Bass do learn!!! they are smarter then you think Read this

[fourbizz]

Yep our big dumb aquarium fish...

I have seen many things the last few years with big baits that make me believe as fiercely as I do, that these fish learn, and have some degree of intelligence.

Many times, I have had days where just having a size one stinger hook rigged on a bait would prevent it from getting bit. Change to just a jig hook and start getting bit. Has this ever happened on the delta? Hell no, because that is a giant piece of water, that is not clear, and has stupid fish.

Lets look at lake Dixon, I know somebody in this thread fishes there and maybe he could confirm or deny what I'm saying. That lake is 76 surface acres at full pool. The visibility is 20+ feet. So during the spawn, you could effectively eliminate at least 1/2 of its acreage because it is too deep to hold bed fish. So that leaves us with 38 acres of fishable depth, assume that at least a third of that is inhospitable to bedding fish, and you are down to 25 acres of productive water. Now put the worlds best trophy sight fishermen on their head, to the tune of 10-20 guys a day. Yeah, one acre per fisherman. There should be a 18+ caught every day right? No, because the conditions presented these fish have made them very aware at our attempts at subterfuge.

You might not see these effects on a 160,000 acre reservoir, with nowhere near that kind of pressure per acre. But I KNOW that it exists here.

38

[Mattlures]

Roadwarrior I can see how some think that the fish are dumb. They are wrong but I do undertand it. On big bodies of water there are so many fish, new fish all the time plus millions of lure variations that it might not make any difference. Plus some fish are dumb and we dont know how long they remember. But if you think all you have to do is find a big fish to catch them I completly disagree. I bet every time you or I or Bizz goes out, our baits, have been within feeding range of a big bass. I also bet we dont catch one everytime. Its just not that simple. Older bass with more learning experiances make fewer mistakes then youg dumb bass. Just like every single animal in nature.

Fourbizz is 100% correct Dixon can be a zoo. At any given time there are 1-5 world class sight fisherman on the lake just cruising the shore. The lake tapers realy fast. Its a gamble when you leave the dock. After about 1/2 hour you going over water that has already been looked at. I would also like to point out, that rarley are any big fish caught out of there that arent on beds. they are too darn smart.

And no the bass dont sit around eating trout. trout are only stocked for about 4-5 months. and the bass eat the same forrage as any other bass like gills, shad, dads, and all other baby fish. The reason they are so smart is the water is clear and the fish are super preasured plus the big ones are almost always released. This makes them harder to catch. It not that "our" fish are smarter. Its that they are in an inviorenment where they are forced to lean faster. These fish get fished for and have lines in front of them every single day. On a big lake bass may go a while before they see a bait especialy if they live in areas that dont get fished much.

[George Welcome]

Ah, opinions, we all have them. Some fishermen believe in the brain of the bass, and others think they have none. Perhaps some fishing down time, and time spent studying text books would benefit some. Your personal experience makes it a rule for yourself, but it doesn't make it a rule.

Dr. Keith Jones has one objective and one objective only. As he does have a good sized brain, and can quickly learn, he had the ability to learn that Berkley writes his paycheck.

[Catt]

Think about what y'all are saying

If bass learned not to hit lures we would soon run out of catchable bass yet this has not happened WHY?

Y'all give some neat answers but no one has answered why we still catch bass?

fourbizz, you mentioned Lake Nixon under the assumption of bass learning then no bass should ever be caught out of that lake again because the bass are too smart.

Everyone bring up the size of Toledo Bend but no one bring up the fact than on any given day there are 25 times the number of anglers on the bend than any Cali or Northern lake. There are times when there will be numerous major tournaments on this lake in the same weekend with thousands of anglers from all skill levels, from pure armatures to highly successful Semi-Pros & Pros.

So y'all tell me why bass catching has not stopped due to over population of highly intelligent bass?

[Mattlures]

Catt first off your up to late!

But Ok I have answerd your question already but I will do it again.

Ok fist bass dont live that long and they dont teach other bass. They only learn from experiances. Now figure that a lot of bass die and are kept when caught. Each year a new crop of inexperianced bass are born. They srtart the cycle all over again. So each year the older class numbers go down while the lower class go up. The older a bass gets the more times its been caught and the more it has learned to not eat lures. It makes fewer mistakes then the younger dumb bass that are replenished each year. What I am trying to tell you is the older a bass gets the smarter it becomes but there are certainly less older smart bass then young stupid ones. The longest a bass can live is probaly 18 years but the average lifespan of bass that make it to catchable size is probably only 8 years. Most just dont live long enough to become completly uncatchable. They bass with the most experiance would be the smartest or weariest. So if it is highly pressured on a small lake it sees more human contact. Is sees more lures and it sees other bass getting caught they learn faster. Now a bass on a huge lake wouldnt see the same amount of human contact simple beecasue there is less of it per acre. OK now pay attention because here is your answer.

For a fish to become completly uncatchable it would have had to experiance evey single lure and every technique in its short lifetime and it would have to remeber them all. That is impossible. That is why there are no super mega uncatchable bass. However there are some fish that are almost uncatchable. Dottie is a good example. That fish was firt caught by Mike Long at 21 lbs in 2001.  That fish lived in that little tiny 70 acre lake for 8 years after Mike caught and released it. Nobody was ever able to cath that fish except when it was on a bed. That lake was beaten to death by guys hoping to cath that fish throwing every single big fish bait known to man and regular baits to. The fish was too smart. Nobody could cath it. It had grow up in an invioronment where it had seen everthing. It had learned to not get caught. Verry few fish get that old and see that much pressure to become that smart. There is your answer.

Also you have to consider that some lures would be easier to learn then others. For instace. You may have eaten 500 burgers in your life. You go to MC donnalds and eat a burger and get sick. would you stop eating burgers? No. But if you started getting sick every other time you ate one from any place you would learn that something is wrong.

Now if a bass has been eating trout its whole life and then it eats a Hudd and gets caught, it might not make the connection because the bait is so realistc. But if it happens enough it will learn that Hudd is not a real trout. It will see hooks and line and it will be more cautuos. Everybody who swimbaits out here has seen a big bass come up and inspet a swimbait. i dont mean follow I mean get within inches of it and then turn away. It realized that something wasnt right with that bait.

Ok now take a spinner bait or crank bait or any othe non realistic bait. A bass has obviously never had a possative experiance eating one. so It eats it as a reaction or out of curiosity. But It is going to learn one of thos baits alot faster. Kind of like a human eating a lemmon. You bite into one and its horribly sour. are you going to do that again? No.

See ultra realistic baits would be much harder to learn if that bass thinks its eating the real prey it is immitating. Plus you have other verry natural baits like worms and other simple type baits. They dont have any "loud" traits so it would be easier to fool the fish with them over again.

Plus the one thing that was mentioned in the article was that we dont know how long a fish can remember things. I am sure they forget some things but they probaly dont forget that lemmon.

[Muddy]

George thanks for bringing up the Berkley thing, I was hoping a more knowledgeable guy would. I did not eve3n go into depth reading his stuff when i found out he worked for Berkley. a little bit too Sham-wowness for me!

Catt, man you are stubborn! Unlike me Mr.Open Mindedness 8-)

Fishing Pressure; relation to the size of Toledo bend;

Toledo Bend: 205000 acre lake with over 1200 miles of Shoreline

Mauch Chunk: 336 acres, the Nature walk around the Lake 3.2 miles

On a week in July ( 3rd week of July) with the campground full, we took note of about how many boats were on the Lake and how many fished the Shores we came up with 63 people so lets just say that's 100 people a day per 336 acres :that works out to about 0.3 angler per acre, so lets go with your number 25 times more anglers on the Bend than on a Cali(in this case the Chunk) on any given day. 25 times 100 is 2500 right so lets divide the 2500 anglers by those 205 000 acres, the answer +.0122 per that is a huge, very huge difference in pressure that the fish have on them.

I would also guess, there may be a few more fish /acre in TB than in Mauch Chunk.

You can not fish primarily one kind of water, in one type of climate and generalize ALL OF BASS BEHVIOR as being the same allover. There are generalizations that are true, I learned them from you , so you should know.

I also know that LMB in 36 degree water, that will soon freeze over act a lot different ie slower than fish in water that never goes lower than 45".

I also know that on a lot of smaller lakes and ponds in NY and PA if I were to completely memorize all the great stuff you and Mat and Randall have put up on the relationship between shad movement and bass location that I may not even catch a single bass, because there are no shad in those lakes

What I can and have done is read those informative pieces and try to put that bass/prey relationship on what is in the bodies of water I fish

The other thing that has not been discussed here yet is INSTINCT, I watched guys fish the same bed over and over again , literally for hours on Lake Fork and eventually the fear the bass had for the fisherman/lure was over-ridden by the instinct to get what ever was being thrown into that nest out. I don't have 10 hours of my life to sit on one bass, no matter how big to catch it. Many do, and their results speak for themselves. So INSTINT plays a role here, and I think that exploiting that instinct is where the generalizations that work come from

However to not pay attention to the locality and type lake/impingement/pond or river you are fishing and try to take what is good on a 2005,000 acre lake in the deep South and apply to to a 336 lake up North, and not try to factor in those differences is hurting your fishing more than helping it.

[George Welcome]

"Also you have to consider that some lures would be easier to learn then others. For instace. You may have eaten 500 burgers in your life. You go to MC donnalds and eat a burger and get sick. would you stop eating burgers? No. But if you started getting sick every other time you ate one from any place you would learn that something is wrong."

The serious flaw in most of the responses on this subject. This animal is not a human being. Also, it is not a trout, catfish, or some other species of fish. This animal is a bass.

However, these responses demonstrate what keeps bass fishing interesting. This species of fish is an enigma that lives by no rules, and two that are side by side might act quite differently with a given set of circumstances. Most fish have a given set of rules that it will respond to, but not this guy. Such fun!

[Catt]

So if this theory was correct any bass that has been caught once on a particular lure would never be caught on that lure ever again in its lifetime.

So every time y'all go out y'all have to use a different lure correct?

Dude there aint that many different lures unless of course y'all are saying bass can tell the difference between a Strike King, Booyah, or Stanley spinner bait.

Amazing absolutely amazing

[Mattlures]

George I agree with you. I know there not human and do not have the brain power that we do. I was just using that as an example to make it easier to understand. And I was trying to explain why some baits would be easier to learn then others. Of course thay cant lean as fast as we can but the whole point is they do learn.

Catt and RW I hope you guys dont get upset over this thread. Its nothing personal just our difference in opinions.  

[Muddy]

That is aslo a good point George. I fight my hed constantly to remind my slef of what Zel once said, just in passing while fishing with him. He said" no thats how you think, the fish arent that complicated" I do not know if he realised how important that was for me when he said it.

 I really do not think that one bass can teach another bass to stay away from a lure. It was called to my attention by my friend Dan, a great musky/smallie guy who fishes the Susquehana theat when fishing Smallies , when one gets hooked or spooked THEIR ACTIONS, darting around or retrieving a hooked smallie through a group of other smallis can and will spook the other fish and turn off a hot bite. That it is better to let that spot rest for a while and come back to it

 I have seen the same thing in the clear waters of the Chunk; spook a LMB in a group and the group of fish in a small area swim and act differently for a while. It happens over and over again

 Trick sticks were hot for 2 years, now they are just a ggo dbait. I have seen the same thing happen with Jelly Worms, then all of a sudden i start getting a hot bite on Jelly worms again, and I suspect the same with the trick sticks will happen

The turned on bite was mostly with smaller ( one to 2 lb) fish. I suspect, but I am not sure that is another age class of bass growing up and they have not seen the trick stick a 1000 times. I am not even sure having seen a bait a 1000 times affects a bass for the rest of its life. Once again that would be applying human thought abilities to a fish. BUT I WILL CONTINUE TAKING NOTE IN MY LOG TO FOGURE IT OUT!  That is what keeps me coming back 8-)

[Muddy]

So if this theory was correct any bass that has been caught once on a particular lure would never be caught on that lure ever again in its lifetime.

So every time y'all go out y'all have to use a different lure correct?

Dude there aint that many different lures unless of course y'all are saying bass can tell the difference between a Strike King, Booyah, or Stanley spinner bait.

Amazing absolutely amazing

Hey Mook, don't over generalize what I am saying. I am saying there is strong evidence that a small body of water , with high pressure and I can tell you by the amount of people throwing lets say Trick Stick type baits, can ( as in maybe) be the cause of that lure not being as effective, because the bass learn it is not food

I have fished with Speedbead,Zel and Sharbite on the Chunk They can all tell you I can throw a trick stick and catch bass, almost at will on certain spots on that lake. But then if I switch up to a Shad Rap( 2004 to 2005 the hottest lure on the Chunk) or a jig head/plastic trailer once I find them  and the fish get more aggressive in bitting those lures. What that means I can't say for sure

 There are 3 ponds I fish heavy and 3 to 4 lbrs for me are common there. which is respectable for these small Northern Ponds. I have seen people on those same spots throwing Spinner baits and Rapalas, which is the local prefrence I go to that same spot when they leave and i throw ( I aint giving up that info) a different bait and i am on fish and they left empty handed so to speak.

 My success there was by exploiting my notes and not throwing what many others do,.

[Muddy]

Hey by the way; I feel a bit insecure and I don't want Catt,George and Matt to think I feel like I know it all now. I have learned so much from you guys and I want to take part in a discussion like this to see how I am doing with my learning I keep logs and want to see how I am doing . I feel like i should still be only listening but I want to know how my thinking is going with all this

Dominick

[Catt]

Another thing y'all are not considering is once a bass has been caught and has went through the learning process of not hitting that lure again it is now removed from the amount of available bass to be caught leaving only the bass which have not been caught on that lure available to be caught. The amount of available bass would continually decrease to the point of none available.

Muddy the number of anglers on Toledo Bend would in all actuality be close to impossible to estimate but I have personally witnessed weekends with numerous tournaments being held at the same time where just the number of registered anglers exceeded 7,000.

Does fishing pressure affect the number of bass catchable bass? Absolutely ask any one who fishes Toledo Bend and they will tell you fishing is better during the week than on weekends.

[Muddy]

I was just using the figure you put up. Stop check/raising this is not poker, it's fishing

BTW The fishing pressure ideas from the Chunk. I have a Friend, Mr.Sam he's ancient and one of the best plug fisherman I know. He pointed out , when talking about the amount of fishermen on the Chunk on a given day that THEY ARE ALL NOT FISHING FOR BASS, his take on a busy day is the guys pan fishing and bass fishing are the pressure on a busy day the walleye mooks are fishing different parts of the lake using different lures. He may have something there.

Agree with your weekday/weekend theory .

[warmer]

2 stories;

- a friend snapped off on a fish on 16ft brush, 2 casts later i caught the fish on the same worm.  it had his line hanging out of its mouth.

- we had a fish in our pond we called one eyed willie, because it had one eye and 2 hooks sticking out of the back of its throat.  i saw the fish no less than 3 times.

even so, to my way of thinking some of them learn to greater and lesser degrees, and it is likely that the bigger ones learn better, which is why they got so big.

why do i think so...

- fresh new baits produce surprising results... for a short time.

- fishing pressure effects catch rates.

[Muddy]

2 stories;

- a friend snapped off on a fish on 16ft brush, 2 casts later i caught the fish on the same worm. it had his line hanging out of its mouth.

- we had a fish in our pond we called one eyed willie, because it had one eye and 2 hooks sticking out of the back of its throat. i saw the fish no less than 3 times.

even so, to my way of thinking some of them learn to greater and lesser degrees, and it is likely that the bigger ones learn better, which is why they got so big.

why do i think so...

- fresh new baits produce surprising results... for a short time.

- fishing pressure effects catch rates.

Hey Check this out; Me and Ron were fishing the same dock. He threw the same Stick I was to the left corner and I threw to the right. He hooked up almost immediately and a faulty knot cost him the fish, within seconds I hook up and when I reel it in there is the same fish with Rons stick still stuck in it's lip!

He was all of 13 inches

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

A good read but I'm still with Catt on this one.  They remember somewhat, but they don't really retain it.

I WILL say however that the other side has a point that can not be tested yet.

animals adapt over time and we have only been throwing lures at them for 100 yrs or so.   We don't rightly know if Bass might be uncatchable in 1000 yrs.  If there is retention, it is minimal and will not affect me in this lifetime.

[Muddy]

A good read but I'm still with Catt on this one. They remember somewhat, but they don't really retain it.

I WILL say however that the other side has a point that can not be tested yet.

animals adapt over time and we have only been throwing lures at them for 100 yrs or so. We don't rightly know if Bass might be uncatchable in 1000 yrs. If there is retention, it is minimal and will not affect me in this lifetime.

Hey Russ: I think the observations lead to 3 questions

1. How does the intensity of fishing pressure with a specific lure effect catch rates?

2. How long is this "fear" retained

3. If the pressure with that specific lure goes away, how long will it take them to "forget"?

I use the quotes because remembering and forgetting are human traits and I do not know if that accurately describes how or if fish think at all

Dominick

[Matt Fly]

A bass has to eat to survive. Thats instinct.

If bass was to retain negative events, don't you think bass would learn to not spawn so shallow every year?

Enviromental factors apply to lakes of size, clarity, bass populations, food sources and types of cover.

     It is said that only 10% of Lake Forks bass see a lure in a years time. Add in the newly spawned and stockings every year. To many fish to be schooled in my opinion on this 27000 acre lake with lay downs, matted hydrilla, lily pads, forests, and over 200 feeder creeks feeding in lined with the same types of cover.

     Now you look at Dixon, different lake, no active bass stocking program, less bass per acre compared to Fork. 76 acres that is deep and crystal clear.

      Two different scenerios.

Lake Fayetteville is a power plant lake in Texas, 2400 acres. I have had numerous 30 fish days with grape white tailed worms each trip, to see 3-5 old hook sores in the majority of bass mouths. This lake is very stained.

      What I do know about being on a school of bass, after catching 3-4 bass off of piles with a crank, they turned off, switching to plastic started pulling them off the pile again.

Any of you guys who fished for crappie have seen the samething. Catch a number of crappie on redhead white grub and they may turn off, change it up some and go back to catching.

Come back the next day, same baits work.

You shoot at a deer in a wheat field or around a feeder, they don't stop eating wheat or corn, they just don't feed in the day light or in the same part of the field, or they go to a differnt feeder. they change up their habits.

      Its instinct for all of us to eat to survive. We condition ourselves, less salt, less fast foods, more veggies, but we still eat.

So do bass.      Don't make us smarter, just selective.

[Randall]

The largest bass I have caught took me three years to catch after knowing the exact spots it used to feed, how it feeds, where it spawns etc. Three times in three years I tried to catch it off a bed but never could get a boat close without the fish knowing I was there. I even tried to get behind a tree and catch it from the bank after crawling across the ground and that didn't work. Then one day with cloud cover, and a 40+ mph wind I ended up catching it. No doubt in my mind that fish learned not to hit baits and to be more careful when a boat was around. In my mind it took big waves and low light to keep me from being seen or heard and for my bait to be realistic as possible to catch that fish cause that fish had learned from it's experience. I think I would have caught it long before if it hadn't been educated from experience.  

[dr.crow]

Bass are individuals and an attempt to generalize behavior over the entire population will lead to false conclusions.  Take by way of analogy, DWIs (or DUI).  Some people, if they are dumb enough in the first place to drink and drive, then may get a DWI, and may learn from the experience and never do it again.  Others are repeat offenders and keep on doing it, seemingly never learning from the experience.  And typically, the older one gets, the wiser they get, and even if the drank and drove when they were younger, wise up and don't do it when they are older.  Overall, one must judge that giving DWIs works for the most part and cuts down on drunk drivers, and so overall, one must judge that fish generally do get accustomed to lures and we must factor this into our thinking, to some degree.

The analogy is that bass do become conditioned to lures, as the aquarium experiments show.  Some may learn more quickly than others.  The younger bass may require longer to get the idea - how many times have you caught 1-2 lb fish that still had signs of being hooked recently?  The older bass - they've been around and have likely learned the signs of danger, else they wouldn't be so old.  

Disregarding the aquarium experiment altogether because it isn't all inclusive ignores what we can learn from it, and that is that bass do get conditioned to lures and may not bite.

What about the other variables mentioned?  Just like we always have new teenagers learning to drive and deciding to drink and drive, so do we have new bass in the fishery that may have never encountered a lure and are more prone to strike.

If you want to maximize your odds and increase the percentage of bass your lure will appeal to means a few things: turning off electronics when you don't need them, very careful use of the trolling motor, using lures which fish may not have seen before, and making those lures look as realistic as possible.  In the end, it is all about the odds, and the realization that every fish is a little different in some way.

[paul.]

are we so arrogant as to think that we have caught the biggest bass that swims in the waters that we fish?  truth be told, there are probably several fish that swim in the lakes that we frequent that are bigger than anything we have previously caught there.  perhaps even bigger than anything we have previously seen or caught at all.  in other words there is a "grade" of fish out there that is a cut above anything we have been able to muster.  and try as we might, we cannot catch even one of these scaly behemoths.  there are only two possible explanations for this.  either (a) fish are completely stupid with no ability to learn whatsoever and against all odds we have been such poor fisherman that we have consistently fished the wrong baits in the wrong locations at the wrong times for years on end and have never put a bait in front of THE fish.  after all, if we had, we would have surely caught it or at least hooked it since bass are so ridiculously stupid.  or ( maybe, just maybe, at least once in our lives, out of persistence and dumb luck if nothing else, we have been at the right place at the right time with the right presentation and THE fish was smart enough to look at it and swim away.

it's one or the other y'all.  logic dictates that.  i can sleep easier at night believing choice "b".    

[George Welcome]

"it's one or the other y'all.  logic dictates that.  i can sleep easier at night believing choice "b"."

Interesting word choice. I wonder how many animals on earth have this attribute? Perhaps, there is some sort of scientific response to that question that in some way brings enlightment to all of this? Wouldn't you agree that in order for an animal to learn, logical thought processes must be  attributes they possess?

[Sam]

This is what I read about goldfish:

Myth: Goldfish only have a memory span of a few seconds.

Fact:  A recent study from Plymouth University in which goldfish were forced to press a lever for food showed that they not only have memory spans of up to three months, but they also have built-in biological clocks that allow them to line up for food each day just before feeding time.  

Conclusion" Fish are smarter than we think.

[warmer]

fish are food not friends.