Bass Hunter 64 Playthrough (Actual N64 Capture) - Part 1

This is part 1 of my capture of me playing through the Championship mode of Bass Hunter 64 on the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my Nintendo 64 using a real Bass Hunter 64 cartridge.

Here’s a playthrough that I have been meaning to do for a long time now. I grew up in a private community with its own lake up until 1999, so I did a lot of fishing as a kid (mostly from the shore).

By the mid ’90s I had become nothing short of a fishing fanatic. I would watch all of the fishing shows on Sunday mornings such as Roland Martin and Bill Dance. My favorite show, however, was In-Fisherman, and I even subscribed to the magazine for a few years.

Though I had briefly played Super Black Bass on the SNES, I didn’t receive my first fishing game until early 1996 when I was given Bass Masters Classic for my birthday. I probably spent that entire day playing the game. I think I even managed to eventually make it to the last tournament, but I don’t remember beating it. Still, it was fun at the time.

When the Nintendo 64 was later released I wanted nothing more than for In-Fisherman to create their own game on the new system, and I was shocked and blown away when Bass Hunter 64 was eventually announced. Unfortunately, by the time the game was released I had already moved out of the private lake community and was rarely fishing anymore.

I received Bass Hunter 64 for Christmas of 1999, and though I was still generally interested in fishing, for whatever reason, the game just didn’t click with me. Even though I ended up beating all of my other Nintendo 64 games soon after receiving them, I’m sorry to say that I never beat Bass Hunter 64. It’s probably my only regret from my childhood Nintendo 64 experience.

Ultimately, Bass Hunter 64 just wasn’t as fun as Bass Masters Classic. The graphics are mediocre, the fish are sparse and difficult to catch, and you have a very limited inventory to start with. The excitement just isn’t there. But the game at least had an interesting idea with the split screen view.

I think I owe it to myself to finally beat this game, even if it’s 25 years later. Better late than never, I suppose. If you want to use this playthrough as a guide, there are a few tips I can give. First, drive around in the boat until you see large fish icons on the fish finder, then stop and fish in that specific area, otherwise you'll waste time. Second, don't be afraid to try different lures until something finally works. Third, let the fish grab your lure and swim away from the screen before setting the hook, and after that, try to keep the line taught at all times. Finally, while you are actually fishing, adjust the drag with the C up and down buttons to match your line's tensile strength (I didn't learn about this until the third tournament).

I’ll be keeping track of each fish I catch in case you want to skip to those parts.

In this first part I started a new save file and completed Tournament #1.

Fish caught in this video:

1 - Bass (6 lbs, 10 oz) - 5:28
2 - Bass (5 lbs, 1 oz) - 9:10
3 - Bass (4 lbs, 1 oz) - 11:30
4 - Bass (3 lbs, 7 oz) - 17:52
5 - Bass (2 lbs, 2 oz) - 20:46

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the official N64 S-video cable. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to upconvert the N64's native 240p signal to 480i so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a standard Nintendo 64 controller.