Help settle a bet.

[Syppy]

Most of what I've been catching lately has been off a little rapala green and yellow crank-bait thingy (sorry really new to all this so I don't know how else to describe it).  And every time my wife tries to tell me that it won't work ever again on that same fish.

"Once they get hooked by it, they'll never bite on it again", she says.

I dunno I'm just not buying it, I could swear I've caught the same fish on the same lure many times over in the past, but I was never sure.

What's been ya'lls experience?  Will a bass never bite on a lure that's it's been caught on before?

Sippi

[Grey Wolf]

They will bite the same bait over and over.

[Big Tom]

Yep.  I think bass have a pretty short memory.

I was fishing Lake Erie with my friend and his dad a couple summers ago when one of them hooked a decent smallmouth on a tube.  He got it right up beside the boat and was about to swing it in when it jumped off.  It stayed just under the surface of the water so I decided to drop my tube (exact same brand and color as his) in front of its face.  The bass crushed it and I ended up catching it.

[DRhodes]

Bass strike on instinct. They will strike the same lure over and over again. Now if you catch one and release it dont expect it to strike instantly at the lure again, because catching a fish can "stress" it out where it wont eat for several hours after.

If others have more to add feel free, but from all of my reading this is my understanding of how a fish's brain operates.

[bassman31783]

I know I have caught the same fish on the same lure.  However I'm a firm believer that a bass can absolutely become "conditioned" to a lure & even a certain technique.  This doesn't mean that you can't still catch the bass on the same lure, it just becomes harder. 

[Kowen117]

yup they will hit them same lure over again most of the time a bass hits your lure because it thinks it is real right? So if he thought it was real once he should think it is real again

[swimbait]

I know I have caught the same fish on the same lure. However I'm a firm believer that a bass can absolutely become "conditioned" to a lure & even a certain technique. This doesn't mean that you can't still catch the bass on the same lure, it just becomes harder.

Bassman hit the nail on the head. From a study I saw some will never stop biting, some will become conditioned not to bite a bait and others will be difficult to ever catch. No clear answer to a particular fish.

[21farms]

i read of a study some university did about catching bass. what they found was that a percentage of the fish were really, really stupid...they'd repeatedly get caught, released, caught again, released, etc. however, a larger percentage of bass learned from prior experience and were a lot harder to catch. then, there were also those that never get caught. i wish i could remember more or where i read it.

[flippin and pitchin]

Al Lindner's show just addressed that very issue.  I read a study several years ago that showed certain lures are less prone for which bass to become conditioned.  That lure was the plastic worm.  Go figure.

[SirSnookalot]

I fish my community pond nearly everyday and pretty much use the same zoom fluke.  I catch fish every day regardless of the color I'm using.

Bass are pretty simple to catch.

[Syppy]

i read of a study some university did about catching bass. what they found was that a percentage of the fish were really, really stupid...they'd repeatedly get caught, released, caught again, released, etc. however, a larger percentage of bass learned from prior experience and were a lot harder to catch. then, there were also those that never get caught. i wish i could remember more or where i read it.

I suppose it's like IQ for bass.  Just like there are smart people, there are dumb people. I wonder if any university has studied the varying ranges of IQ between fish.

Sippi

[zbigbadaaron]

Like this one blue catfish in a pond at Tennessee I caught like 8 times while I stayed down there.