Behavioral Differences Between Bass Species

[SENKOSAM]

What are the chances a bass is caught by the same lure? Maybe in an aquarium where a study confirms long term memory, but in a large body of water? In any one year a new lure can do well, but lake conditions may change just enough to relocate bass that were easy to catch on a lure many just happened to use. The following year most bass don't remember the lure anyway, but it may remember and associate trolling motor sounds with danger after having been caught multiple times week after week and in consecutive years. Virgin bass are easy to catch - pressured bass not so much.

[coryn h. fishowl]

What are the chances a bass is caught by the same lure? Maybe in an aquarium where a study confirms long term memory, but in a large body of water? In any one year a new lure can do well, but lake conditions may change just enough to relocate bass that were easy to catch on a lure many just happened to use. The following year most bass don't remember the lure anyway, but it may remember and associate trolling motor sounds with danger after having been caught multiple times week after week and in consecutive years. Virgin bass are easy to catch - pressured bass not so much.

No study I know of has tested memory of lures to the extent of several years.  More importantly, how much do bass generalize.  If one gets hooked on a rapala jointed shad rap, will it strike at the lure in a different color, or has its vibration pattern, movement, etc. been so imprinted that the bass will never strike at that lure again.  This gets even hairier when getting into jigs and spinnerbait design and skirts.

[WRB]

Given that a friend of mine had a bass in an aquarium which he trained to swim around a log twice before getting food, I'd say they do. Not to mention that bass have been shown to cease biting certain lures in a controlled environment after several nips. They realize it isn't food and even months after, will not bite they lure once they have learned this.

Go online and search "Born to be caught, bass study" 20 year lake environment study by the U of Illinois.

Tom

[Brian Needham]

Given that a friend of mine had a bass in an aquarium which he trained to swim around a log twice before getting food, I'd say they do. Not to mention that bass have been shown to cease biting certain lures in a controlled environment after several nips.  They realize it isn't food and even months after, will not bite they lure once they have learned this.

 

I will continue to trust Bob Lusk, AKA pond boss.

 

The man has forgotten more about growing/studying fish than most of us will ever know.

[Brian Needham]

Given that a friend of mine had a bass in an aquarium which he trained to swim around a log twice before getting food, I'd say they do. Not to mention that bass have been shown to cease biting certain lures in a controlled environment after several nips.  They realize it isn't food and even months after, will not bite they lure once they have learned this.

 

 

No study I know of has tested memory of lures to the extent of several years.  More importantly, how much do bass generalize.  If one gets hooked on a rapala jointed shad rap, will it strike at the lure in a different color, or has its vibration pattern, movement, etc. been so imprinted that the bass will never strike at that lure again.  This gets even hairier when getting into jigs and spinnerbait design and skirts.

 

 

so you just said they will stop biting a lure in a lab, but then turn around and no study has tested memory of lures????? come one man you cant have it both ways.

 

you can make a lab report say anything you want if you "control" it the right way, of course you won't agree with that either.

 

Catt has told you, WRB has told you, and I told you, you MUST study it in the wild or it doesn't mean anything.

and last time I checked, Bass will still bite a crème/plastic worm, so that proves you wrong too.

[Paul Roberts]

Bass have been found to learn to avoid lures, and retain the "memory" up to several months. When testing responses to lures, researchers have to change out for fresh fish bc the previous fish learned enough to alter responses to lures, or avoid them altogether. Also, tank-mates learn from those that were directly edified.

 

And you cannot "test in the wild" like you can in a controlled laboratory bc there are so many competing variables in "the wild" that in the end you have nothing to say. Lab studies control extraneous variables enough to tease out something specific -such as that bass can "learn" and retain the experience. However, there are field studies too that have shown that catch rates decline precipitously shortly after angling is introduced to previously unfished for bass.

[WRB]

The Ridge lake, Illinois bass study Born to be Caught is hard to dispute.

Tom

[SENKOSAM]

According to K. Jones, not all bass are alike in that some can be caught many times and some only a few. This was the study Jone's and Tom referred to:
 

Within every population of bass, some individuals learn to renounce lures quickly, whereas others never make the mental connection between lures and trauma. In a four year study of  angling  recapture rates at a catch and release lake in Illinois, the average LM was caught twice each season. However, some bass were caught up to sixteen times in a single season.

 

Were any caught on the same lures more than once? How similar in design and color? How different the presentation? What length of time between captures?

What lures were found to be rejected first; which least? What was the water like - clarity, temperature, stain, etc.? Too many variables to make general statements about lure burn out and general lure rejection, as Paul said after I stated the same previously. But Paul also made this statement which holds true:

 

However, there are studies that have shown that catch rates decline precipitously shortly after angling is introduced to previously unfished for bass.

This also most definitely pertains to waters that have fewer accomplished bass anglers to pressure bass where they hang out with lures they have minimal exposure to.

 

I still maintain the more 'natural' and subdued the action and presentation, the less rejection overall. Downsizing may also have a positive effect on catching pre-caught bass which is why drop shot, 4" soft plastics work so well. Ask Ike!

 

(Tom, the report also states, "Male bass are the sole caregiver for the offspring. Females lay eggs and leave.") Read it on the Science Daily site.

[Brian Needham]

Paul........its the variables in the wild that make the controls in the lab, incomplete, and useless IMO. (within reason) 

[Brian Needham]

The Ridge lake, Illinois bass study Born to be Caught is hard to dispute.

Tom

 

link or method of how to find this study?

thanks tom

[SENKOSAM]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090414153532.htm

[WRB]

There isn't any question that the male bass has a longer time period guarding the nest site that it picked out and cleaned out to get ready for a female bass. The females role usually includes selecting a nest and male bass to spawn with, she doesn't just swim up and start depositing eggs. The ritual includes accepting the male bass, cleaning out the nest until it satisfies the female, this also helps to loosen eggs in the ovary sacks and can cause some tail damage. The male and femal are now together around the nest site. All this activity takes a few days. When the female is ready to drop some of her eggs initially, the first spawn, she rolls on her side and starts to drop eggs, the male moves in and drops melt on the eggs to fertilize them. This goes on for about an hour, then the female moves off a short distance to recuperate and watches the nest for any intruders. If this was her final egg laying, she moves off and doesn't return.

When bed fishing it's common to see 1 smaller size bass on nest because the male doesn't leave until the fry are ready, then the male often attackes his own brood!

It's also common to make a cast to the male on the bed and have a bigger female,that you don't see, charge in and nail your lure or bait or you catch the male, put it in the livewell and the female comes back to guard the nest. These are common tactics in bed fishing.

The statement "the female leaves" is true, but not absolute in the definition.

Tom

[coryn h. fishowl]

so you just said they will stop biting a lure in a lab, but then turn around and no study has tested memory of lures????? come one man you cant have it both ways.

 

you can make a lab report say anything you want if you "control" it the right way, of course you won't agree with that either.

 

Catt has told you, WRB has told you, and I told you, you MUST study it in the wild or it doesn't mean anything.

and last time I checked, Bass will still bite a crème/plastic worm, so that proves you wrong too.

No study has tested memory of lures to the extent of years. Only months

[WRB]

No study has tested memory of lures to the extent of years. Only months

The Ridge lake study, Sam kindly posted a link to a article briefly giving some highlites on, was a 20 year study over several generations of bass susceptibility to being caught on lures. If you are thinking about a specific lure or lure classification, you are correct. However if bass didn't get conditioned to certain lures, we would simply fish with the same lure. This begs the question of why have thousands of lure choices for bass, when they have no memory? The answer should be obvious by looking at your tackle box.

Tom

[SENKOSAM]

 

This begs the question of why have thousands of lure choices for bass, when they have no memory? The answer should be obvious by looking at your tackle box.

.... because anglers believe what they see, hear and read and run out to buy more!  Bass aren't the only ones fooled by lures and lure makers. I no longer give up on lures that produce year after year and as much as the discussion is interesting, it won't change the way I fish or what I use to catch bass, memorable or not.

[Brian Needham]

all the old timers around here are

 

white and chartruse spinnnerbaits

black and crome rattle traps

craw colored cranks

watermelon worms and black and blue jigs

 

they all catch plenty of fish and have so for 50+ years in the same lake.

[Paul Roberts]

all the old timers around here are

 

white and chartruse spinnnerbaits

black and crome rattle traps

craw colored cranks

watermelon worms and black and blue jigs

 

they all catch plenty of fish and have so for 50+ years in the same lake.

The answer, or ability to refine the question, is obscured by all the variables in the wild.

 

One way to get a quick understanding of it is to fish a pond that has NEVER been fished. I have a number of times and it is ... ridiculous. Such opportunities are so rare now that few will have the opportunity. We all fish for "educated" fish now.

 

The Ridge Lake study is a classic. There are quite a few others, but none so long in duration and with such control of a lake system (They drained it very year and counted every fish).

 

There's little question that bass can learn. From there, things get more complicated, especially "in the wild". There is no one "wild".

[Catt]

Paul read what you wrote!

Think about!

Controlling every aspect of an experiment is forcing the outcome to justify your desired answer.

I don't care how bass react in a controlled sitting, I do care how bass react on Toledo Bend.

I have 42 yrs experence on Toledo Bend, I'm still catching bass on the same structure with the same lure.

This is reality

[Brian Needham]

Catt, I have stated that very thing AT LEAST 4 or 5 times in this thread, they don't want to listen. They think lab rats can tell them something about wild animals.

 

 

I think I am just going to let them catch "lab bass" while we catch REAL bass....

[Paul Roberts]

If you used used TB as the place to decipher whether bass can learn or not, you'd never find out. It's a "Do what you've always done, get what you always got." kind of thing. Lighting (sky, water), metabolic/energetic variation ("activity level"), competition with other predators, proximity to other predators, proximity to prey, activity of prey, type of prey, proximity to cover, presence of other anglers, "education level" of bass, etc ... cloud the question to the point that any "results" are useless. Unless you mean to tell me you catch 100 bass off each structure every time you go out? The variation in your results, (and those we all experience "in the wild"), is due to which of the variables I listed?

 

Fishing and research are two different things. The fact that bass can learn (some better than others) is worth knowing I think. But I agree it's no holy grail of an answer to all our fishing woes. Your point might be that it doesn't matter since none of us are fishing virgin fisheries. We have to learn to deal with all the variables. Lab and "controlled" studies of all types are not useless however. They each offer a glimpse of just what's important in a relative sense, opportunities to chip away at the limitations.

[Catt]

Confirmation Bias, a tendency of people to favor information (not science) that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.

[Paul Roberts]

That is no answer to my question.

 

Which of the variables I listed (or any others you can add) explain the variability in your (our) catch rates in the wild? And does it tell us anything at all about whether bass can learn?

 

And I'll add a question; this one for Brian:

 

If you wanted to find out if bass can learn, how would you go about it?

[coryn h. fishowl]

The Ridge lake study, Sam kindly posted a link to a article briefly giving some highlites on, was a 20 year study over several generations of bass susceptibility to being caught on lures. If you are thinking about a specific lure or lure classification, you are correct. However if bass didn't get conditioned to certain lures, we would simply fish with the same lure. This begs the question of why have thousands of lure choices for bass, when they have no memory? The answer should be obvious by looking at your tackle box.

Tom

Perfectly said my friend

[Catt]

The thousands of lure choices are to catch the fisherman!

The research referenced is over a 20 yr period. I have 42 yrs of research on Toledo Bend, my first bass caught was on a Ringworm & 42 yrs later I'm still catching them on Ringworms.

So my question is where is the learning?

Oh yea please explain a Jitterbug, Hula Popper, & other lures 50-60 yrs old.

[Brian Needham]

Paul ask yourself the same questions in a lab settings.

 

 

 

 

We are all old enough in this thread to know we can not control or predict mother nature.

 

The only question remains how many in the thread are smart enough not to still try........