Shy Bass.....

[Moto]

Just curious - 

Is it true the more a lake/pond is fished, the more “shy” the bass will be? 

One of my favorite ponds are fished very often by different anglers, and recently I haven’t been able to get a bite at all. 

I don’t think it’s because of the lure, because I’ve caught bass there on the same lure that now I can not catch anything on. 

Are the bass wary about these lures or any lures for that matter? 

[Glaucus]

There is such a thing as pressured fish, and they are - or I should say can be - harder to catch. This is where finesse techniques come in. Personally I don't consider pressure when I fish. Whether they'll bite through power fishing or through finesse fishing, I know they will bite once I get it right.

 

The thing about pressured fish and the fact that they will avoid certain lures is funny to me when you consider that the same people who talk about pressure will also insist that bass are not intelligent and have a short memory. You in fact cannot have it both ways. 

[kenmitch]

Another thing to consider is the bass population in the pond. If anglers keep the catch it'll slowly dwindle away becoming increasingly harder to even catch one. Some people just don't care about rules, regulations. size limits, etc. 

 

I'm not sure how the brain of a bass works but I'd imagine they do have some memory capabilities. Seeing how their brains look pretty small I'd imagine the long term memory storage is even smaller. Seasonal patterns, favorite haunts, forage, migration routes, most likely have higher priority than alien encounters. I don't think their stupid but at some point they most likely would become forgetful.

 

Bass don't always stay in the same place so maybe it's more of a location thing in the end. It doesn't hurt to try spots you've had success in the past to see, but in the end they might have moved to the next best structure a couple feet deeper or even shallower.

[NHBull]

There is a dock on my lake that is home to a huge small mouth. You can see him many days in  4 feet of water. People have been trying to catch him for years and no evail. Many suspect he was catch several  times when younger. This dock just happens  to be at one of the most popular places on the lake. Can't say for sure, why.  But I too don't waist my time with him

[FishDewd]

Just now, NHBull said:

There is a dock on my lake that is home to a huge small mouth. You can see him many days in  4 feet of water. People have been trying to catch him for years and no evail. Many suspect he was catch several  times when younger. This dock just happens  to be at one of the most popular places on the lake. Can't say for sure, why.  But I too don't waist my time with him

Sounds like a good time to "cheat" and dangle some live bait in his face hehe. See if he bites that.

 

Addressing the op, yes I do think bass learn certain things and do have some memory. If goldfish can be taught to navigate through a maze to get to food then I can see no reason a bass couldn't have some sort of intelligence. The question for me isn't so much if they can remember, but how they do it. Is it an actual memory like we have? Where they can "see" mentally something that happened before, like recollection? Or is it purely instinctual?

[CroakHunter]

55 minutes ago, NHBull said:

There is a dock on my lake that is home to a huge small mouth. You can see him many days in  4 feet of water. People have been trying to catch him for years and no evail. Many suspect he was catch several  times when younger. This dock just happens  to be at one of the most popular places on the lake. Can't say for sure, why.  But I too don't waist my time with him

Bubble gum lemon swirl stick bait

[Glaucus]

2 hours ago, NHBull said:

There is a dock on my lake that is home to a huge small mouth. You can see him many days in  4 feet of water. People have been trying to catch him for years and no evail. Many suspect he was catch several  times when younger. This dock just happens  to be at one of the most popular places on the lake. Can't say for sure, why.  But I too don't waist my time with him

Sounds like Ned Rig time. Get the right color and when you see him, be incredibly slow and dead stick even. Light fluorocarbon. He might not resist that easy morsel.

[Log Catcher]

If the fish are seeing the same lures and colors over and over again they seem to be conditioned to avoid them. This is when trying something completely different can make a difference.