What or who

[Nebe]

got you started in Bass fishing??

For me it was my Grandfather. He, my granddmother and myself sailed out to Cuttyhunk for a weeks Vacation one summer when i was about 9 or 10 and he walked me arond the island and spun a great yarn about the days he used to fish for Bass out there. He told me the stories of the Cutyhunk fishing club, the bass boats, bass stands, the world record bass of Mr Church, etc. he also told me that he didnt fish for them anymore because of the Moritorium and was scared that they might become extinct. We had alot of fun on Cuttyhunk when i was a kid, but i never fished it. that was my introduction, but I didnt catch a bass until I was 17. Sadly when i started fishing for bass, he was in his mid 80's and was too old to fish agian, but I knew he was proud as can be to know that his grandson was catching the fish that he loved so much that almost became extinct.

One day I will get out to the hunk and catch a fish for him

[tynan19]

Same here Eben my Grandfather gave me the passion. Listening to all his stories and watching him come home and fillet the fish. Sadly he passed when I was young so I never got to go with him a lot. I kinda lost track of surfcasting till a few years ago when I met my Father-in-law. He couldn't believe I liked to fish. He took me up to Maine and we caught a bunch of strippers. I was hooked. Now my wife gets mad because every weekend off we are off fishing together. It has built a great relationship though.

[Nebe]

Originally posted by tynan19
He took me up to Maine and we caught a bunch of strippers. I was hooked.

Good father in law!!

I know you meant stripers

[tynan19]

Ha ha ha, I will leave it just because it is funny. We have done that too.

[Rappin Mikey]

My brother.

[Notaro]

Rick Newcomb. He helped me to start my first bass fishing interest. I decided to try it after hearing from my best friend's roomate in the dorm. He was a Laotian fisherman. He told me about catching stripers and blues in RI. I became fascinated with it. The first thing came to my mind was bluefish. I wanted to catch them on my first year of saltwater fishing. I began catching a lot of stripers on baits. And then I got fed up and prayed to the lord for the bluefish. And my wish came true on the second year of my fishing career. And now, I have regreted it since ever.

[The Dad Fisherman]

2 years ago I barely knew what a Striped bass was. I always did a ton of Freshwater and once in a great while would go out on a party boat for cod.

When I was a kid both my Father and My grandfather were big Saltwater guys. But being the pig-headed kid I was, I told them that freshwater was better and they could never get me into it.

2 years ago a guy I worked with told me about Stripers and I decided to give them a try. 1st one I caught was a keeper about 29" nothing big, but when your used to catching 14-16" trout or 3-4 pound largemouth you definitely go Holy$h*t when you hook into a striper.

That pretty much did it.....I think I might have picked up my freshwater outfit maybe 4 times last year.

[Zeno]

Well ,not really "bass" fishing but close .
When I was growing up in Europe ,there was nothing I despised more that fishing ,in a strange way that is.As a teenager ,while all my friends were out having good time I had to go on three day trips with my grandfather all summer long .21 foot wooden boat with a 12 hp car engine (don't laugh) we fished and slept for days till the coolers were full.No picnic either.Get up at 3 am and set out a 2000 hook long lines ,then hand line all morning (what ,you though we had rods ?).Mid morning pick up long lines by hand (no winch) .My grandpa would bring it up and I would put the hooks back ,in addition to gaffing.Then handline again till 8 pm ,baking in the sun and then heading to anchor ,fish soup for dinner and re-baiting for morning.Sleeping was tight on wood planks while your nose almost touched cans of diesel that were piled in the bow.Hand were cut up from giving a drag thru our fingers while fighting a fish and skin was burn crisp by standing in the sun from morning to night.
All this while my friends were getting laid.

Yet ,it was weird.I couldn't wait to get home.But once I did and sun went down I grabbed my handline and went fishing from the shore.I was looked at like some kind of a freak ,I guess.

Anyway ,came to this country at 17 and all I wanted to do was make one more trip with my grandfather ,just one more for old time sake (my parents divorced when I was 3 and dumped me in my grandpa's lap while they went their own way,must off been an ugly baby.He quit his job to stay home and raise me) .
But it was not meant to be as he passed away suddenly.I kick myself every day for giving him agita while I was a kid when all he was trying to do is make few $ on the side because his pension was about $40 a month.Some things you just got to live with it.........

[spinncognito]

Started about 7 years ago when I guy I worked with hauled a 30# cow into the kitchen. Went fishing with him the next day and HE got another one. Makes ya quickly lose the ugre to catch sweetwater fish. I have NEVER picked up the fresh water stuff again (except to catch bait for stripers!) When I was a kid I used to catch flounder off the local floats, cut their tails off, let them go and then catch them again.

Whenever I see the guy that got me into this sport, I don't know whether to thank him for getting me interrested or curse him for leading me into this uncontrollable obsession!

[NIB]

Nice story Zeno, I'm sure ur grandfather is wit u with every fish u catch.His strong ethics are what made u the good guy u are today. U should be proud of the old days.The Line that says "it builds character"is so true an getting to be more rare everyday. welcome to S-B .com

[afterhours]

for me it was my late uncle steve. he was an old school striper fisherman who was one of the very best around. when we were kids, he'd come back with large( no overkill, just enough for the family and an elderly neighbor or two ). he started taking me to the beaches and bridges when i was about 8 or 9 yo. learned a lot from that man. i'd sure love to fish with him one more time.

[GBOUTDOORS]

My family lived on Nashawenai Island when I was young. My dad would work all day then walk from the white farm house were we lived that is in the center of the island to North rock in Quicks Hole at night and fish from shore. I never fished salt water there as a young boy but fish the fresh water ponds on the island all the time. We moved to Datrmouth were I started to fish for stripers in Padanaram harbor with some other kids from the area. My aunt and uncle still lived on the island until they retired to Cuttyhunk were I would spend time in the summer with them and another one of my uncles who was a charter guide out of Cuttyhunk. He was the one that realy got me Hooked on stripers. I have so many great memories of walking the shores of the island as a teen catching fish from just about every rock and pool along the south shore and the west end. My dad and I never had much time to fish together as he was always hard at work putting food on the table and clothes on our backs. I did love to hear the stories of the 50 pounder he caught and draged home from North rock his biggest fish ever.

[rhodyflyguy]

i am blessed with grandparents who own a marina. it has a few great fisherman, and i have always loved sitting on the bench talking with them. they sparked my interest. however, i didn't catch my first bass till i was 8. before that, it was assorted grondfish and blues. however, that famed night, while we were snapper fishing, i got hooked to something that was tearing off my 712z. after a 10 minute battle, i brought my first striper, 26", aboard. we quickly released it, knowing how rare stripers were in ninigret pond. i've been hooked ever since.

[Slingah]

About 10 years ago I went with my freshwater set up and a yellow bomber and cault schoolies with a friend of mine, we got a couple close keepers and that was it.....hooked. I went back to that spot everyday that week and got about 20 fish a day...I could not beilive it, little did I know was about to come. The next year I was talking to an old friend about my new sport and he said he fishes for stripers down the "backside" at night with eels...I said "what??? at night??? with what??"...okay...I'll go. I borrowed some of his stuff and away we went, he showed me how to rig an eel and that was it. He and I fished for years like that..not knowing anyone, not talking to anyone...just eeling at night..and it worked, we had many 30- 40- lb fish. I just thought thats how it is!!! I have been incredibly lucky to have had the fish I have had. Well he doesnt fish to much right now and is raising his young family and I found this place and made some good friends here and learned so much more about the sport....but nothing beats the first years...being green and catchin large

[MakoMike]

One weekend it was too rough to offshore for tuna so we stayed inshore and fished for bass. Most of the time, that's still my extent of bass fishing.

[NaCl H2O]

Went camping with the family for a couple of weeks down the canal back in the mid 80's. I'd done plenty of freshwater fishing but never salt. Bought a cheap 10' pole and an Eagle Claw reel. You know, the kind that came sealed in plastic (still have the old gal). Spooled her up with 60' test and tied on a big rebel swimmer. That first afternoon after having set up the camp site this little kid comes running up from the canal screaming "the blues are in.. the blues are in." A bunch of guys come peeling out of their camp sites with poles in hand and run down. I figured what the heck.. followed them down. They were all onto fish with the first cast... blues busting everywhere. The canal was choked with sand eels. I got a few feet down from the action and was immediately onto a fish (though I could barely cast 20 yards). It went on like that for 2 solid weeks. I was totally hooked. Hooked my first striper later that year. A 27 incher on that same rebel. Been fishing for 'em ever since.

[BigFish]

I fished since I was a small boy growing up next to the Fore River in Braintree. I recall waking up early in the morning and taking my small freshwater Zebco rod down to Watson Park on the river, stopping at Bra-Wey Sports on the way to pick up a box of sea-worms. My boyhood friend Jimmy and I would catch flounder and tommy-cod all morning.....good times. Mostly I fished sweetwater though. My Dad worked a summer job at a private pond in Weston that had a swimming pond and a pond for boating and fishing right next to each other. I spent many hours wetting a line on lazy summer days there while my Dad worked. I eventually got older and my interests changed until I had young sons and seperated from my wife. My sons were about 2 and 3 years old, I did not have any money to spare at the time so we went fishing quite a bit at Pond Meadow in Braintree. The kids would catch sunfish, catfish and largemouth while soaking worms and shiners. We spent alot of time there when they were young and we had alot of great days. Then one day we were enjoying an August afternoon at Nantasket Beach in Hull. The boys, they were about 5 and 6 by this time, came running up to me from the water screaming how there were "big" fish swimming right in the water with them. I knew they must be bass chasing the fluttering bait I had seen in the water. I went down to the water with them and sure enough they were stripers. I had never seen them before in person. I took turns holding my boys high over my head so they could see the stripers swimming right by us. They said to me on the way home, "can we go fishing for stripers Daddy"? I had never fished for stripers before and knew very little about it, but my Dad did have some old rods and reels in the basement that had not been used in years so I told them the next weekend that we would fish for the stripers. We went to a local B & T and took the old rods with us to see what we needed to make them fishable. I bumped into a buddy of mine that I knew fished for stripers and he took a look at my gear and laughed. He invited us to join him down Hull Gut as he had some extra rods and bait and we would get the kids some fish he said. My sons each caught their first stripers that day, shorts about 16-18 inches long but to them they seemed like giants! I have the pictures of us from that day hanging on my living room wall, the boys each holding their fish up and smiling from ear to ear. Those pictures are one of my most prized possesions. After that, I was intrigued about these stripers and got more and more interested in fishing for them. It become a burning passion for me that has lasted, must be about 6 or 7 years now. My first keeper (after busting my butt for over a year and reading everything I could get my hands on) pushed me over the edge. I was a full blown striper addict! Little did I know it would get worse! Now here I am 6 years later and it consumes me. I got a beach buggy, VP of MSBA 2 times now, wrapping my own rod, building my own plugs (and catching fish on them) and most of all the greatest benefit has been meeting many new friends who have taught me so much. I have found that striper fishing was the thing I had been looking for my whole life that I was born to do. When will the hunger for more be sated? Hopefully never.

[tynan19]

Great stories guys.

[theSURF121]

My dad got me started in the mid sixties. We use to travel by boat out of Bay Shore to a place located on the south shore of Long Island called the Sore Thumb. What a special place it was. We also fished the Great South Bay. You wouldn't believe the amount of Weakfish, Blowfish and Kingfish that were present in this once great estuary. My brother was a Baymen along with thousands of others at that time. Nowadays , there might be a half dozen Baymen plying these same waters. I'll leave that subject for another post.

[basswipe]

I remember my dad and my mom(before she died) taking me fishing.

The majority of my memories were of my dad taking me to the Melville piers.What a great place.You never knew what you were gonna catch.I remember my dad catching a 9lb fluke on a head from a snapper blue that I caught.Boy did we do some feasting that night.

As a teenager I fished mostly with a couple of buddies as my dad just didn't have the time trying to deal with two out of control teens on his own.Now he is just to old which is a shame as I'm now a slightly more responsible adult and he does have plenty of time.There's always the possibility of short trip for flounder or scup this summer.To bad there are no more places like the Melville piers anymore.

[striprman]

I can always remember fishing. My mom and dad liked to fish and camp. Seems like every weekend during the summer we would go to one of the campgrounds on the cape and go to the beach or canal to fish and swim. When I was 16, my grandmother passed away. I inherited her car and my younger brother and I got a 14 foot lonestar tin boat with a 30 horse on it. We fished Wareham and the Weweantic river every chance we got. Time passed, the bass slowed down (weakfishing in the river was spectacular in the late '70's). Still caught some bass. I worked a couple years in a factory after I got out of highschool. I saved some $$ and moved to west yarmouth and attended the community college in barnstable. Did alot of fishing at sea gull beach (down the street from where I lived). After getting out of school, I met my wife and moved to brockton. My brother got married and moved from foxboro to south attleboro. I bought a truck and because my wife liked to fish, we would go to the canal and fish for bass...still do. My brother has a 22 foot boat. He takes me out 3-4 times a year..cape cod bay, cuttyhunk, narraganset bay and block island. I fish the canal whenever I can (I make time) may to november. My wifes from middleboro, her brothers like to fish, get herring permits and we all have a good time fishing in the canal when the herring are in. I love fishing.

[Roger]

As a kid, I was intrigued by that Striped Bass on the Murats sign on Rt 146. It wasn't long after I got my drivers license that I started stopping there to look around and talk to the owner. I'd fished freshwater most of my life and done some bottom fishing in the salt, but never surf fished for bass.

Over the next few years I bought a few rods, reels and a bunch of tackle from him, but mostly I’d visit and sit in his backroom by the wood stove while he wrapped rods. He had a lot of stories and a ton of information that he passed along over time. He showed me how to tie rigs and explained ways to properly cast a surf stick. He explained what to look for at the beach, how to work different lures and much more. This was before the internet, so information was not as easy to come by as it is today.

So while I took the initiative to get started, I have to give Dave Hammock the credit and thanks for truly getting me started.

[Nebe]

Ahh what a nice thread..I love stories of why people do things and how they got into them.. Heres the story of my first striper.. I had just gotten my drivers liscense and I was going for a drive after school to kill time.. I drove down to 2nd beach, then out ot sachuest point. At that time, you could drive out to the end.. Man I miss that so as I was driving down the road to the point I see a man wading up to his chest with a really long fishing pole. I stop and watch him and he's hammering bass and blues. I think "oh i know what he's doing!!!" and race to my grandfaters house to grab his old Surf outfit from his cuttyhunk days. He was home and got all horsed up about getting me ready, we spooled on new line and he told me quickly about how to work a popper..So i get down to the water and the guy who was there had left and I was all alone. I dont remember how many fish I caught that day, but they were all bloos. I was happy with them, but i wanted bass.. SO after much talking with my grandfather, it was decided that I try going at night with bunker heads. the first night- skunk- 2nd night - skunk- 3rd night- a 25 pounder.... I was psyched. that summer i fished alot, but I was a teenager and fishing for girls was more important. It wasnt until after college that I rediscovered the bass. Now bass fishing is more like a religion than a hobbey

[Surfcastinglife]

2 yrs ago my dad and i were fishing light tackle for pollock (2 -3 lb class) in gloucester and as i was bringing one in a bass decided to take it. wasnt a big bass bit over 26 inches but i was hooked ever since then its been nuttin but bassin for me!

[CANAL RAT]

my uncle bob teached me how to fish for bass and pickerel when i was 2yrsold at 5yrsold i caught a 11lb largemouth once when he could not get a bite. one day he asked me if i wanted to go striper fishing on a frends boat in boston harbor i could not wait to catch a striped bass 4am in the morning i caught my first striped bass near georges island on light tackle on a sluggo it was 28lbs i dont know who really got hooked me or the fish. my grandfather also got me started on surf fishing by teatching me all the old time surf lore like "eels dont work in the spring" "wind blows west fish bite the best,wind blows east fish bite the least,south wind blows bait in to the fishes mouth" he told me about the bass stands on cuttyhunk,model A ford beach buggys,when you could get onto nauset beach for free, you could walk on the backs of 50lbers on truro beaches, the amazing taste of fresh baked striper with butter and lemon on top only a couple hours old. my granpa means alot to me when i alone with him i feel like i am back in the 1940's when cornedbeef hash was considered a healthy breakfast.

[doyle007]

my dad started me fishing for flounder and blues, but my stepdad got me started for bass. he was a major jetty jock, and taught me a lot. he then moved to the keys, so i would visit often.

bass are nice, but tropical fish in crystal blue water and 80 degree water and air temps are oh sooooo nice.

[quick decision]

My moms grandparents lived in Pine Point Maine and there was a jety that ran parall with a salt water river. I can remeber stories from the old salts of how they used to catch a lot of striped bass but they were all but gone now. I used to use my fresh water ugly stick and a cast master to catch mackerel. I grew up in the Berkshires 80 miles from the ocean. I did a lot of fresh water fishing with my dad. I had a tackebox full of large mouth plugs and trout spinners. I remeber being on the rocks one afternoon when the blues came in. I tried casting everything I had at them but never hooked up. My grandfather used to fish those rocks, but I never saw him cath any stripers. He passed when I was young and not to much time later the house was sold.
I met my wife many years later and moved east. I got married and bought a house in Weymouth. One of my friends asked me to go fishing with him at the Hull gut one night. I didn't catch anything but i started to get the fishing bug after that. The rest is history. To be completly honest, I have learned more from all of you people at this great community then anybody else.

[Rob Rockcrawler]

Growing up in NYC there was a guy that would fish right near my house for bass. He would fill up the trunk of his car with em and bring them to market, that got me interested. So did knowing that my grandfather used to fish for em all the time. Dad took me a few times when i was prolly like 10 then i picked it up by myself and the addiction began.

[TunaCell]

I've been fishing for 7 years now. It started when I decided to hop on a Frances Fleet fluke trip, and did very well. At that point fishing definitely caught my attention. What realy got me into it was fishing at the URI Bay Campus Dock(may that spot rest in peace) One fall afternoon the bass just made the water boil like I never saw before, seeing those fish come up behind the popper and slam it just amazed me, and I've been fishing ever since.

[S-Journey]

For stripers that man would be Sheldon Sladen - A lobsterman from Cohasset that was taken by the sea way before his time. When I was a kid I'd see him out on the boat fishing a few of the rock piles and ledges off Minot and always wondered what he were going for. I thought he was cod fishing or something, I didn't have a clue. I used to try and pick his brain down at the dock when we came in off the boat and he would only give me enough info to keep me going back for more. He was the first guy I ever saw fishing for stripers and he got me headed in the right direction.

He died at sea during a spring in the mid 90's. They think he was looking over the side of the boat for stripers and slipped and fell overboard. It was very tough for me to find him because he was a great guy and in a way reminded me of my own grandfather.

As for my love of fishing in general that man would be my grandfather, Billy Figueiredo. When I was just old enough to walk I would get up in the mornings with him at 4:00-4:30 to head out on his boat for a day of hauling in lobsters. I wanted to be a lobsterman like my grandfather more than anything in the world. He is the man who started my love for fishing at a very early age, he just never fished for stripers