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

[Catt]

Lake whatever is exactly 70 acres with identical depth, water clarity, cover, structure, and forage conditions; the population of lake whatever is X. This lake is open for the first time to the public, now pay close attention to the proposed bass learning theory.

Day one an equal percentage of anglers are using the following

Top water baits

Spinner baits

Crank baits

Jig-N-Craws

Plastics

Each group of anglers would catch a percentage of the population rendering those bass unavailable to be caught on day two by the same bait.

Day two the same group of anglers fish lake whatever again catching a percentage of the population rending those bass unavailable to be caught on day three.

If this were to continue on a daily basis would it not be fact than there would come a point and time where the bass in lake whatever would no longer hit any lure offered?

Or would the bass evolve to the point where they couldn't distinguish between a Strike King and a Booyah spinner bait opening up another whole group of baits for the angler.

[fourbizz]

If this were to continue on a daily basis would it not be fact than there would come a point and time where the bass in lake whatever would no longer hit any lure offered?

No. You couldnt pressure them hard enough to completely stop eating before a new year class was brought into it. Nice try.

[Wayne P.]

Bass seem to avoid some of the noisy, flashy, hard baits after being exposed to them a lot. They seen to not remember being caught with soft plastics.

[George Welcome]

In any bass fishing tournament some always come in with more bass and bigger bass than most of the other participants, and someone always wins. Perhaps the winner has learned how to find the dumb bass. Perhaps there is some cover or structure that is more likely to hold dumb bass than others.  :

I've yet to see an autopsy on a bass that didn't yield a stick, a stone, a shell, or some other inanimate object in their stomach. Perhaps there are real scientific papers out there that address how bass live, hunt, and eat. Do bass actually select what they eat by size, shape and color through some learing process.

Perhaps our southern bass are truly cast into the lot of dumb bass, as we continue having days of huge numbers, and huge bass caught on a lake that is highly pressured, quite small compared to many, and one that everyone is using the same baits day after day.

I am short on experience chasing this critter, only 50 years now, but to me bass are dumb as rocks.  

[Catt]

If this were to continue on a daily basis would it not be fact than there would come a point and time where the bass in lake whatever would no longer hit any lure offered?

No. You couldnt pressure them hard enough to completely stop eating before a new year class was brought into it. Nice try.

So you are saying the only bass y'all catch in California lakes this years fry?

[fourbizz]

If this were to continue on a daily basis would it not be fact than there would come a point and time where the bass in lake whatever would no longer hit any lure offered?

No. You couldnt pressure them hard enough to completely stop eating before a new year class was brought into it. Nice try.

So you are saying the only bass y'all catch in California lakes this years fry?

Im starting to wonder if YOU are capable of learning, how to read for example.

[Gatorbassman]

OK Y'all. >

[Catt]

I have noticed that in each scenario given about a difficult to catch bass it was while the bass were on the nest.

Sam my wife's goldfish have learned that she feeds them at the same time every day so they learned there is no need to forage for food.

Conclusion: they are smart enough to sit and wait to be feed

[Catt]

How can you ignore the facts when placed in front of you, if this learning process was true the number of catchable bass in a given lake would dramatically drop to a near nil level would it not?

[fourbizz]

NO, because, AS I HAVE SAID 3 OR 4 TIMES outside of anything larger than a koi pond, a human could NEVER apply enough lures and presentations, often enough, to each fish, to make them completely stop hitting lures before new year classes were brought in.  My argument has been that the smaller, clearer, and more pressured the more difficult fish are to catch. I do not, for the life of me, understand how anyone could argue this point, except having never fished for anything other than northern strain fish in gigantic bodies of water. Now stop mis-quoting me and intentionally misconstruing the words that I type. I think that there are a few people that have a much higher interest in winning this debate than they do in being right. I am out the door to work and when i get back I am not checking back in on these now worthless threads.

[tyrius.]

I think the "bass are dumb" side and the "bass are smart" side are talking past each other.

Bass are dumb in that they will hit lures that bear no resemblence to natural prey.  Bass are dumb in that they will potentially hit that same lure multiple times.  

Bass are smart in that given enough (subjective) negative influences they will learn to cease the behavior that is providing the negative influence.

Both crowds are technically correct.  It seems to me though that one side is reading much more into what the other side is saying.

Now, to my opinion, one can not attribute the same level of "intelligence" to each bass in the lake.  One bass may be caught by a spinnerbait once and never strike one again.  Another bass may strike one once a week.  The first bass' "memory" is "better" while the second one fails to "remember" the negative aspects of the spinnerbait.  So, given a lake with bass of varying degrees of intelligence as well as new year classes (inexperienced bass) a specific lure will continue to produce fish.  This is why angler's continue to have success on pressured waters.

A new lure will likely enjoy a short time period of great success and then tapering off into it's "normal" range.  The same is true for bodies of water that receive zero fishing pressure.  When anglers first gain access to that water the fishing will be great but then when sufficient pressure is applied the results will taper off into a more "normal" success pattern.  This is evidence that at least some of the bass have been conditioned to either correlate human activity with danger or specific lures with danger.

This learned behavior seems to apply more to lures that a) do not resemble typical forage and are not retrieved at a high rate of speed.  The high rate of retrieval will at times override the bass' normal reluctance to commit to that specific lure.  They will see/hear/feel it coming and not have time to inspect it before it is gone.

[paul.]

Wouldn't you agree that in order for an animal to learn, logical thought processes must be  attributes they possess?

this is just my opinion but i don't think that it's logic or reasoning  george, at least not with fish.   with other animals, perhaps it could be logic to some degree.  i don't know what to call it with fish.  i  just think it's there.  we use words like "think" and "learn" and "smart" and "stupid" when we know these words really don't apply to fish because supposedly their brain is not biologically capable of intelligence in the sense we think of intelligence.  of course our study of the fish brain is based completely on our own human analysis and conclusions.  there is really no way to completely qualify or quantify what a bass can actually "think" because animal "thought" is an abstract variable that we could never fully measure without being able to "read their mind" or communicate with them in some way.  

perhaps it's finely tuned instinct that allows a fish to turn away from a bait.  perhaps it's a different "sense" that fish and other animals have and develop over time as they grow, something that we as humans do not possess or possess to such a small degree we cannot understand it.  we have all seen footage of prey animals in africa.  one minute they calmly allow predatory animals to walk among them or alarmingly close within easy striking distance somehow knowing that the predator is not "on the hunt".  yet they somehow sense when they might be on the menu and their behavior becomes totally different.   i have seen this same behavior, as have many of you i'm sure, with bass and a school of bluegill.  how do they "know"?  i haven't got a clue.  and i certainly don't want to turn this into a religious discussion or take this great topic into another realm, but perhaps there is another force at work here that we fail to acknowledge.  

we have so much blind, arrogant faith in our own human "knowledge" and "understanding".  yet it's obvious that we as humans don't have all the answers to this or many of life's other mysteries.   supposedly, it is aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, yet they do.  

i don't know what it is with bass, i just believe it's there, at least sometimes.  but after all, i'm only human and i could be wrong.  

[tyrius.]

How can you ignore the facts when placed in front of you, if this learning process was true the number of catchable bass in a given lake would dramatically drop to a near nil level would it not?

No, because no one is saying that all bass retain all lures for the remainder of their lives.  This is where I think that you are applying this theory much more strenuously than anyone else is.  

[tyrius.]

Wouldn't you agree that in order for an animal to learn, logical thought processes must be attributes they possess?

No.  Animals typically learn through associative behaviours.  Get a hook rammed through their mouth and pulled from the water provides a negative association to whatever they were doing prior to being hooked.  They require no logic for this, simply conditioning.

It's the same with any other animal.  Dogs are conditioned to pee outside, sit, do tricks, not bark, etc all through positive and negative associations.  If a largemouth bass can be conditioned to certain behaviours in captivity then it can be conditioned to those same behaviours in the wild.  It is just much more difficult to provide the same level of conditioning.

[Pitchinkid]

Is it not possible that diffrent retrieves or presentation all together(I.E 4" finesse worm on drop shot, 4"worm on jighead,4" worm on mojo rig) are catching the same fish. Sure its the same bait but its action is diffrent. I dont think know 2 fisherman fish a bait excatlley the same.I think this can be applied to all baits, cranks, jigs, spinners, etc.

[paul.]

I have noticed that in each scenario given about a difficult to catch bass it was while the bass were on the nest.

no it wasn't.  

[Catt]

Wouldn't you agree that in order for an animal to learn, logical thought processes must be attributes they possess?

this is just my opinion but i don't think that it's logic or reasoning george, at least not with fish. with other animals, perhaps it could be logic to some degree. i don't know what to call it with fish. i just think it's there. we use words like "think" and "learn" and "smart" and "stupid" when we know these words really don't apply to fish because supposedly their brain is not biologically capable of intelligence in the sense we think of intelligence. of course our study of the fish brain is based completely on our own human analysis and conclusions. there is really no way to completely qualify or quantify what a bass can actually "think" because animal "thought" is an abstract variable that we could never fully measure without being able to "read their mind" or communicate with them in some way.

perhaps it's finely tuned instinct that allows a fish to turn away from a bait. perhaps it's a different "sense" that fish and other animals have and develop over time as they grow, something that we as humans do not possess or possess to such a small degree we cannot understand it. we have all seen footage of prey animals in africa. one minute they calmly allow predatory animals to walk among them or alarmingly close within easy striking distance somehow knowing that the predator is not "on the hunt". yet they somehow sense when they might be on the menu and their behavior becomes totally different. i have seen this same behavior, as have many of you i'm sure, with bass and a school of bluegill. how do they "know"? i haven't got a clue. and i certainly don't want to turn this into a religious discussion or take this great topic into another realm, but perhaps there is another force at work here that we fail to acknowledge.

we have so much blind, arrogant faith in our own human "knowledge" and "understanding". yet it's obvious that we as humans don't have all the answers to this or many of life's other mysteries. supposedly, it is aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, yet they do.

i don't know what it is with bass, i just believe it's there, at least sometimes. but after all, i'm only human and i could be wrong.

Now you have gotten to what I think on this subject  

[George Welcome]

Gotta love it: let's not get overwrought with emotions here.

[Catt]

NO, because, AS I HAVE SAID 3 OR 4 TIMES outside of anything larger than a koi pond, a human could NEVER apply enough lures and presentations, often enough, to each fish, to make them completely stop hitting lures before new year classes were brought in. My argument has been that the smaller, clearer, and more pressured the more difficult fish are to catch. I do not, for the life of me, understand how anyone could argue this point, except having never fished for anything other than northern strain fish in gigantic bodies of water. Now stop mis-quoting me and intentionally misconstruing the words that I type. I think that there are a few people that have a much higher interest in winning this debate than they do in being right. I am out the door to work and when i get back I am not checking back in on these now worthless threads.

So in other words when someone disagrees with your thought process they are simply trying to win a debate and their treads are worthless?

[paul.]

glad to hear that at least to some degree we agree tommy. even where we disagree, i still respect your opinion. i have learned a lot from you and your posts always cause me to think and re-think. and i think you are a fine basser, much better than i'll ever be. much respect.

just didn't want that to get lost in this debate.

[Raul]

Perhaps our southern bass are truly cast into the lot of dumb bass

Well, Paul, they are redneck bass so we can 't ask miracles ( other than growing big ) out of them.  

[Paul Roberts]

Wow.

Hey all. Before you get too emotionally invested, you should know that there are a lot of people that have asked this kind of thing before.

There's some good research out there on the subject. If I had more time here I'd dig some of it up. Off the top of my head a good site would be bigindianabass.com. Check the "research" link. This should also lead to keywords and authors to search.

I'll throw in my opinion too, for what it's worth: Bass can "learn". It's been documented over and over again. How and what they learn is worth looking into.

[Eddie Munster]

IMO I think this whole argument is subjective and relative.

"Fish are smarter than we give them credit for"

Well, I think some fish are smarter than some people give them credit for. Some people throw the same bait in the same location because they were killing them there before. They don't stop to think are the conditions the same, etc... These guys are NOT as smart as they give themselves credit for.

Some fish are dumber than some people give them credit for. Darwin does work in the fish world too I assume. The fittest survive and live long enough to become lunkers by learning. Some fish will hit the same thing over and over because those are the dumb ones of the group.

Depending upon the fishing pressure, population of fish, etc they 'learn' at different paces. Whether or not a fish is 'educated' doesn't mean you're guaranteed to catch them or get skunked. Remember there are different kinds of strikes right.

Bottom line for me is don't overthink it; if you have the time to go fishing, go fishing. Enjoy your time outside whether the fish in your lake/pond are smart or stupid.  

[paul.]

is there some way we could combine this thread and matt's so that all this good info could be in one place? :-/  at least to me, this is all very interesting.

[Mottfia]

Yea I'm sure they can learn too. Otherwise they wouldn't survive or adapt so well all over the nation. I have to agree with Catt that if bass remembered that much then we would never catch them. I believe that bass can turn off to a lure if they see alot of it but I also believe they have a goldfish type memory that doesn't hang with them if they don

t see it for awhile. Plus like someone said earlier, THEY WILL EAT STICKS AND GRASS. lol silly bass

    There are always other factors that could explain why that lure is not getting bites....maybe the fish aren't in that area