

Sadly, forums have declined with the advance of social media. This is due to "instant gratification" that most of the media platforms offer today. The guitar forum you frequent is likely populated by older guys who don't do as much modern social media. Also, we experienced a crash(actually, 2 crashes) a few years back and a lot of our regulars didn't return. Unfortunately, we have also lost some to death, others to retiring and still others to changing family dynamics. It is the sad reality of the "your way, right away" mentality that our world has adopted in this latest generation. Forums just aren't as popular as they used to be. I still love TT, though.

Holy SCHITE homie...good thing for those crashes, otherwise some of us, ahem, would be well into the 20k+ post count...LMAO, were did all my years fly off to?

Time indeed does fly. I joined in early '06 and then lost a few thousand posts in the big crash. Fast-forward to 17 years later and bam! We're old!

[dragon1]

Yeppers my brother...our children growing into young men and women are a daily reality check as well...

Blessings for sure, come with our time being gifted to our next generation...

[Fishing4Fun]

This site has always been about the tackle first and foremost, mainly enthusiasts or upper tier equipment.

I wouldn’t consider this site dedicated to bass fishing. It is more just general fishing, diverse fishing from all over the world using nice gear. Bass just happen to be pretty common in most regions and likely more popular as a whole.

If you want a bass fishing community only look elsewhere. I don’t think bass anglers have declined at all. Rather this site has declined in participation. The crash would be one factor but the enthusiast is a dying breed. MB and companies that once made cool collectible stuff are out of the rare/egquisite game. Gone are new Mb reels, reels with more than silver, black or red colors, etc. Everything is more catered to the mass produced crowd. Those with sick collections of rare collectible, rods, reels, spools etc are either holding on to them knowing that sort of product will never be made again or liquidating.

[dragon1]

This site has always been about the tackle first and foremost, mainly enthusiasts or upper tier equipment.

I wouldn’t consider this site dedicated to bass fishing. It is more just general fishing, diverse fishing from all over the world using nice gear. Bass just happen to be pretty common in most regions and likely more popular as a whole.

If you want a bass fishing community only look elsewhere. I don’t think bass anglers have declined at all. Rather this site has declined in participation. The crash would be one factor but the enthusiast is a dying breed. MB and companies that once made cool collectible stuff are out of the rare/egquisite game. Gone are new Mb reels, reels with more than silver, black or red colors, etc. Everything is more catered to the mass produced crowd. Those with sick collections of rare collectible, rods, reels, spools etc are either holding on to them knowing that sort of product will never be made again or liquidating.

Like #2/Robert Wagner's character said in Austin Powers..."there's no more world, there's only Corporations"...

The warping of the fishing industry is due to Corporate greed, nepotism, inbreeding.

Here's a video that is spot on about the fishing industry and the pro fishing scene.

https://youtu.be/7cX7MzrK-_s?si=Gk7LCD7iky65P_wS

[godshippy]

Did Covid do sth to fishing over in the US? Here in Germany we saw huge numbers of newbie fishermen during lockdown.

I think it's the same here in northern California. I wouldn't say huge, but I started seeing more people.

There's been a good number of people that got into bass fishing for sure in Norcal.

I think the biggest boom that we saw in Norcal is the jetty and tide pool harvesting. A couple years ago a buddy and I went out to Half Moon Bay and I could not believe the massive number of people out there harvesting mussels and sea urchin. Easily a thousand people out there with shovels, screwdrivers, and hammers going at it on the mussel beds. Tons of people wading the tide pools grabbing all the sea urchin. My buddy and I have been going for years and there would just be massive mussel beds untouched, but when we went out there that day it was like every single one had been harvested by the thousand people that were there...it was insane.

A lot of the rocks in the water looked like asteroid or moons because they were just filled with craters where the sea urchin were. Crazy crazy boom!

[MK49]

Here in South Bay (Norcal), I definitely started seeing more people fishing, but many of them are carp fishermen. They basically sit in one spot. They don't move at all. Looks like they do catch some bass, but I don't think that's what they're going for. Oh, I caught my first carp by accident. I was fishing for bass earlier this year. Got a bite, and when I set the hook, I knew it was a 6 or 7 pounder. 15 seconds later, I knew it wasn't bass. I thought it was a cat fish, because I had caught a few cat fish before, and never caught a carp. Took a while to land the fish, but it was a 7lbs carp, very ugly looking one. Oh, I remember another carp story. I used to fish local ponds every morning. One morning, a huge fish, 3 ~ 4ft long jumped about 20 yards from me. I was like "oh crap, that was huge!." Then, the same fish (or at least, the same size) jumped a few min later. I had a better look at it, and I'm sure it was a carp, a big one.

This year, I didn't see as many carp fishermen. They were everywhere last year.

[slipperybob]

Holy SCHITE homie...good thing for those crashes, otherwise some of us, ahem, would be well into the 20k+ post count...LMAO, were did all my years fly off to?

This. I think I used to have 10k posts.

[tincanary]

Bass fishing is alive and well where I am in Michigan. I live just a short drive away from some of the best smallmouth fisheries in the world (Lake St Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie). I even have an amazing smallie river close by, the Huron River which is very popular among the locals but flies under the radar of visitors. I personally prefer the Huron River as the fish tend to have a lot more fight in them even though they don't get as big as the lake fish. My best from the Huron River was 3lb while 1lb fish are far more common. On the flip side, 3lb fish are super common in St Clair/Det River/Lake Erie, 5lb fish are slightly less common, and 7lb fish grace you with their presence once in awhile. During spring and early summer before the water gets very warm, it's quite common to have 100+ fish days on Lake St Clair. Where I am, bass second only to walleye. Walleye is religion here; when the spring run is in full swing the Detroit River gets a lot of traffic from both boats and pier/shore anglers. The piers get packed shoulder to shoulder and fist fights break out occasionally, you'll never see anything like it. The only combat fishing that rivals it is when king salmon are running the rivers in the northwest side of the lower peninsula. There are people out there right now jigging the river on this balmy 30 degree morning. As long as there is no ice on the water, people are fishing walleye. The white bass run is also similar to the walleye run. Late in the spring when they are spawning, you will catch a lot of fish in short order. The DNR watches the piers like a hawk because guys will catch a limit, run it back to their car, then head back to pier. Rinse and repeat. Our white bass get pretty big too, I've caught many in the 15"+ range. They are very fierce fighters at that. I've never had a smallie straighten a hook on me, but I have had white bass do it with the same lure. The walleye people hate white bass with a passion. They'll be jigging the river and come into a school of white bass and have to move because that is all they are catching. I feel very fortunate to live in a state with such great fisheries. A couple friends of mine moved here exclusively for the fishing. One is from Indiana and the other from Pennsylvania. Those of us that live here never understand how good we have it until we get talking with an out of stater.