I am a Senior Writer at Bassmaster, a Board Member of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, and have contributed to just about every major freshwater fishing magazine and website in existence. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and fish with most of the best bass anglers in the world, but over the past five years I’ve broadened my focus – with my wife Hanna, I have built a website called “Half Past First Cast” that has become our obsession. The goal is to help you have a better fishing life experience, however you define that, and our vehicle for getting to that point has been fishing travel. We regularly host groups for bass fishing trips to Mexico, trout and salmon trips to Alaska, sailfish excursions in Guatemala, and multi-species efforts (tuna, roosterfish, billfish, etc.) in Panama. The lesson that gets hammered into our brains again and again is that getting out of your comfort zone is the best way to avoid burning out on fishing or limiting your growth.
Our First Trip of 2025
We just returned from our fifth trip to Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge, hosting a group that totaled 20 anglers. They caught marlin and sailfish and roosterfish and cubera snapper, but if you’re a bass fisherman what you’d love about this trip is chasing busting yellowfin tuna. I’m a topwater junkie and these fish make the Amazon’s peacock bass look like dainty dry fly sippers. We had one of my fishing mentors, Lee Byrd (a former Bassmaster Classic qualifier), and several other hard core bass guys on this trip, and not surprisingly they took to it really well. I find that the saltwater people are intrigued by the popularity of bass world, and they like having us onboard because we understand the value of precise casting, lure cadence, current, and other critical factors.
Fishing for Other Species Will Make You a Better Bass Angler
After years of fishing the same local places again and again, our initial trips to El Salto and then the Amazon for peacock bass got me excited about not just fishing in those places, but about fishing in general. If all you do is chase bass on the same waters repeatedly, even if you don’t get bored, you’ll fall into all kinds of ruts. Chasing trout in Alaska taught me a tremendous amount about fishing current. Working on tuna up to 200+ pounds helped me understand how to better fight fish of all sizes. Casting for roosterfish and cubera snapper taught me the value of quality spinning gear in a way that will help me with smallmouths. I come back from every exotic trip ready to hit my nearby waters and try something new. It doesn’t relegate smaller fish to the back burner – on the contrary it makes the fire burn brighter.
A-A-Ron
My first article in a national magazine was about a day spent in the boat with Aaron Martens at the 2004 Classic on Lake Wylie. Later in his life, I did some ghostwriting for Aaron, and I miss the unexpected segues and tangents – yelling at Jordan to get out of the blueberry bushes, or telling me he would call me later because he needed to wash his cat. One of the biggest regrets of my writing career is that I hurried him through some of those calls rather than listening and learning, because even when he was off-topic, Aaron would slip in some amazing nuggets of insight. Like anyone who knew him – and lots of you knew him better than I did – I miss his kindness and willingness to be himself in a sport where lots of people end up meeting in the middle.
I’ve been in the closest boat when the likes of KVD or Chris Lane or Casey Ashley caught the winning fish in a Bassmaster Classic, but my favorite event I’ve attended was the famous 2008 Elite Series event on Falcon. I fished it as a co-angler, as I did in a number of BASS and FLW tournaments. I think that eliminating co’s from the boat in tour level tournaments was the right thing to do, but I’m glad that I had the opportunity to participate in several of them with both BASS and FLW. I think that when the history books are written, that tournament will go down as one of the most memorable in the sport’s history. At one point Trip Weldon told people not to weigh in their fish for big bass if it wasn’t clearly over 10 pounds. Of the six days I fished, my pro partners had a 9-pound or greater bass on five of them – and on the sixth I had an 8-12, which was then my personal best. You get very few chances in life to hit a premier fishery at its best time, least of all in competition, and that was a time when the stars aligned. It led to my travel mantra that you need to“Go While It’s Good.”
The best way to keep fishing from getting stagnant is to do something new as often as possible. For us, that means a new place, new experience or new species. Last year we went alligator hunting at Grosse Savanne. This year in November we’re boarding a boat in Cabo and taking it up to Mag Bay, a legendary spot for striped marlin. We’ll be on the boat for three days with our friends Samantha and Mike, who’ve been on many trips with us – we’ll definitely get to know them even better this time around in the close quarters, and hopefully build some memories on a fish that’ll be new to all of us.
Even if you don’t want to stray away from bass, go someplace new. If you’re a Great Lakes finesse guy, go to South Louisiana and flip with heavy braid. If you’re a hard core swimbaiter, try to master a technique at the opposite end of a spectrum.
AFTCO’s Tactical Shorts were the first item entered into our ““Half Past First Cast Hall of Fame” (you can count them on one hand so far). I own multiple pairs, but my favorites are this pair in Grey Camo that I’ve had since about 2018. They’ve been all over the world, splattered with tuna blood, washed again and again and again, and they just keep ticking. I don’t like the way that a lot of shorts fit, but these are perfect. I’ll be sad when they finally wear out, but so far they show no signs of doing so.
Book A Trip
If you’d like to discuss travel options with us, or join us on a hosted trip, shoot us an email at fishmore@halfpastfirstcast.com.
I’ve been fortunate enough to go a lot of places, from Alaska to Zimbabwe, to chase all kinds of crazy fish. I still want to catch Giant Trevally, Barramundi and a variety of other exotics, but something doesn’t have to be far away or rare to make the list – I’m itching to go to Lake Havasu to catch giant redear sunfish at Lake Havasu and the Flint River for shoal bass when I get the time.
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https://bestontour.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Best-On-Tour-Logo-1920-minified.png8141920Jordan Babcockhttps://bestontour.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Best-On-Tour-Logo-1920-minified-300x127.pngJordan Babcock2025-01-20 08:44:472025-01-20 08:44:47Pete Robbins takes over Best On Tour (Issue 307)
