Bass Fishing

Are you a bass angler? The numbers say you probably are. Bass fishing is the most popular past-time of American fisherman.

According to government figures, about 15-million fishermen pursue bass, annually spending 160-million days on the water.

Bass fishing is the stuff of calendar art. If you had to pick one motif that appears over and over again it’s that of a largemouth bass leaving a washtub sized depression in the surface as it clears the water chasing prey. No other image evokes the spirit of fishing as that one, which may explain why it’s used so often.

This fascination with black bass dates primarily from the mid-1960s, when two things came together.

First, there was the widespread creation of huge impoundments, primarily in the south, but not confined to that region. And second was a bit of chauvinism. If you believed the literature of the time, trout were the only fish that counted. Southerners, most of whom do not have trout available locally, felt like second-class anglers. These good ‘ol boys quickly discovered, however, that they had their own, home-grown fishery in the form of trophy largemouth bass.

Not only was there ample fishing water (some of those man-made lakes run more than 50,000 surface acres), largemouth are both plentiful and potentially huge. The world record weighed more than 22 pounds.

Now almost half a century building, bass fishing has never escaped its roots, and is still thought of as being southern in nature.

The real impetus behind bass angling’s popularity, though, came from tournament fishing. Fishing for pay remains a controversial topic. But what cannot be denied is that most of today's bass fishing gear---from rods, reels, and baits to boats and electronics---was developed as a direct result of the demands for better equipment made by tournament pros. So, even if you’re not a tournament angler, you owe the professional fishermen a debt of gratitude.

Largemouth aren’t the only black bass, of course. There are five species swimming in American waters, of which three constitute the bulk of the catch: Largemouth, smallmouth, and Kentucky spotted. Coosa and Suwannee bass are much talked about, but their range is so small most anglers never have a chance at them. Peacock bass, that South American import, are only found in a few waters in southern Florida.

The other three, however, can be found from coast to coast, and from the Canadian border to the Mexican line and beyond.

Nor are any of them confined to big water. Largemouth prefer flat, turbid water, and are mostly found in lakes and ponds. But the slower backwaters of rivers and creeks often harbor them. Big ones at that. Smallmouth---ounce for ounce and pound for pound the fightingest fish the world around---are often thought of as fish of moving water. But, here again, that’s an oversimplification. The world record came from an impoundment---Dale Hollow Lake, on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. And both Lake Erie and Lake Michigan produce trophy catches. If there’s any real difference it’s that smallies prefer clearer, usually cooler, water than their bigger cousins. Kentucky spotted bass started as stream fish, like smallmouth. But once they got caught in the filling impoundments they found them to their liking, and they grow much larger there than in their original habitat.

None of the blacks are actually bass. Technically they are sunfish, related to bluegill. There are true basses swimming in our waters, though. White and yellow bass, for instance, are freshwater natives, most often grouped with panfish---although with white bass running three pounds and better that pushes the concept. .

Striped bass (rockfish) are anadromous fish; salt water fish that can live happily in fresh water. And hybrids are a man-made species; a cross between salt-water stripers and fresh-water white bass.

Still and all, when somebody says “bass” it’s the black bass they have in mind.