Bass are stupid

[GullGuide]

Clayton,
I do not have empirical data to back this up, but I have witnessed first hand that bass do become accustomed to certain lures and will learn not to hit them.
A number of years ago I happened across a small...I mean very small lake back in the woods near Brainerd. You need a 4X4 to get a boat in there and because of its remoteness, I would bet that these fish did not see too many types of bait, so it would be safe to assume that I was dealing with a pretty good population in which to sample from. I can also almost guarantee you that the bass had not seen the lure that I and many of my clients used. It was a buzzbait, but it has 4 wings not 2 like most buzzers out there. This allowed the bait to move very slowly barely chugging the surface.
The first few months it was not uncommon to catch 30-40 even 50 bass in a 4 hour span. We did not keep a single fish, nor did we harm them in any way so that they would not survive.
As the season went on, the fish in this lake became less and less active on this bait while the same bait continued to produce on all other lakes that we fished on. The following year during the same time frame, it was lucky to catch 10 fish with this lure, but you could catch them other ways with other lures. I would guess that I could go back to this lake in a year or two and have the same success that I did the first time I fished it.
So until someone proves it to me, I say fish do learn not to hit certain baits.

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Gull Guide Service
fishingminnesota.com/gullguide
Brainerd-Mille Lacs-Willmar
Bemidji-Ottertail

[Guest]

There are many other variables to account for -- including, simply, your presence on that remote little lake. Fish would sense the presence of the boat and become conditioned to avoid anything near it. The change in season could be a factor. Size and nature of forage would be another factor. All sorts of variables come into play.

Fish are not rational beings. They are reactive, not proactive. Conditioning is a type of learning, but to see and distinguish between lures is giving pea-sized brain fish credit for rational powers they simply do not possess. Sure, as anglers we'd like to think of fish as wily and smart -- the facts do not bear this out.

[wastewaterguru]

I think a good comparison would be a cat. Very instinctive, and reactive, but still dumb enough to jump out a second story window. After jumping out of the window and breaking its leg for the third time, it stops jumping. I don't think that qualifies as intelligence, but I think "conditioning" is the correct word.

I agree with Clayton that the presence of any similar sounding lure or the boat itself is likely the cause for the decline in the activity of these fish.

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John K., a.k.a. wastewaterguru
Prior Lake, Minnesota

[Guest]

I have to agree with Gullguide on this issue. Sure, fish do not have emotions or have the ability to reason, but I have seen firsthand that fish (along with other animals) can learn.
Like Gullguide stated, I too have seen lakes where the fish become acustomed to certain lures. Muskies are notorious for getting used to certain lures, I've seen this on numerous lakes around Bemidji. Bass, even walleyes learn to stay away from certain areas, lures, etc.
In the aquatics lab at Bemidji State University, there are many large aquariums. In one of these aquariums we have a few bass, bullheads, have had many pike, sunfish, crappies, rockbass, you name it. All of these fish were trapped, seined, netted out of local lakes (not many by angling). As time passes and we continue to feed these fish, they become acustomed to our presence. They "learn" that when we come around the tank, they are going to get fed. Now, the fish actually follow our hand up the side of the glass to catch whatever we drop in. They even do this if there is nothing in our hand. If this is not an example of fish "learning" I don't know what is. JMHO.
Good luck everyone this coming weekend and anytime you are on the water!

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Adam Johnson
www.adamjohnsonfishing.com

[GullGuide]

Both of you have just backed up my statements with your own- "Fish would sense the presence of the boat and become conditioned to avoid anything near it." So you are saying that fish DO learn, since conditioning is learning such as Pavlov discovered/proved many years ago.
"I agree with Clayton that the presence of any similar sounding lure or the boat itself is likely the cause for the decline in the activity of these fish." This is also a statement that backs up learning...if they are conditioned to know that the sound of the bait or boat means danger, then they have learned.
A brain is a brain no matter how small, they still have the ability to learn, maybe not reason, but they do learn....if fish did not, they would all die off before their first year of life. Their actions are not totally instinctive.
I realize this is a touchy subject because once we admit that fish learn, this makes them more like us which gives the ANTI crowd more ammunition. Just my .02

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Gull Guide Service
fishingminnesota.com/gullguide
Brainerd-Mille Lacs-Willmar
Bemidji-Ottertail

[Guest]

OK, go along with the "I think" mentality. Dr. Warren Roberts and Dr. Jack Bull, both experimental psychologists, had a whole lab set up in the psyc building at the U of Minn for various "learning" experiments on fish --including game fish (walleyes and bass in particular, but others as well). Their findings reveal that fish do react, but cannot reason. They are not capable of conceptualizing, nor are they able to communicate with their own kind -- a released fish can't go back down and tell the guys, "Hey, don't strike at any of those No. 5 firetiger Shad Raps, they'll get ya."

As for conditioning, repetitions (such as shocks) will "teach" low intelligence animals not to do (or to do) certain things. For example, the lab experiments did "teach" fish that certain colors were safe, and others were not. This was accomplished after many repetitions and only with certain colors (fish don't see the full spectrum).

In the wild, Leech can be used as illustration. The bass in Leech "learned" to survive by living mostly back in the bush in vast shallow areas of the lake. Even the locals didn't know they had a first-class bass fishery in Leech. Through successive generations of conditioning, bass that survived and reproduced were those that had become conditioned to avoid the feeding grounds of pike and muskies. But, they did not sit down and say, "Hey, pike will eat us, so we had better find a safe place to live." Conditioning is dumb luck.

I repeat -- as an angler, it would be nice to think I've fooled an intelligent thinking critter when I catch a fish. But the facts will not bear this out.

[GullGuide]

You are absoutley correct that fish cannot reason. But the fact is THEY DO LEARN, and that is the point we are trying to make. No one said that they "go back down and tell their buddies", but they do as individuals LEARN to avoid certain sounds, tastes and smells. This is a fact, not a "I think" proposition.

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Gull Guide Service
fishingminnesota.com/gullguide
Brainerd-Mille Lacs-Willmar
Bemidji-Ottertail

[Guest]

I am very impressed with the intellectual thinking in this thread. The problem I have is that I am as stupid as the Bass. I don't catch fish on the same lure, lake, or type of weather but I keep going fishing. If my wife read this thread she would stop calling Mike and start calling Mr Bass. The insights that everyone has presented are impressive and Mr Bass doesn't care if the fish learn or not, Mr Bass only cares if Mr Bass learns.

[Guest]

Conditioning is more sensory than learning. By reactive we are speaking of conditioned responses that require no thinking -- in the context we consider it. One might say you "learn" not to touch things that are very hot -- not so. Upon touching, we react in a manner which requires no thought processes whatsoever. It becomes what is popularly called reflex.

So it is with fish. They react to noise. They react to pressure. They react to vibration, and so on. Check with any bona fide experimental/physiological psychologist and you'll get a much better explanation than mine -- but the essence will be the same.

Incidentally, although it's years since I visited with and fished with the U of Minn exp/phys psychologists, the reason they did research on game fish was because they did fish and did want to learn more about their quarry. In some labs you'd find the standard rats, mice, cats & dogs, monkeys, possums, and the like, whereas in others you'd find the psychologist-angler researchers with their game fish. Their findings are more convincing to me than impressions acquired while doing what we love to do--go fishing.