I'm new to this forum, but in the short time I've been lurking, I can sense a dislike of Bill Dance (or at least an insatiable desire to make fun of him at every opportunity).

I'm not a Bill Dance fan one way or the other, but was curious as to why he doesn't seem to be in the good graces of this discussion board. Is the it the wrong "T" on his hat? The fact that he always sits in his chair when fishing? You don't think he's a good bass fisherman? What is it?

Don't dislike him. But he'll put his name on anything and his TV show is cornball tackle whoring and commercializtion of fishing product pushing at it's worst.

He does a great job catching big fish in stocked ponds with any lure that is willing to pay money.....

He can be corny and goofy and pimp some crazy stuff but past that he can flat out fish. He dominated back before we had all the fancy equipment. He has done more than 99% will ever do in the sport. I give him slack cause I think he is one of the nicest guys out there. Hard to fault a man for getting paid for doing what he loves to do.
For someone to truly bash him I guess it would be that they are the type to find negativity in anything.

But isn't that what most of the fishing shows are now anyway? I saw Denny Brauer on a show a couple of days ago pumping a Rooster something, and the object of the entire show seemed to be to see how many times he could mention the name of the bait. I'm sure it's a fine bait, but it really was nothing more than a 30 minute infomercial disguised as a bass fishing show.

Bill Dance may have been years ahead of his time.

Mark you most throw that yum dancin eel tail thingy all day. Yeah he was good but at some point you have to consider loosing respect if your willing to endorse anything for cash.

...I have never thrown one but I just choose to look at giving him a break. he ain't hurting anyone and he's having fun. I just hope I can still fish as much as he does when I get his age.

There's a scuba diver under his boat hooking the fish on for him...

Care to list the size of his strip mines he fishes, you call them stock ponds cause why?

Most of them stock ponds, which are strip mine pits are bigger than Lake Dixon's 70 acre gold fish bowl in Cali which would have been big enough to earn the the World Record with Dottie at 25.1 lbs.


I gotta thank Bill and others for being a pioneer in our sport.

Yeah but Z is for ZONA.

I think that some people don't care for him that much (yes, including me) because he ALWAYS fishes in his private stocked lakes/ponds and catches fish that any of us could catch if we could fish in those too. Yep, he endorses any and everything (I know, he's just making money like everyone else would if they could - including me), but that's not my biggest problem with him.

EX: I know for a fact that some of the people that I have fished with swear up and down by all these lures that he endorses and they go out and spend darn near every spare dime that they have on his lures thinking that they will always catch 4-9 lb bass like he does. The fact is that where he is fishing, you could probably go out there with some 25 yr old creme worms and catch the hell out of them just like he does on his endorsement baits. Again, I've got a problem with where he fishes all the time more than anything. Oh, and if you think all of his bloopers are real and some or most not staged, your being fooled. He's way too experienced to be having some of that carp happen to him like he's trying to make you think. Again, deceiving.....

That's my opinion

I gotta disagree with you Hookem - What you call his strip mine pits are not open to the public so them fish very rarely ever see lures (except probably his...) - I don't care how big the "strip mine pits" are... I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about:

Go asked people that was able to fish Ray Roberts, Lake Fork, Purtis Creek etc etc when they first opened and they will tell you that catching 100 + bass a day (big ones too) was a common thing. Now it's a different story. Know why? It's called fishing pressure....The fish are still in these lakes, but their damn sure harder to catch now that they have seen any and every lure known to man kind for the last 20 yrs. You think that don't make a difference??

Longeye, this is not directed at you personally, but I think most of the people griping about BD fishing private lakes do so out of jealously. I could care less where he fishes. And yes, his pumping of his sponsors' products gets old, but so do most other shows/fishing reports. If you don't like them, don't watch them.

Bill Dance has done more for our sport than most, and continues to do so, tirelessly. He's at all the Bassmaster Classics and makes appearances at many other venues for his sponsors. Yes he gets paid to do so. So what?

I think most of us only wish we were so lucky.

the one thing i have noticed is that he always catches fish in the top lip....and i want to say it is the right side of the top lip most of the time. he might have been the real deal back in the day, but today he is just a fishing advertisment. we all know that some lures catch fish and some catch fishermen. bill dance pimps the lures that catch fishermen and puts money in his pocket....all from a reheared script with several takes....in my opinion he is not a down to earth kind of guy.

At least he doesn't squeal like a girl ... Shaw Grigsby is the one I simply cannot watch. I don't care if its mid-January and the ground is covered in ice. Cannot take him.