I sometimes wonder what a bass, or any other species really thinks of our lures visually.
I can't help but chuckle when I hear some angler on tv, after catching a bass on a spinnerbait, say something like "oh yeah he thought he had himself a nice shad". Well....probably not. It looks like a safety pin with weed strands and blades and doesn't even remotely look like a baitfish.
Some baits like swimbaits and plastic craws look like the real thing for sure. With plastic worms, in the natural colors they do resemble actual worms.
But standard bass jigs? Tubes? Buzzbaits? Who knows what fish think they actually are.
A bass jig looks like a plain lead-head jig that had been snagged in grass strands. A tube looks startling like a squid. And who knows what a buzzbait tries to resemble.
To quote the late great Ed Zern (in reference to catching a trout on a fly):
"it is probable they think the trout fly is some feathers tied to a hook. Hell, they're not blind. They just want to see how it tastes"
