Bass Ability To Communicate With Other Bass

[HoosierHawgs]

I saw a Mark Zona show on Great Lakes smallmouth and he spoke about the fact that many anglers believed that released smallmouth "spook" the school and he was apt to believe them. He was fishing with Van Dam or maybe the CEO of Strike King, and they were keeping their smallmouth until they moved locations.

It was the CEO of SK. I watched that show over the weekend.

[scaleface]

Yeah they communicate . Often one fish gets hooked and others try to help them get the hook out , sometimes becoming hooked themselves . .

[Spankey]

I thought about posting a similar thread. Glad you posted it. 99% of the time do an immediate release. This coming season it think I'm going to tank fish and delay the release until I move to another spot. I have a nice livewell system so supporting them has never been an issue. I just don't want to stress the fish anymore than necessary. I've always thought there was a communication level or sense that they MAY pick up from returning fish.

Scale I agree. Many times on the river for smallies I've had a fish on a crankbait  only to have another to slam it most time close to the boat to get a double hook up. At times they can be very aggressive by nature. Not sure if they are trying to help, hungry, just want to get in on the action. Not sure how they think. I find this mostly with smaller fish.

I'll  never have bass fishing figured out that why I keep doing it. 

 

[scaleface]

Spanky  , I wasnt serious . LOL . 

 

When a school of fish is located , for instance on a point . You cant throw them all in a livewell  .I'd have fifty fish in there at times . I just toss them back , unless I'm saving a  few legal fish to eat .

[hawgenvy]

On 12/9/2015 at 10:46 AM, Paul Roberts said:

Bass are, so far, not known to produce an alarm substance like Shreckstoff substance found in Ostariophysi (minnows, catfishes, and some others). And there's been little anecdotal evidence that bass or other Centrarchids produce such a chemical. FYI: Here's a recent article on Shreckstoff:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fish-schreckstoff/

 

However, Bob Underwood in his book "Lunker" -describing his hours observing and experimenting with bass in SCUBA gear- had a whole chapter highlighting his observations of bass with torn skin alarming the schools of bass they were caught from. Mouth hooked fish produced no such response. He did repeated "experiments" and was convinced that tearing the skin of bass alarmed others.

 

As to the more general question of whether bass can communicate with other bass, the answer is yes. But that depends on what they are communicating. One bass (or other fish) spooking can alarm others nearby. Seen that.. a whole lot more than I'd like. Many fish -bass included- are known to learn what is edible and what is not by observing others. This is well documented in fish behavior literature -called "social learning". This is very likely at work in bass becoming "educated" to angling (another thing that's very well documented). A fish doesn't need to sample a non-food item, much less be hooked, to learn that a particular item is not edible; they can observe their cohorts doing the sampling and that can be enough.

I was looking around for info on bass communication and found this topic on BR. Interesting stuff. As usual, there is not enough scientific data useful to bass fishing. The article in SA on Shreckstoff was interesting and contained a reasonably good model for evaluating chemical warning signals. An interesting way to do the same sort of study in LMB could involve using water from a bass boat live well. If there are stress chemicals from injured and stressed bass, the water from a busy live well has them. Put a cup of that water in a big tank of healthy bass and see how or if they react. If they do react, you could isolate the chemical and maybe even find a way subsequently to counter its effects.

Of course, ideally, we'd like to find a chemical that turns them on! Different species behave differently. Schooling dolphin fish are attracted to a hooked classmate. When you hook one,  just leave him in the water behind the boat and other dolphin will be attracted to him, they'll light up and can be caught easily. I've caught dozens of dolphin that way. It is a very dramatic phenomenon. I don't know if it's a visual attraction, chemical, sound, or electric field.

Years ago I used to catch schooling golden shiners in a canal behind my house with a tiny hook. You could catch up to three -- then the school would flee the area. The water was clear and you could see them take off down the canal. It was very obvious that something was communicating a danger signal to the school.

[Bigskinny]

[Deleted account]

On December 9, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Racerx said:

I don't believe for a second that fish actually communicate.  

Really?

We aren't talking about pulling out a cell phone or screaming out the window. But fish, just like every other species communicates. It's a survival thing, wouldn't make sense not to. You must have SPRINT...

[Bass Justice]

On December 10, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Ratherbfishing said:

It's my belief that bass hold a "town meeting" every morning at around 3:30 to decide where they are going to be and what baits they are going to bite (if any).  There can be no other explanation.

Don't forget that sometimes they purposely tell >1 pounders to bite the lures and baits so the fisherman stay distracted and the lunkers can eat real food in peace.

Ever wonder why that bass the size of a fluke attacked your 6 inch swimbait? Now you know 

[Gundog]

In my opinion, bass don't communicate with other bass before, during or after being caught. Past experiences have proven it to me. Catching a bass and other bass follow it. Releasing bass and catching others on the next cast in the same spot. Releasing a bass and watching him swim down under the boat and then catching other bass in the same area the previous bass was just released to. If bass communicated to each other none of these things would happen. I think its a self-fulfilled prophecy. You keep the bass to not spook the school and the school is not spooked. Not scientific but neither is most of what we do when we fish. Its based on what we think happened last time we did it. Nobody truly knows.

[Wbeadlescomb]

I've noticed it in one pond in particular. You can catch maybe 2-3 fish in the first few casts and they shut down and you can't buy a bite. It's maybe a half acre pond so I think they sense something is happening. Because you can see 4+lb fish cruising but they won't touch a bait. 

[Gundog]

1 hour ago, Wbeadlescomb said:

I've noticed it in one pond in particular. You can catch maybe 2-3 fish in the first few casts and they shut down and you can't buy a bite. It's maybe a half acre pond so I think they sense something is happening. Because you can see 4+lb fish cruising but they won't touch a bait. 

I noticed this in a local pond I fished when I was a kid. I was really curious about why the other fish wouldn't bite so I tried fishing at different times and found that more bass would hit my lure at night, usually at times around dusk and dawn. I also found that bigger bass hit at those times also. 

[Wbeadlescomb]

3 minutes ago, Gundog said:

I noticed this in a local pond I fished when I was a kid. I was really curious about why the other fish wouldn't bite so I tried fishing at different times and found that more bass would hit my lure at night, usually at times around dusk and dawn. I also found that bigger bass hit at those times also. 

 I'll stop and fish it sometimes right before dark or during the day when they are bedding but I'd rather be in my boat on the river

[geo g]

When it comes to catching large mouth, they are not the smartest animals alive.  I have caught many bass off the same structure one after another.  While schooling I have caught two off the same crank bait or rapala as they both faught for the same bait and on back to back casts.  Catching one doesn't seem to effect the group very much.  When they are hungry they just want a meal regardless of what is going on around them.  It's not thinking, it's all reacting!

[avidone1]

I can't say that I believe in the communication theory either.   I have had a few times over the years where the bass were just stacked up like cord wood in a particular spot no more than a hundred yards in diameter.  You would get arm weary hauling them out, letting em go, and them hauling in some more.

[GTHenson]

I'm not a biologist or anything but bass school up because of the sound, (not a signal from one bass to another but the sound from the bass feeding)  the baitfish noise and so on and so forth, that's why hydro waves are so effective. so with that being said they don't really communicate between each other in forms of feeding so why would they communicate danger? They are all loners in my opinion, yes they do school up like mentioned before in this topic but not in a sense that other pack animals do, they aren't hunting together, they are hunting for themselves. The food source is just more abundant in that particular area and the food source is schooled up, therefore it narrows the location of the feeding bass to a pack!