The Black Bass is a fishing video game franchise created by Hot-B in 1986 and currently produced by Starfish. Games in the series typically involve fishing for the titular black bass, often in the form of fishing tournaments across multiple lakes. The Black Bass (ザ・ブラックバス, Za Burakku Basu) is a 1986 fishing video game developed and published by Gamu (later known as HOT・B). It was originally released for the MSX computer in 1986 and later ported to the Family Computer on March 18, 1987 in Japan. It is the first game in the long-running Black Bass series and was not released outside of Japan.