The Mind of a Bass

[Bartableman7]

You throw a basic 3-inch green square bill down the edge of a fallen tree and a 2 pound largemouth grabs it.  Back up time...you throw a 3 inch long green chatterbait down that log.  Same reaction?  Bass are finicky enough to want one and not the other?

 

Direction I'm going:  Shrink my arsenal down to become more efficient on the water.  I'm a huge "Jig man" on all waters.  Maybe a green charterbait is a better tool under most conditions compared to a square bill.  OR...NO WAY! ??

[LrgmouthShad]

1 hour ago, Bartableman7 said:

You throw a basic 3-inch green square bill down the edge of a fallen tree and a 2 pound largemouth grabs it.  Back up time...you throw a 3 inch long green chatterbait down that log.  Same reaction?  Bass are finicky enough to want one and not the other?

 

Direction I'm going:  Shrink my arsenal down to become more efficient on the water.  I'm a huge "Jig man" on all waters.  Maybe a green charterbait is a better tool under most conditions compared to a square bill.  OR...NO WAY! ??

Here’s what I think. A square bill and chatterbait as used as examples here are two very different lures with different actions and I think one bass in one area could have a preference for one or the other based on what it sees. However, I don’t think that all the bass in the lake on one day magically want squarebills and not chatterbaits for instance. So many things add up to make a bass strike. Conditions of the day (wind, water temp, water clarity), type of cover, the color of the lure, its running depth, its size. Only a bass knows what combination of these things makes a bass bite but your cast and how you work the lure influence how that bass will react to your lure so much.  You might not catch a bass on one laydown with a chatterbait, cruise on the the next one and catch em, and then think “oh, they’re biting chatterbaits.” But you might not have noticed how your presentation changed, or maybe there simply wasn’t a bass at that first laydown!
 

All this said…. If a lure is working, you know that something is right, and you might want to stay with that lure. That’s up to you.

 

edit: there’s also the idea that some lures work better than ohers depending on depth and type of cover. Again whether this is true is up to you and your experience.

 

edit #2: you might also find that you like to fish certain areas and certain types of cover depending on where you confidence lies. A square bill fisherman could be working one area vastly different from

another one you are working with a chatterbait and both of y’all can end up with the same limit. 
 

this is a hard topic to cover because… as the title says… we are talking about the mind of a bass and I am thinking with the mind of a human…. I think 

Edited December 9, 2021 by LrgmouthShad

[Mobasser]

The " mind "of a bass is the size of a pea. You threw two baits, and got two hits. Fish react out of instinct. That bass was obviously hungry and ready to eat. The same fish probably would have hit a plastic worm, spimnerbait, or other lures. These are the easy fish to catch. It's catching the fish that are not really feeding that's the hard part.

[scaleface]

The first thing I think of when confronting fallen trees is what lures will navigate through it the most efficiently  . Spinnerbaits , buzzbaits , texas rigged worms or jigs usually   get first consideration . Thats how I go about fishing all cover or structure .If the bass dont cooperate then adjustments are made . 

[OkobojiEagle]

8 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

The " mind "of a bass is the size of a pea. 

The "brain" of a bass is the size of a pea.  In my opinion, a bass doesn't have a "mind".

 

oe

[ironbjorn]

I'm of the mind that if you put a bait on top of a hungry or territorial bass it's going to bite it no matter what bait it is (within reason).

[Jig Man]

I believe mind refers to a conscious process that can make decisions. A bass is either a predator or prey depending on the situation.  Predators attack and prey flees.  It doesn’t think or reason.

[MN Fisher]

6 minutes ago, ironbjorn said:

I'm of the mind that if you put a bait on top of a hungry or territorial bass it's going to bite it no matter what bait it is (within reason).

Considering a guy tossed a lure that looked like Pikachu and caught a good size bass on it...it's pretty certain a hungry bass will attack just about anything.

[gim]

There is an article in this month's In-Fisherman about this subject and the history of bass fishing.  It talks about how much harder it has become to catch certain bass in specific bodies of water because of "angling pressure and conditioning."  I read it yesterday so its fresh on my mind.  Its primarily about smallmouth but there is some information about green bass too.

 

If that 2 pound bass you speak of hasn't been caught in a while (this amount of time is subject to debate, but in the article its at least 3 months), it is much more willing to bite that lure again.  If it continually sees a barrage of lures day after day, week after week, it is much less willing to bite.

[TnRiver46]

28 minutes ago, gimruis said:

There is an article in this month's In-Fisherman about this subject and the history of bass fishing.  It talks about how much harder it has become to catch certain bass in specific bodies of water because of "angling pressure and conditioning."  I read it yesterday so its fresh on my mind.  Its primarily about smallmouth but there is some information about green bass too.

 

If that 2 pound bass you speak of hasn't been caught in a while (this amount of time is subject to debate, but in the article its at least 3 months), it is much more willing to bite that lure again.  If it continually sees a barrage of lures day after day, week after week, it is much less willing to bite.

That’s one of the main reasons I don’t toss TRD, because it’s all anyone ever throws 

54 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

I believe mind refers to a conscious process that can make decisions. A bass is either a predator or prey depending on the situation.  Predators attack and prey flees.  It doesn’t think or reason.

Ah yes but it survives. Any creature learns to avoid or respond to pressures being applied to them. A deer doesn’t “think” or “reason” to run away when it smells something. But by golly when the scent hits his nose, he gone. Instinct. Same with the bass, they might be hungry but eventually the associate the boat noise, lures, etc with danger 

[PressuredFishing]

3 hours ago, Bartableman7 said:

You throw a basic 3-inch green square bill down the edge of a fallen tree and a 2 pound largemouth grabs it.  Back up time...you throw a 3 inch long green chatterbait down that log.  Same reaction?  Bass are finicky enough to want one and not the other?

 

Direction I'm going:  Shrink my arsenal down to become more efficient on the water.  I'm a huge "Jig man" on all waters.  Maybe a green charterbait is a better tool under most conditions compared to a square bill.  OR...NO WAY! ??

In my experience its easier to figure out not what the bass wants, but what the weather conditions  and water clarity want.  I only really care what the bass wants when sight is playing a really big deal in their feeding. As for a chatterbait fished down a laydown, I hope it isnt my only jackhammer. and squarebills somewhat usable around wood but its skating on thin ice and it requires alot of finesse to work through. When fishing wood depending on water clarity I have found swimjigs, weedless swimbaits, and spinnerbaits to come through it the best. other notable winners would be a popper because they can sit over submerged wood effectivley.

[Choporoz]

3 hours ago, Bartableman7 said:

  Bass are finicky enough to want one and not the other?

Great question....one I ask myself every time out.   Would results be different if......

 

It's related to my lunatic tendency to change lures after first bite in an hour....I figure I found one dumb one, but must have thrown wrong thing for the past 60 minutes....or I'd have caught a lot more, right?

[Dwight Hottle]

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

There is an article in this month's In-Fisherman about this subject and the history of bass fishing.  It talks about how much harder it has become to catch certain bass in specific bodies of water because of "angling pressure and conditioning."  I read it yesterday so its fresh on my mind.  Its primarily about smallmouth but there is some information about green bass too.

 

If that 2 pound bass you speak of hasn't been caught in a while (this amount of time is subject to debate, but in the article its at least 3 months), it is much more willing to bite that lure again.  If it continually sees a barrage of lures day after day, week after week, it is much less willing to bite.

 

I just read it this morning so it's really fresh in my mind. They Condition Smallmouths, Don't They? is the title of the article. It fits with the OP's subject really well. It basically talks about the premise of lure conditioning to bass. They discuss bass relying on instinct & poo poo the experts that insist bass simply exist by instinct. They also argue that anglers believing fish are stupid are missing out. Quote " The brain of a smallmouth might be the size of a pea but -cognitively speaking- it's thousands of times smarter than any comparably sized computer. " They also talk about catchability being altered by pressure and negative stimuli like noise, trolling motor hum & electronic pinging. Very good article.

Thinking about how bass react to certain lure or baits I remember back to my smallmouth fishing on lake Erie. I found one particular bait would absolutely crush the bass for a whole season. When that bait started to wane I would try something else like we all do. What I found is that a new bait replacing the old one would get hot because the action/color/noise of the rattles was different. Then the cycle would start all over again. Every year or two I had a different bait dominate for a similar period. The bass were getting conditioned or pressured by that one particular bait. When I retried a bait that had been extremely successful previously at a later time frame it would still get some bites but not like the currently hot bait.   

[Mobasser]

I'm not so sure about conditioning of bass with certain baits. It's something I've always wondered about? I fish a 7 acre quarry lake 2 or 3 times a week all summer, and Im positive I've caught the same fish 2 times in a single evening. Maybe they were feeding mote aggressively that night, I don't know. But the same fish hit the same grape worm within 30 minutes. Interesting topic, and something to wonder about.

[gim]

10 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

I just read it this morning so it's really fresh in my mind. They Condition Smallmouths, Don't They? is the title of the article. It fits with the OP's subject really well.

 

Ya that's it Dwight.  Sorry there's another about potential world record largemouths too that I may have confused it with.   Its definitely the Condition Smallmouths one.

[Catt]

20 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

cognitively speaking

 

Cognitive: relating to, or involving conscious mental activities (such as thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering).

[thediscochef]

I tend to take the approach that it's less about a fish 'liking' a lure or presentation more, and more about what triggers its bite or feed reactions the strongest. One fish may bite two different lures because it triggered two different reactions. But the end result is the same: fish on.

Edit: There's some degree of learning with a bass population, too. Especially if your options of water are limited. They do eventually associate certain things with danger. Sometimes areas, too.

[king fisher]

A fish does not have to be smart, or able to reason, to learn what it can eat, how to hunt it, and if it can hurt.  Even the most stupid animal, learns quickly to avoid something that hurts.  It definitely doesn't have to be a genius to figure out that trying to eat something that almost killed it is a bad idea.  Like people, some bass are slow learners, and some never learn.  
Brain size doesn't have much to do with it.

      Even though bass cannot reason,  I can still relate their actions to how I act.  There are times, when I am cautious and don't make mistakes.  There are other times, when I react quickly without thinking, resulting in me doing some very stupid things. Like bass many of my biggest mistakes were made from poor decisions attempting to spawn.    

[WRB]

There is a bass book by Tom Mann titled Think Like a Fish, worth reading.

Regarding fishing pressure affecting bass avoiding certain lures I believe it has a lot to do with genetics. Very aggressive bass don’t live a long time, they get caught and removed from the gene pool. The bass that are left behind to spawn and reproduced are less aggressive, more wary and avoided most lures. 

Tom

 

[T-Billy]

4 hours ago, OkobojiEagle said:

The "brain" of a bass is the size of a pea. 

No wonder they're always outsmarting me. They have a brain three times bigger than mine.

[PaulVE64]

Location > Presentation

 

But, I fish river smallies

[Bird]

Bass may not have a mind but they can pronounce the word. 

Every time I cast a lure I hear this gurgling sound from below the surface say'n......" mind " your own business. 

[geo g]

There is little thinking going on in a bass mind.  Not capable!  It's all reaction to what is going on in its environment, programmed!

[Bluebasser86]

Bass can be very selective. I've seen it enough times where I make a cast at a target with 1 bait, make the same cast with a similar bait, but catch a fish. 

 

The OP's example is one I've seen many times. Squarebills are not fish catchers for me except in very select occasions. 9 out of 10 situations, a bladed jig is going to get more bites and catch more fish than a squarebill for me even if I fish similar colors in the same places. I don't know why, that's just how it is. Some days I can flip a jig into a laydown and get bit and they'll ignore a beaver, other days it's the other way around. One lake I fish, they love a buzzbait, but ignore a whopper plopper. Another I fish, they'll hammer a plopper but barely touch a buzzbait. Who knows why they do it. 

[OldManLure]

3 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

 

I just read it this morning so it's really fresh in my mind. They Condition Smallmouths, Don't They? is the title of the article. It fits with the OP's subject really well. It basically talks about the premise of lure conditioning to bass. They discuss bass relying on instinct & poo poo the experts that insist bass simply exist by instinct. They also argue that anglers believing fish are stupid are missing out. Quote " The brain of a smallmouth might be the size of a pea but -cognitively speaking- it's thousands of times smarter than any comparably sized computer. " They also talk about catchability being altered by pressure and negative stimuli like noise, trolling motor hum & electronic pinging. Very good article.

Thinking about how bass react to certain lure or baits I remember back to my smallmouth fishing on lake Erie.

1 hour ago, WRB said:

There is a bass book by Tom Mann titled Think Like a Fish, worth reading.

Regarding fishing pressure affecting bass avoiding certain lures I believe it has a lot to do with genetics. Very aggressive bass don’t live a long time, they get caught and removed from the gene pool. The bass that are left behind to spawn and reproduced are less aggressive, more wary and avoided most lures. 

Tom

 

.

Generally speaking this is accurate, though I think what we describe as ‘wary’ is really just an example of reduced aggressiveness.  And this would be true only in a closed system, that is a lake that has no source of incoming water that severely limits the introduction of ‘new’ fish (and traits).   A river or a lake that is fed by incoming rivers, creeks, etc. bringing with it ‘new’ fish would likely not be affected by this example of artificial selection.  It would remain more responsive to the influence of natural selection.