Three second fish memory 'just rubbish'

[Arnoldo]

It's absolute rubbish, says Dr Kevin Warburton, an adjunct researcher with Charles Sturt University's Institute for Land, Water and Society who has been studying fish behaviour for many years.

There's been a lot of work done over the last 15 years on learning and memory in fish and it as been found that fish are quite sophisticated. Fish can remember prey types for months; they can learn to avoid predators after being attacked once and they retain this memory for several months; and carp that have been caught by fishers avoid hooks for at least a year. That fish have only a three second memory is just rubbish.

http://news.csu.edu.au/director/latestnews.cfm?itemID=29F34DE7E2F6FE0FB7272F41C53E3B22&printtemplate=release

What do you think?

[Lucky Craft Man]

I caught a bluegill once on a bare gold hook.  I let the bluegill go and put the same gold hook in front of the same bluegill I just released 1 second before.  He swam over and ate the hook again.  I would say that fish (at least bluegill) have less than 1 second memory retention.

[D4u2s0t]

I've caught the same bluegill 5 times within one minute...  I've caught tons of fish with visible fresh hook mark, and i've caught plenty of fish with hooks still embedded in their mouth.  I don't know what that proves about memory, because i'm not a scientist.

[zach t]

Let me defunct that then.

This fish was caught on a frog. My wife was hanging out at the dock which was very close, so I brought the boat back, I brought her out, took videos and pics. Released her. Got back in the boat, went back to the same spot, cast the same frog out. Caught the same fish. Literally, minutes apart. I KNOW it was the same fish, because the inside of the mouth was ripped from the frog.

[zero limit]

I have caught the same bass 3x with in a few minutes I know this from the tail having been partly chewed up

[roadwarrior]

A few years ago, 1959 or 1960, I hooked-up with

my first big bass. I was fishing one of the Zebco

original spincasting combinations. We were fishing

in clear water on Grand Lake of the Cherokees. I

got the fish close enough to see it was blind in one

eye. As my little brother went to net the fish, he

knocked it off!

Using an identical lure, my dad immediately cast

to the same spot, hooked-up and landed the bass.

For more than 40 years, my dad kept his trophy in

the deep freezer. Over the decades, freezer burn

has caused the bass to shrivel up a little, but

the story we tell at family gatherings is till a

favorite.

8-)

[Paul Roberts]

"Rubbish!"

Very well put.

[Triton21]

My PB was hooked twice within 5 minutes.  I t was durning the 2nd Roadtrip at Lake fork.  I threw a trick stick near a stump and hook a fish, fought it 3/4 way to boat and broke off.  I knew it was a large fish so sat down composed myself, tied on another hook, put another bait out of the same bag, threw back to same stump.  Hooked another fish.  when it was landed it had my hook and bait embedded in its mouth.  Weighted 8 lbs 9 oz.

Kelley

[senile1]

Most of us can post anecdotal evidence that fish don't remember being hooked. Anyone who has fished for a few years has probably seen the same fish get hooked multiple times by the same lure in a very short period of time. However out of the thousands of fish most of us have caught, what percentage did you go back and catch with the same lure immediately thereafter? For me, that percentage is very low. If fish didn't have some memory I postulate that most of their species would be extinct by now.

[J Francho]

There are some fish I caught, that I never caught again. 

[WRB]

There are wary bass and aggressive and the same bass can be both, depending on it's activity level.

If any animal doesn't learn from it's life experiences, it doesn't survive very long.

Anglers can confuse bass behavior with human behavior, big mistake.

Spawning bass for example don't eat while spawning. The male bass may not eat for several weeks, females a shorter time period while laying eggs, up to a week or so. The spawner strikes anything that is perceived by the bass to threaten the nest. The bass knows you are there, but goes against it's learned instinct and leave,the bass stays to protect the nest. You can easily catch a spawner several times because it must stay and protect the nest site from egg eating predators. Normally the bass would leave immediately when ti detects danger.

WRB

[Paul Roberts]

There are some fish I caught, that I never caught again.

Good point, J.

This discussion came up recently. Since I spent some time digging into my archives on the subject I'll give the link again:

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1263165951/0

[Pitchinkid]

I kind of look at fish as if they are people. There are stupid fish and there are stupid people. A fish hitting the same lure or bait seconds or minutes apart could be caused by a few different reasons in my opinion. First is hunger. Maybe there is nothing to eat or lack of forage for the fish.So therefore any time there is an opportunity for the fish to feed, it does. Maybe the fish is protecting its bed(  as pointed out above) or foraging area. Or maybe its just a stupid fish. Kind of like a crook that has been caught, and is later returned to society were once they are caught for the same crime. Pure stupidity.

[D4u2s0t]

There are wary bass and aggressive and the same bass can be both, depending on it's activity level.

If any animal doesn't learn from it's life experiences, it doesn't survive very long.

Anglers can confuse bass behavior with human behavior, big mistake.

Spawning bass for example don't eat while spawning. The male bass may not eat for several weeks, females a shorter time period while laying eggs, up to a week or so. The spawner strikes anything that is perceived by the bass to threaten the nest. The bass knows you are there, but goes against it's learned instinct and leave,the bass stays to protect the nest. You can easily catch a spawner several times because it must stay and protect the nest site from egg eating predators. Normally the bass would leave immediately when ti detects danger.

WRB

and this, in my eye, is exactly what makes it hard to determine a fish' memory.  Certain instincts will most likely override safety, one being protection, another being aggression.  I think too many people forget that fish don't only bite to eat.  Plus, we don't know what kind of risk each individual fish is going to take in order to eat.  (when they do strike to feed)  Sometimes a fish will come up, look at your bait, seems to almost sniff it, then takes off.  Then another will come and eat it.  Makes it hard to determine behavior when your only point of reference is what you see on the lake.

[brushhoggin]

reaction strikes as opposed to getting a good look a slow moving bait may make some difference

[CWB]

I say rubbish to the rubbish.

Like any other species, humans included, ;D there will be some smart ones but the vast majority don't have a clue. Some years ago I hooked a nice bass on a Sluggo and it wrapped me around a stump and broke off.

I quickly re-rigged up and cast to the same spot and bang!, hooked the same fish and got it in with the first Sluggo still hanging from its face. Did the bluegill thing several times off the dock. It's amazing how stupid they are. Carp, on the other hand, seem to be pretty smart overall. I don't know that they will remember stuff for a year and what the Dr. is basing his assumption on, but they are among the wariest and toughest to catch fish in my parts.

[RoLo]

We have a cockatiel at home, and for no apparent reason he used to make

a unique outburst once almost every evening. It wasn't until many weeks later that I finally realized

that our bird was reacting to the theme song at the end of the "Becker" show.

When we moved two years ago, we lost access to that particular TV channel,

and our bird never uttered that sound again. Then a couple months ago, we caught a random episode of "Becker".

Although it was the farthest thought from my mind, our cockatiel suddenly sounded off

in the same unique way when the showed ended, and he hasn't heard that song for almost two years!

Here's the upshot.

While this behavior typifies excellent retention, this same bird gets lost inside our house.

For this same reason, cockatiels that escape from the house, never return.

Apparently they lack the memory to retrace their latest steps, similar to someone with Alzheimers disease.

In the same vein, I don't know of any ironclad method for measuring the memory span of fish.

I don't believe that any fish can be accused of being smart, but unlike a box-of-rocks,

cold-blooded creatures possess the instinctive ability to react to conditions.

When we lived on the shore of Lake Walk-In-Water, I frequently fished from the community pier

during days when I didn't launch my boat. As long as I brought along a lure that I hadn't

recently used, I rarely failed to catch at least one bass from the pier.

In other words, lures that caught bass in the past few days were the worst performing lures,

and any new lure, no matter what it was, would almost always catch at least one bass.

I believe this phenomenon is very significant, because unlike fishing from a boat,

the bass at the pier were essentially a captive audience. For the most part,

I was catching the same population of bass, over-and-over. I can't say that this behavior

is directly linked to the memory of bass, but "change" was clearly the key, and any lure that was "new"

held the most promise.

Roger

[Shad_Master]

I think fish are like people in one particular way - some are smarter than others.  I don't believe that fish have the capacity for rational thought (e.g. oh, this is that same lure I tried to eat last week and got yanked out of the water - I better leave it alone).  I do think that instinct is the major factor in why fish do what they do and instinct come from experience combined with natural traits.

[Pitchinkid]

We have a cockatiel at home, and for no apparent reason he used to make

a unique outburst once every day in the evening. It wasn't until many weeks later that I finally realized

that our bird was reacting to the theme song at the end of the "Becker" show.

When we moved two years ago, we lost access to that particular TV channel,

and our bird never uttered that sound again. Then a couple months ago, we caught a random episode of "Becker".

Although it was the farthest thought from my mind, our cockatiel suddenly sounded off

in the same unique way when the showed ended, and he hasn't heard that song for almost two years!

Here's the upshot.

While this behavior typifies excellent retention, this same bird gets lost inside our house.

For this same reason, cockatiels that escape from the house, never return.

Apparently they lack the memory to retrace their latest steps, similar to someone with Alzheimers disease.

All that said, I'm not sure of any ironclad method for measuring the memory span of fish.

I don't believe that any fish can be accused of being smart, but unlike a box of rocks,

cold-blooded animals possess the instinctive ability to react to conditions.

When we lived on the shore of Lake Walk-In-Water, I frequently fished from the community pier

during days when I didn't launch my boat. As long as I brought along a lure that I hadn't

recently used, I rarely failed to catch at least one bass from the pier.

In other words, lures that caught bass in the past few days were the worst performing lures,

and any new lure, no matter what it was, would nearly always catch at least one bass.

I believe that this phenomenon is very significant, because unlike fishing from a boat,

the bass at the pier were essentially a captive audience. Basically, I was catching the same population of bass,

over-and-over. I can't say that this behavior is directly linked to the memory of bass,

but "change" was clearly the key, and any lure that was "new" held the most promise.

Roger

good stuff

[Crestliner2008]

I do a lot of off-shore, deep water fishing for small mouth bass. Last year I caught a very unusual specimen on the drop shot. It had two black spots on it's forehead and one near the anal fin. Released that bass, as I do all the fish I catch. Couple of days later I caught the same fish again, on a drop shotted Roboworm.

Now to be fair, I don't remember exactly which bait I was using the first time I caught her, but I usually DS with Roboworms about 90% of the time. After that second catch, 3 weeks later, I caught the same bass again, on a drop shotted Roboworm!

I don't know.....I don't think they're that smart! ;D

[slonezp]

It appears that much, if not all of the research was done in a controlled enviroment. I think fish in a tank are going to act/react differently because there enviroment NEVER changes. Fish living in the wild are constantly changing with their enviroment and I would imagine their instinct to survive is 10x that of a fish in a tank. If they are hungry their metabolism tells them to eat. The fish in tanks know where their next meal is coming from. Why do fish gourge themselves when they have the opportunity? They don't know when the next meal will swim buy.I like everyone else have hooked or caught the same fish multiple times and IMO it's cause they are probably gourging themselves.

[clipper]

The above discussion is based on the premise that getting hooked is painful for a fish and therefore an unpleasant experience to be avoided.  Is there reliable, scientific research to prove that being hooked is a painful experience for a fish?  I know they squirm and flop but is that because they are being taken out of their environment?  Perhaps the fact that fish can be caugth repeatedly on the same lure is evidence that they don't experience pain in the same way we do. 

[Sam]

Arnolda,

Suggest you and the other guys invest in Dr. Keith A. Jones' book, Knowing Bass, The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish.

Keith has a section on "Brain, Learning and Instincts" which is excellent.

Keith is the head of research for Berkley.

Book is published by Lyon Press of Guilford, Connecticut. 

[senile1]

Classical conditioning requires some memory and has been proven in fish, from the studies I have read.  I have read of fish that gather near feeders at the approximate time that the feeder runs.  I've walked piers where the carp will gather expecting to be fed every time someone walks by because they have been fed before.  As Rolo suggested, I have fished small ponds where, after a period of time, the bite on a particular lure decreases with continued use and a different presentation has turned the bite around.  It would appear from all of these instances that some sort of conditioned response to stimuli is occurring and is being remembered for a period of time.  Of course there are exceptions as there always will be. 

[senile1]

By the way, Paul Roberts has posted a thread in a post above that contains some excellent research from the Ridge Lake study on bass memory.  Check page three of that thread for more information.