Reaction Bites

[PressuredFishing]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:23 PM, OldManLure said:

I’m still not convinced that this term is meaningful.  What value does it have?  Does anyone plan a trip to the river or lake and say to themselves  “today I am going after the reaction bite”?  Does a ‘reaction’ bite cause you to rethink your choice of lure?  Does it change your strategy?  Does it matter if a fish hits your lure because it doesn’t like the way it looks rather than because it looks like food?  In reality, aren’t all bites a reaction bite?  
 

 

You have 3 different types of bites

1. Bass hitting a lure because they are hungry, (schooling, or on bottom)

2. during the spawn, Hitting a lure to defend their fry/eggs.

3. Reaction strike, hitting a lure because they could not control their instinct to lash out at something even if they did not want to

 

A reaction bite is usually defined as a strike from a bass out of well... their instincts. So for example, fishing a squarebill over rocks and banging it off of a rock can trigger a basses mind to hit it even when they dont want to, if that makes sense. Or if a chatterbait is buzzed right in front of them on a laydown, they cannot control the urge to strike it down because it annoyed them or something. To be honest I dont fish this way much, and still have a lot to learn on it. I would say reaction bites and getting bit because they are hungry are two different things completley. For instance if bass are schooling, I would usually call that a reaction strike because I did not make them hit it, they just where in the mood to eat.  Reaction strikes can even come from non-moving baits such as a jig or t rig. Hopping it off the bottom can surprise them and just pick it up out of instinct, or flipping a punch rig into grass can trigger a bite as it falls fast by them because its just an instinctual bite. alot of "Powerfishing" Pros such as KVD heavily relied on reaction bites. The fish didnt want to feed alot of the time, but they didnt want that lure in their faces either.

[J Francho]

1 hour ago, Bdnoble84 said:

Yes but is it an impulsive reaction or deliberate reaction.

Deliberate? Bass can't deliberate anything. They do not have the part of the brain to think. 

18 minutes ago, PressuredFishing said:

You have 3 different types of bites

1. Bass hitting a lure because they are hungry, (schooling, or on bottom)

2. during the spawn, Hitting a lure to defend their fry/eggs.

3. Reaction strike, hitting a lure because they could not control their instinct to lash out at something even if they did not want to

 

A reaction bite is usually defined as a strike from a bass out of well... their instincts. So for example, fishing a squarebill over rocks and banging it off of a rock can trigger a basses mind to hit it even when they dont want to, if that makes sense. Or if a chatterbait is buzzed right in front of them on a laydown, they cannot control the urge to strike it down because it annoyed them or something. To be honest I dont fish this way much, and still have a lot to learn on it. I would say reaction bites and getting bit because they are hungry are two different things completley. For instance if bass are schooling, I would usually call that a reaction strike because I did not make them hit it, they just where in the mood to eat.  Reaction strikes can even come from non-moving baits such as a jig or t rig. Hopping it off the bottom can surprise them and just pick it up out of instinct, or flipping a punch rig into grass can trigger a bite as it falls fast by them because its just an instinctual bite. alot of "Powerfishing" Pros such as KVD heavily relied on reaction bites. The fish didnt want to feed alot of the time, but they didnt want that lure in their faces either.

All your examples are reactions. There's no such thing as a reaction strike. That's a human construct built out anthropomorphism. 

24 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I’ll give you credit for it. I understand what you are getting at. It’s a faster moving lure versus a slower finesse presentation in my view.

 

However, for purposes of this thread and what @J Francho is saying, every time a bass eats it is a reaction bite whether it is hungry or not.

Speeding up your presentation is a reaction by a human to not getting bit. It's got nothing to do with a bass thinking it through or not. Sometimes slowing it down works too. Most often it didn't really matter, you were just lucky enough to put it front a fish willing to bite. It's nice to take credit for the adjustment though. I do it all the time, lol. 

[gim]

17 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Speeding up your presentation is a reaction by a human to not getting bit.

Generally, yes. But when I’m not getting bit using a jerk bait, I actually slow down with longer pauses. Sometimes it works too!

[Bdnoble84]

49 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I’ll give you credit for it. I understand what you are getting at. It’s a faster moving lure versus a slower finesse presentation in my view.

 

However, for purposes of this thread and what @J Francho is saying, every time a bass eats it is a reaction bite whether it is hungry or not.

I agree. I think at this point we are arguing the same thing to an extent. As I said every event, even as small as blinking is a reaction to something. But to go back to tge beginning, i think while reaction can be misleading, it is still valuable in fishing. As i said it would be better termed impulse or aggressive to describe the nature of the bite and the method used to elicit a bite that has been classically been classified as reaction bite.

[TOXIC]

Ok, a getting a bass to bite a lure when not actively feeding or protecting a bed is an involuntary reaction.  Still a reaction but it is involuntary.  I’m actually giving them less intellectual credit.  It’s no different than the lizard part of the human brain kicks the fight or flight reaction.

[OldManLure]

4 hours ago, J Francho said:

Every bite is a reaction.  

Exactly!

[Dwight Hottle]

2 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

The only possible 'deliberate' reaction would be hunger.

 

"I'm hungry...what looks like it's possibly edible?"

 

"That looks like it might be edible...(CHOMP)"

 Fish eat when they are hungry but they also eat when they are already full. Example the fish that eats a bait with another bait already sticking out its mouth. Eating is an instinct not a learned behavior. 

[WRB]

So many terms in bass fishing have nothing to do with Webster definition or logic. Reaction bite is one of those.

Of course bass can’t use logic they live on instincts.

Tom

[PressuredFishing]

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

Deliberate? Bass can't deliberate anything. They do not have the part of the brain to think. 

All your examples are reactions. There's no such thing as a reaction strike. That's a human construct built out anthropomorphism. 

Speeding up your presentation is a reaction by a human to not getting bit. It's got nothing to do with a bass thinking it through or not. Sometimes slowing it down works too. Most often it didn't really matter, you were just lucky enough to put it front a fish willing to bite. It's nice to take credit for the adjustment though. I do it all the time, lol. 

A better terminology could perhaps be, instinct bite, and why they ate it, so sense bass have hands they may pick something up out of curiosity, I have seen bass pick up pebbles and leaves on the bottom of my clear water lakes, perhaps that strike isn't out of feeding but curiosity, or when a bluegill is in a bass bed, the bass doesn't want to eat the bluegill, but herd it away. I guess what I'm saying is bass bite things because they don't got hands, and they may bite things out of instinct rather than for hunger.

[PressuredFishing]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

So many terms in bass fishing have nothing to do with Webster definition or logic. Reaction bite is one of those.

Of course bass can’t use logic they live on instincts.

Tom

Perhaps it should be called, instinct bite, based on why they strike the lure, perhaps curiosity, hunger,  or annoyance

[Spankey]

11 hours ago, WRB said:

So many terms in bass fishing have nothing to do with Webster definition or logic. Reaction bite is one of those.

Of course bass can’t use logic they live on instincts.

Tom

I guess you can call it whatever you want as long as it gets the results you are after. I’ll stick with reaction. 
 

Two other terms I guess guys can spin themselves into the ground with are “hit” and “bite”.  “Hit” to me is if a bass strikes a worm and spits it out and there is no hook set. “Bite” is a hook set and you land the fish. Or I guess even if you loose the fish in process of boating it. He was at least on and hooked. 

[TnRiver46]

Have mercy what a useless rabbit hole. I don’t see how or why it matters 

[J Francho]

All that matter is having the fish in hand. 

[Team9nine]

This old thread on the subject hits all the biological and scientific high points by Manns, Jones, etc. for me:

 

 

 

 

[Bdnoble84]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Have mercy what a useless rabbit hole. I don’t see how or why it matters 

There is absolutely no purpose to this conversation regarding the semantics of the term reaction strike. But it sure is fun to disect. 
 

at the end of the day, what matters is that there are times you need to fish more agressively and other times you need to be more methodical. I take the IN-Fisherman approach of start fast and aggressive first because that is the more efficient way to fish, then slow down and be more methodical as needed.

[TnRiver46]

20 minutes ago, Bdnoble84 said:

There is absolutely no purpose to this conversation regarding the semantics of the term reaction strike. But it sure is fun to disect. 
 

at the end of the day, what matters is that there are times you need to fish more agressively and other times you need to be more methodical. I take the IN-Fisherman approach of start fast and aggressive first because that is the more efficient way to fish, then slow down and be more methodical as needed.

I don’t think I’ve ever caught a fish working a lure fast and aggressive that wasn’t a herring or white bass 

[Bdnoble84]

16 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I don’t think I’ve ever caught a fish working a lure fast and aggressive that wasn’t a herring or white bass 

Don’t you fish for smallies all the time? Youve never caught one burning a spinnerbait or ripping a jerkbait?

[TnRiver46]

16 minutes ago, Bdnoble84 said:

Don’t you fish for smallies all the time? Youve never caught one burning a spinnerbait or ripping a jerkbait?

Negative. 

[Bdnoble84]

7 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Negative. 

No offense. But you havent lived the full smallie experience in my opinion until you have one absolutely slame a spinnerbait moving mach20 or ripping a jerkbait so fast your arm hurts after the fifth cast.

 

But thats just me and what I love.

[TnRiver46]

29 minutes ago, Bdnoble84 said:

No offense. But you havent lived the full smallie experience in my opinion until you have one absolutely slame a spinnerbait moving mach20 or ripping a jerkbait so fast your arm hurts after the fifth cast.

 

But thats just me and what I love.

I’m still waiting on a smallmouth to smash my spinnerbait 

 

ive tried those techniques you describe, sometimes for days on end, they have just never worked. They like my Jerkbaits much better when they are just barely twitching along. 

[Kev-mo]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’m still waiting on a smallmouth to smash my spinnerbait 

 

ive tried those techniques you describe, sometimes for days on end, they have just never worked. They like my Jerkbaits much better when they are just barely twitching along. 

You need to have your fish start reading this forum, lol

 

I think we anthropomorphize fish behaviour because that's the only lense in which we have a language to try to describe it or understand it

 

I experience the 'reaction' bite in colder water (river smallies) more than in warmer water. It could still possibly still be a 'feeding bite'... one example - i ran crank bait in high 30's or low 40's water over the same spot several times. The time i got bit was when i gave the reel a speed crank and made the lure do something funky along with a pause somewhere in there. The fish dam near ripped the rod out of my hand. Bdnoble84 used the term aggressive above but maybe we could add 'abnormally' as a qualifier to describe 'reaction bite'

[TnRiver46]

1 minute ago, Kev-mo said:

You need to have your fish start reading this forum, lol

 

I think we anthropomorphize fish behaviour because that's the only lense in which we have a language to try to describe it or understand it

 

I experience the 'reaction' bite in colder water (river smallies) more than in warmer water. It could still possibly still be a 'feeding bite'... one example - i ran crank bait in high 30's or low 40's water over the same spot several times. The time i got bit was when i gave the reel a speed crank and made the lure do something funky along with a pause somewhere in there. The fish dam near ripped the rod out of my hand. Bdnoble84 used the term aggressive above but maybe we could add 'abnormally' as a qualifier to describe 'reaction bite'

Most of my rattle trap bites are when I stop reeling it also, I smell what you’re stepping in 

[PressuredFishing]

7 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Have mercy what a useless rabbit hole. I don’t see how or why it matters 

Because we love rabbit holes, and obsess about bass fishing lol, I will throw you a carrot down the hole to enter the shenanigans we have created.

[cyclops2]

My version of a reaction bite is several fish  biting a lure on a August sunny 3 PM  day.  Lure on the surface or 8' down.............. Have caught NOTHING for previous  hours.  Loads of all sized fish on the screen.  Suspended fish are not very Reactive.

 

  

[Spankey]

11 hours ago, cyclops2 said:

My version of a reaction bite is several fish  biting a lure on a August sunny 3 PM  day.  Lure on the surface or 8' down.............. Have caught NOTHING for previous  hours.  Loads of all sized fish on the screen.  Suspended fish are not very Reactive.

 

  

Have to agree with you on one thing for sure. Those suspended fish can and are tough to fish for.