Are big* bass smarter or just rare?

[scaleface]

If bright colored  clothing   alert's  carp of your presence and it does then  why not bass ?

[Deleted account]

16 minutes ago, scaleface said:

If bright colored  clothing   alert's  carp of your presence and it does then  why not bass ?

I dunno, why do cats chase laser pointers and sloths don't?

 

[scaleface]

Just now, reason said:

I dunno, why do cats chase laser pointers and sloths don't?

 

Sloths dont chase laser pointers ? i did not know that .

[Deleted account]

4 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Sloths dont chase laser pointers ? i did not know that .

I'm gonna take my uv epoxy curing light down to Costa Rica, and see if they like that....  

[I/MBasser]

There was a great video linked on the front page a few months ago.  It was of a biologist who takes care of public and private ponds/lakes.  He discusses the odds of a bass ever reaching 10#s.  He also discussed bass intelligence and I think he said a bass memory will only last 15 minutes or so.  IMO, I think they are simply rare. 

[Deleted account]

23 minutes ago, I/MBasser said:

He discusses the odds of a bass ever reaching 10#s

The odds of a specific fish reaching maturity, not to mention trophy or record size is indeed daunting. However given enough recruitment, the odds of non specific individuals in a population reaching these same sizes, while still long, aren't nearly as unlikely. Kind of like the odds of you winning the Power Ball, versus "someone" winning the Power Ball.

[Mobasser]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

 

Given the choice of a 4" shad 10 feet away and a 8" shad 20 yards away the bass will choose the closest everytime!

 

Why?

 

The biological fact; minimum output maximum intake!

 

Big bass will ambush it's prey more often rather than chase it down!

This is 100% correct. Big bass are a predator! Predators of all kinds always take the fastest, easiest way to get their food. They won't work for it if they don't have to

[FCPhil]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

 

Given the choice of a 4" shad 10 feet away and a 8" shad 20 yards away the bass will choose the closest everytime!

 

Why?

 

The biological fact; minimum output maximum intake!

 

Big bass will ambush it's prey more often rather than chase it down!

I agree. What I was saying is a 1 pound bass may not even be capable of eating the shad next to it, but when it’s 3 pounds it can. I’m just saying it may be easier for a large bass to eat than a smaller bass because there are more fish it is capable of eating, and it may be harder for prey to escape it. And this might lead to the larger bass being less desperate for food and less inclined to eat a lure. 

[Deleted account]

2 minutes ago, FCPhil said:

I agree. What I was saying is a 1 pound bass may not even be capable of eating the shad next to it, but when it’s 3 pounds it can. I’m just saying it may be easier for a large bass to eat than a smaller bass because there are more fish it is capable of eating, and it may be harder for prey to escape it. And this might lead to the larger bass being less desperate for food and less inclined to eat a lure. 

Yes, but this assumes that there isn't an ample supply of smaller fish and other tid bits for smaller fish to eat, and usually this isn't the case.

[Choporoz]

13 hours ago, WRB said:

Let's dispel some myths;

 

4. It's easy to detect a strike from a slow big fat bass in cold water. Fsct: Big fat bass have enormous size head and mouth that makes up about 1/3rd thier length and can engulf your lure inside it's mouth without you being able to detect the strike and eject it before you realize or if you realize a strike has occurred. 

Tom

 

I think this may well be a significant point, as relates to numbers caught.  

 

And even if it isn't....I get to add another excuse to my quiver:)

[OkobojiEagle]

Since this board is internet based which allows me to assert without documentation... I'll suggest that Mrs. Bass' sensory receptors grow in size and number as she grows, increasing her awareness of her surroundings.  This would alert her more keenly to negative cues in her nearby environment.  A flawless presentation of artificial bait (or using live bait, heaven forbid) may be more necessary to catch a larger bass than a smaller bass.

 

Forgive me for not annotating this, but I don't want to re-read the volumes on my bookshelves.  I think it may have come from Keith Jones' manuscript.

 

oe

[Deleted account]

10 minutes ago, OkobojiEagle said:

I'll suggest that Mrs. Bass' sensory receptors grow in size and number as she grows, increasing her awareness of her surroundings.  This would alert her more keenly to negative cues in her nearby environment.

So the fat guy with the hearing aid and bifocals is more keenly aware of his surroundings than the 8 year old bouncing off the walls because he's 5 times his size?

[The Maestro]

I can't remember where I read it but someone was saying there's a video out there of a big bass rejecting live bait. I don't remember what the bait was (possibly a craw).  Supposedly it shows the bass closely inspecting the bait and then completely ignoring it even though it was just a few feet away.  Then once it was taken off the hook and placed back in the same spot, the fish pounced on it instantly.  

 

I've experienced something similar with a bass just under 5lbs that was living on a deep tree.  It gave itself away when it followed my jig right to the boat.  I tried every presentation I could think of over a 3 week span.  Finally I bought a couple dozen nice size minnows.  I could see the fish.  I dropped one close to where it hung out.  I could see the fish casually checked it out and turned away from it.  It then chilled for a few seconds before violently striking it but I don't think it took it completely because she wasn't there on the hookset.  Long story short I burned through all my minnows and finally caught it on my last one when I made a hail Mary cast to the tree about 20 yards beside the main tree it lived on.

6 minutes ago, reason said:

So the fat guy with the hearing aid and bifocals is more keenly aware of his surroundings than the 8 year old bouncing off the walls because he's 5 times his size?

This is a completely useless analogy.

[Don51]

They know a thing or two because they've seen a thing or two!  ?

[Deleted account]

5 minutes ago, Don51 said:

They know a thing or two because they've seen a thing or two!  ?

Better protected from mayhem....

[bagofdonuts]

50 minutes ago, reason said:

So the fat guy with the hearing aid and bifocals is more keenly aware of his surroundings than the 8 year old bouncing off the walls because he's 5 times his size?

I think in the bass world the "fat guy with a hearing aid and bifocals" would soon parish.

 

I know one thing i learned early on while wading clear creaks with my brother. that if we wanted to catch the big bass in the creek we had to be very stealthy. The only way in these creeks to catch the bigger bass was to spot and stalk them.

one of us would walk the high bank and spot a big fish, relay the info to the one wading. he would then make as long a cast as you could to the fish. if the big fish didn't detect you, they would very aggressively strike the little jig and pig. if you blew the stalk , the cast, or weren't ready for the violent strike, she was gone.

you could catch dinks all day long slopping through the creek, the big ones took a very different approach.

i don't know about smart, but more aware, you bet.

[Brad Reid]

I think Jim is correct if he means "length" and bass speed correlations. Sort of similar to a longer kayak moving generally faster than a shorter one. When you see really fast moving fish species, they look more like barracudas than groupers: long and sleek.

 

But, on a relative size basis where speed is measured in units of body length, small is faster.

 

And, really big bass begin adding disproportionate girth to length at a certain point, especially big female largemouth bass. Those huge heads? Hardly shaped for cutting through water fast either. The general body shape changes dramatically, the length to girth ratios are lower. Big girls look less "barracuda" shaped. They lose their figures so to speak. Old fish, like all other older animals, are less energetic. 

 

Here is just a quip from a scientific source (My quotation marks and bold print.):

 

"On the other hand, when relative swim speeds (body lengths per time) are studied for some species the relationship between length and speed is reversed. Smaller fish generally have higher relative swim speeds than larger fish; but this relationship can be affected by temperature. For example, smaller largemouth bass were found to have higher relative prolonged swimming speeds than larger fish of this species when temperatures were near their physiological optimum, but when temperatures were lower this relationship was not apparent (Beamish 1970). Both biological processes (such as, muscle and fin size, or respiration) and the hydrodynamic properties (such as various components of drag) underlie the relationship between fish swim speed and size. Informative discussions of these topics can be found in Beamish (1978), Grey (1998), Videler (1993), and Webb (1975, 1977, 1994)."

 

Brad

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Deleted account]

57 minutes ago, Brad Reid said:

But, on a relative size basis where speed is measured in units of body length, small is faster.

What's the word I'm looking for, oh yeah, Wrong.

Bigger fish are faster than smaller fish (this applies to most other animals as well). Smaller fish appear faster because they accelerate faster and can be more nimble.  

[A-Jay]

2 hours ago, bagofdonuts said:

I think in the bass world the "fat guy with a hearing aid and bifocals" would soon parish.

 

Perhaps -

However other than being blind in one eye - both these Fat Old Ladies seemed pretty healthy to me. 

 

A-Jay

 

[WRB]

Couple of things to clarify, you can't put any living animal into a one size fits all statement. Bass are individuals when they become adult size and behave as individuals. Trying to predict how individual big bass will behave is guess work outside of the spawn cycle. Black bass, the fish we call bass, have 8 different species the 3 most common are Largemouth, Smallmouth and Spotted bass. We know from records the both Spotted and Smallmouth grow about the same maximum weight, under 12 pounds. Largemouth bass have 2 species; Northern and Florida strains. The largest Northern strain is under 17 lbs, the largest Florida is over 25 lbs.

When the majority of anglers talk about bass it's a Northern strain largemouth bass.

Oldest Smallmouth was 26 years and oldest Largemouth was 19 years Northern caught in Montana. I don't know how old FLMB get, about 16 years from the records and no information on the age of Spotted bass?

Tom  

[The Maestro]

24 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Perhaps -

However other than being blind in one eye - both these Fat Old Ladies seemed pretty healthy to me. 

 

A-Jay

 

Insane.  How much did they weigh? Baits/techniques?  What was the fight like with the smallie?

[A-Jay]

15 minutes ago, The Maestro said:

Insane.  How much did they weigh? Baits/techniques?  What was the fight like with the smallie?

Thanks ~ 

 That Green Bass weighted 10-15.

She ate a 1 oz football jig with a 10 inch Junebug Bullworm trailer off the bottom on a hump in 30 ft. 

The Brown Bass is my PB at 7-5.

She ate a spinnerbait and until I saw her, I thought she was a Big Pike.

You can watch the last portion of the fight, the net job and my reaction here . . . 

A-Jay

[The Maestro]

23 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Thanks ~ 

 That Green Bass weighted 10-15.

She ate a 1 oz football jig with a 10 inch Junebug Bullworm trailer off the bottom on a hump in 30 ft. 

The Brown Bass is my PB at 7-5.

She ate a spinnerbait and until I saw her, I thought she was a Big Pike.

You can watch the last portion of the fight, the net job and my reaction here . . . 

A-Jay

That smallie is an absolute unit! Is the largemouth a northern?  Are you prouder of one or the other?  I'll watch the video later.  Thanks for posting.

[A-Jay]

1 minute ago, The Maestro said:

That smallie is an absolute unit! Is the largemouth a northern?  Are you prouder of one or the other?  I'll watch the video later.  Thanks for posting.

The Green Bass came from Lake Baccarac in Mexico year before last.

Clearly every 10 lb largemouth is a fantastic fish - however my PB is an 11-11 so . . . . . . 

But that smallie was a Freak fish of a life time for me . . .

A-Jay

 

[WRB]

Baccarac was stocked with Florida strain LMB back in the 80's.

Beautiful photos of both bass in good condition.

Tom