The Mind of a Bass

[WRB]

Wary is a term I use to identify a bass that abruptly leaves the area they are located at. The wary bass detects sounds/vibrations or sees something that spooks it. 

Bill Murphy* was taking part in Tracking Study of pure Florida strain LMB stocked into San Diego city lakes during the 70’s.

These lakes had closed seasons to fishing and on opening day when boats were launched a big bass living around the marina during closed season instantly moved to the buoyed off closed to entry sanctuary area by the dam about a mile away. This bass repeated this behavior for the years of the study.

The bass was never caught. This is a wary bass!

In the wary bass behavior consider to catch giant bass in SoCal lakes you must be very quite and make long cast over 100’ to where these big bass are located. Boat outboard engines spook them from far off distances.

They have learned to avoid boats and most artificial lures. I use hair jigs with pork rind trailers to catch them.

Tom

* In Pursuit of Giant Bass, Mike Lembeck study 1974-1977

[Tennessee Boy]

The idea that bass could genetically get harder to catch over time seems logical and this has been studied extensively by scientists.  High Vulnerability Fish and Low Vulnerability Fish (LVF) populations have been breed in controlled environments which proves it is possible.  In these studies,  selecting for vulnerability to angling had other effects which make it less likely to happen in the wild.  For example,  LVF fish were less aggressive towards lures but also less aggressive in protecting their nest when spawning.  

 

Google largemouth LVF and you will find countless scientific articles on this subject.

[WRB]

TIn SoCal the FLMB strain was introduced in 1959 or over 60 years now, that about 5 generations mixed with F1’s and NLMB or now FX generation with low vigor for FLMB. NLMB are far more aggressive and easier to catch on lures then FLMB. 

California doesn’t have a regular stocking program for black bass species and no native Black bass species. 

My point is some bass learn to keep out of harms way, others don’t.

Tom

[SpinLight]

They are programmed to hit live bait tossed in front of them, like big minnows, wiggling spring lizards or crawfish. I gave us using live bait years ago, but it will work if you want to put food on the table.

 

But I don't believe they are that smart or get lure conditioned too easily. We "caught" the same bass three times in one day on the Tennessee River near Clifton. He bit my T-rig then broke off my 8 lb. test line in a log jam. We continued fishing the area for a while. My buddy then set the hook on a fish. The fish jumped out of the water and you could see my clear, blue fluorescent line trailing out of his mouth. He continued fighting and finally shook off my buddy's lure. We fished down river for a few hours and hit that same area again on the way back to the ramp. I stuck the fish the third time, got him in and removed my first plastic worm with line attached, and my second one he had just bit. 

 

We have also both caught the same fish simultaneously and reeled him in with both lures in its mouth, after slowly crawling soft plastics close together on the lake bottom. Like others have said, they may hit because they are hungry, aggressive, putting fat on for the winter, protecting a bed or just genetically programmed to strike what they think they can injure, scare off or get in their mouth.  Or not bite at all!

[Zcoker]

I think the general point is to reduce all this tackle that most carry around, me included. I started out with a ton of stuff and it slowly seems to get bigger and bigger lol. When I really put things in perspective, though, I see that I am more a topwater fisherman all the way around. So it comes to reason that I should only haul the top stuff around. Yet I always have that "what if" in the back of my mind, what if a worm, or a chatterbait, or a spinner bait....Those lures certainly have their place. From what I can tell, bass turn on in flurries throughout the day and it seems like it doesn't matter what is tossed at them when those flurries come to light, it's game on. I've noticed this more and more, that timing these events throughout the day (or even night) seems to get me more fish as opposed to a specific lure selection. Being there at the right spot at the right time--bam! 

[TnRiver46]

On 12/9/2021 at 3:58 PM, 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. 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.   

Youre playing chess and the fish are playing checkers 

[MN Fisher]

6 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Youre playing chess and the fish are playing checkers 

I think even that's above them....tiddlywinks maybe?

[CrankFate]

Just something to think about….there are butterflies that can fly from Canada when they are released there all the way to Mexico to find the rest of the butterflies. Most of us would die if we tried that just by getting up one day and walking. With no maps, no roads, no money and no food. Their brains are about the size of a grain of sand. So I always assume there’s a lot more a tiny brain can do than we give them credit for. I’ve seen fish reason. I’ve seen them do all kinds of things they shouldn’t be able to do, and like @king fisher is saying, even people with our supposedly superior brains still make a lot of silly mistakes. Whenever I think about that, I always think we’re lucky we’re not really prey to anything else or more of those mistakes would have been the end of us.

[CrashVector]

I'll say these few things: bass don't think.  They act on instinctual reactions and physiological stimuli.  

 

A powerbait pit boss and a Ned rig catches bass year round for me.

 

The rest...is up to you.