Provoking Strikes ?

[HarveysMinnow]

Maybe it’s unusual to begin a new thread with a quote, but I didn’t want to hijack the thread on Color Vision.

Originally Posted by keithdog

What motivates any fishes predisposition will no doubt effect it's behavior and preferences. I know it does mine. Actually, watching any wildlife for any length of time at all one can observe this. I would guess the "mob mentality" feeding schools of preditor fish like bass would change the behavior compared to bass sitting off by themselves. Just the fact that they havn't joind in with the feeding pack shows we would need to fine tune our approach to catching that individual bass.

Keith, I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head with the last sentence of your quoted comment. Refining our ability to catch that solitary lunker is certainly a worthwhile goal, but HOW do we do that? How do we modify and improve our own fishing skills in positive ways? Being a part of this Forum is a big step in the right direction, at least for me it is.


I remember, as a kid, reading an article in “Sports Afield” by the late Homer Circle, fishing editor of the magazine at that time. In this article he told of a time in his own youth, when all he had to fish with was a cane pole, some string, and an old red & white top-water plug. He cast this plug repeatedly near a partially submerged log, where he “knew” a large Bass was lurking. (I don’t recall him saying how he knew this…perhaps he could see the bass.) After 40 or 50 reps of casting in that same spot, the Bass finally exploded onto the surface, was hooked, and he landed it without a reel or any sophisticated drag (a minor miracle, or a combination of skill and luck). Mr. Circle’s conclusion from this encounter was that the Bass had finally gotten tired of the commotion he was making on the surface and had struck out of anger.

Whether a Bass might actually feel “anger” in the human sense is debatable. However, this persistent disturbance of the fish’s tranquility appears to have eventually provoked it to take action and rid the area of this nuisance. I dare say that many of us, in today’s fishing climate, would never have the patience to keep up this repetitive presentation. But maybe we should not overlook this approach to enticing a stubborn Bass. It could be another “last resort” tactic worth keeping in our bag of tricks.


As always, your opinions are invited...


/

[Ebbetsguy]

I don't know that bass feel anger, I do know that I have cast to a bass, and not having a lot of patience, after several casts and no interest, I go to the next spot. I come back later and nail that bass on the first cast. My take is: he got hungry, and I returned there when it was time to eat.
For me that’s the name of the game, putting an offering in front of a bass, whose metabolism is saying DINNER TIME, and convincing that bass that what’s in front of him is the most amount of food with the least amount of effort to catch and eat it at that time.
I think we humanize what bass are capable of too much.

[HarveysMinnow]

Apparently the rumor of Mr. Homer Circle's demise has been highly exaggerated. I could have sworn I read about it, but I can't presently find any direct reference to it. My apologies.

Ebbets, you are probably right about me over-humanizing the emotions of fish. Without a doubt their primary motivating force is hunger.

/

[keithdog]

Usually, my method of "fine tuning" involves unwrapping a candy bar and opening a Coke and not paying attention to what I'm doing. That draws a monsterous strike every time, always ending with me shaking, open mouthed while crumps of candy bar fall the the bottom of the boat. All kidding aside, they say patience is golden, and I'm not known for it, lol. But I'll tell ya what. I've been known to spend an hour working an area in the pads or slop when I "know" there is a good sized bass there. It's the challenge for me, getting that bass to finally react to my offering. I'll always work different offerings and approaches trying to figure out exactly what it's going to take. Patience and stealth, it works hand in hand. But back to your question of "how do we fine tune our approach". Your basically right on target. It all stems from knowlege and experience on the water. This website goes a long way towards gaining knowlege because your often getting feedback from guys who have been at this game for decades. Young bass fisherman have the lucky fortune to learn from experienced bass fisherman who have gained a great wealth of knowlege from failure. Striking out 10 times before finally hitting a home run teaches us plenty. The main thing is to have the presence of mind to concentrate, identify various factors, remember past similar experiences, to apply to the situation at hand. AND, to have to deteermination and fortitude to not give up. Thats the tough part.

[carolina-rig-01]

I have seen a lot of fish that showed what I believe to be anger while bed fishing. They will go from just cruising around the bed running off any intruders or maybe just carrying your bait off the bed and dropping it, to flaring their gills and attacking the bait with the intent to destroy lol. I honestly believe they do feel anger, but I can't say to what extent.

[boloson]

anger? territorial maybe. but i guess that translates to anger in the animal world. maybe bass don't strike right away because they're feeling the intruder out.

[BBD]

Maybe Inception needs to occur..........

Your know, a dream, within a dream, within a dream........to find out what any one particular bass is thinking - lol




But seriously, I often wonder that myself - what Bass are thinking and what actually provoked the bite.

[Raul]

Bass strike baits for a big bunch of reasons many of which have little or nothing to do with "anger", I caught my first 10+ pounder deadsticking a Rapala minnow, I just left it there ocasionally twitching the bait, when we think about a big momma striking a bait on the surface the mental image we get is: she comes swimming, sees the bait and striking it like Jaws, right ? well, that´s not always the case, if I hadn´t been watching the line and the lure closely I would have never caught her, there was no surface conmotion, I just saw the bait dissapear and the line barely moved.

Was she "angry" ? I don´t think so
Was she "aggravated" ? I don´t think so
Was she "hungry" ? I don´t think so

I´m shure she got curious and since they can´t touch things the only way for them to be shure is to mouth and as the say indicates: curiosity killed the cat.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by Raul

Bass strike baits for a big bunch of reasons many of which have little or nothing to do with "anger", I caught my first 10+ pounder deadsticking a Rapala minnow, I just left it there ocasionally twitching the bait, when we think about a big momma striking a bait on the surface the mental image we get is: she comes swimming, sees the bait and striking it like Jaws, right ? well, that´s not always the case, if I hadn´t been watching the line and the lure closely I would have never caught her, there was no surface conmotion, I just saw the bait dissapear and the line barely moved.

Was she "angry" ? I don´t think so
Was she "aggravated" ? I don´t think so
Was she "hungry" ? I don´t think so

I´m shure she got curious and since they can´t touch things the only way for them to be shure is to mouth and as the say indicates: curiosity killed the cat.

I see what you are saying and I agree that not every fish we catch is mad. But I still believe that they do feel anger from time to time, and that anger can be one big weakness when we are able to exploit it to provoke bites.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by boloson

anger? territorial maybe. but i guess that translates to anger in the animal world. maybe bass don't strike right away because they're feeling the intruder out.

Isn't it possible that them being territorial leads to them getting angry when being provoked?

[cassidyta]

I personally feel that there are different types of "strikes" that can be provoked in different ways.

Raul is describing a less agressive strike where his bait was just tapped and swimming away. I feel that this is more or less the curiosity strike. Similar to what I find a lot of times while drop shotting. I think it is also seen when we get that reaction bite from pitching into some junk. The fish happens to be in a spot and grabs/nips at what it sees.

When bed fishing, I think we see the annoyed strike. Anyone who has done bed fishing has seen the fish first come by and blow on the bait to move it from the area. The fish will sometimes pick up the bait and move it away.

For me, the angry strike occurs when I have a fish that is guarding an area like a bed. Some of the most agressive strikes I have encountered would occur when I took a drop shot bait and kept hitting the fish with it. At first the fish would show a behavior that in humans would be annoyance, but as I continued, the fish would finally turn on the bait and hit it hard.
I have also seen bass guard other spots when they are not spawning. Tree stumps and rocky areas where a baby bass lure will get hit because the fish appears as though it doesn't want to share the space.

I think that the most agressive strikes come when night fishing during a full moon. This is when I have seen the fish being the most active in their search of food. I have had a fluke get hit like a freight train when they are searching for food.

[HarveysMinnow]

Originally Posted by Raul

I´m sure she got curious and since they can´t touch things the only way for them to be sure is to mouth and as the say indicates: curiosity killed the cat.

Raul, you have touched on another curious facet of this in talking about the female Bass. Do you have any reason to believe that male and female Bass have different motivations for striking a bait?

Originally Posted by cassidyta

I think that the most agressive strikes come when night fishing during a full moon. This is when I have seen the fish being the most active in their search of food. I have had a fluke get hit like a freight train when they are searching for food.

To me, there is little doubt that competition for available food is a major motivation for agressive strikes. Protection of territory and curiousity probably have their place as well. Also, it may not be so common, but I think the "I'm tired of this...get out of my face!" type of strike does happen at times.

.

[Ebbetsguy]

Anger is an emotional response that BASS brains can't process. Protection of the Nest, fry and beds in general is a built in instinctual reproductive response, which fishermen can trigger, it however is not anger, Competition for food, on an aggressive bite is certainly a great time to be on a spot!

[cassidyta]

Originally Posted by HarveysMinnow

To me, there is little doubt that competition for available food is a major motivation for agressive strikes. Protection of territory and curiousity probably have their place as well. Also, it may not be so common, but I think the "I'm tired of this...get out of my face!" type of strike does happen at times.

.

I agree but I feel that these strikes are not as agressive as other types.

[boloson]

Originally Posted by carolina-rig-01

Isn't it possible that them being territorial leads to them getting angry when being provoked?

hmmmm provoked? i'd say it's more of a threat/ trespass. an intruder enters the bass's territory, bass perceives a threat & reacts accordingly. animals don't reason, they just react. that's animal nature.
as long as i've been watching marty stouffer's wild america, this has always been the case.
what provokes a harder strike vs a smaller strike? my guess would be threat perception. certain threats might be perceived as a bigger threat and some not so big. and some strikes are simply because it's feeding time.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

Anger is an emotional response that BASS brains can't process. Protection of the Nest, fry and beds in general is a built in instinctual reproductive response, which fishermen can trigger, it however is not anger, Competition for food, on an aggressive bite is certainly a great time to be on a spot!

I was wondering if this is scientific fact or your opinion? The reason I ask is because if this is the case I don't understand why a fish will act as if it's becoming more aggrivated after your bait has been put on the bed several times. A lot of the fish I have caught off of beds seemed fairly passive the first few times I put my bait on their bed. They would swim it off the bed or just blow it off the bed but their demeanor didn't suggest anger at all. But as the bait was placed on the bed time and time again they started acting a lot more upset with its presence and began to show what would suggest anger.

[TN_Bassin]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

Anger is an emotional response that BASS brains can't process. Protection of the Nest, fry and beds in general is a built in instinctual reproductive response, which fishermen can trigger, it however is not anger, Competition for food, on an aggressive bite is certainly a great time to be on a spot!

Why then does a bedding fish not strike my 1st cast into the bed as opposed to striking my 50th? I would think that an instinctual trigger would be more immediate. That's just my opinion though.

[Ebbetsguy]

Because by the 50th time the bass who did not take your lure as a threat was then hungry
Look Lure manufacturers and a lot of fishermen put either humanistic traits on fish, who having too small a brain, cannot reason or think like we do
I have read research from Uni. of Michigan and one from So Cal ( on salt water fish) and one other, they are easily found, Please make sure you are reading Scientific , Peer Reviewed articles.
I have seen even here that many believe bass school, a recent thread said pack which is exactly what they do, school fish form strategic defense patterns and feed co operatively, that’s not what bass do.
There are good strong scientific reason why bass don't think like us, it's a whole lot of self preservation, reproduction and hunger that guides them through life.

Please do some reading that’s other than Bass master, tackle world and some of the other sources sited here.
I hope this helps explain where I got my information and why I go with that

Either way, fish with what works for you and what you believe, what I know put's fish in the boat and leaves me happy---Vey Happy

[HarveysMinnow]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

Look Lure manufacturers and a lot of fishermen put either humanistic traits on fish, who having too small a brain, cannot reason or think like we do.
I have read research from Uni. of Michigan and one from So Cal ( on salt water fish) and one other, they are easily found, Please make sure you are reading Scientific , Peer Reviewed articles.

Thanks Ebbets, for your reasoned approach to this question, and I'm sure you are correct in saying that the Bass brain is too small and primative to reason as we do. So it would be ridiculous to say that Bass sit there and actually think, as humans would, about some circumstance that makes them 'angry'. This makes me wonder if I used the wrong word in the beginning and maybe should have stated that, on the fish's behavior level his prime motivation is self-preservation, and on this primative level he may experience the fish-equivalent of something we might call 'intense ire'. If so, I believe it would be very brief and more of a reflexive response to something he senses as a threat. And once he has dealt with that threat (in many cases simply by eating it), he would quickly revert to his normal behavior, whereas when we humans get angry, it often takes us a while to 'cool down'.

/

[Raul]

I can´t tell if females have a different reason or reasons to strike a bait, when I say she it´s because I know the fish I caught was a female because she was more than 10 lbs.

A female or a male or both will have one particular reason to strike a bait during a particular time of the year and that´s during the spawn, male and female will remove any object or try to scare away any intruder that fall into or gets too close into the vecinity of the nest and a lure is an intruder.

In this case of my fish, other than curiosity I don´t see any particular reason for the fish to bite the lure, it was not the spawn. One thing that bugs me with the kind of stories that are told by who we consider "people in the know" ( like Homer Circle ) is ........ how the hell they "know a fish is there" ? I´ve fished for more than 3 decades, I have a home lake that I´ve fished to the point of knowing every part of it better than I know the palm of my hand and like hell if I know a big fish is in X spot of the lake for me to go and tickle it´s fancy. I can say that only once in my entire life I´ve known where a fish lives for me to go and tickle it´s fancy and that´s because she lived in a pond 30 mts wide x 50 mts long so she didn´t have much where to go, but in a lake or large pond, yeah .... right !

So, that brings me to my second 10+ pounder ( not that I go around and catch a truckloads of ten + poounders every time cuz that´s not the case, I mention particular fish that I remember because they taught me something and that lesson learned is later applied ) . There I was fishing a pond, caught several fish during the morning, I made a cast and reeled in a crankbait when I saw this shadow following the lure ( the water is always extremely clear ), as the crank got closer to the edge of the pond I was able to really see the fish, oh boy ! a big momma , what to do ? well I continued to reel in and ..... dang, I ran out of pond , the fish stopped and went away, so I cast again in the direction I saw it swimming again and began reeling in and there she come again following the crank until I ran out of pond again , this went on a couple more times when .... duh ! I remembered the crank I was using was a suspending crank, she was telling me something but I wasn´t able to decipher the language, what she was telling me ? she was telling me: "I´m interested in your bait but you haven´t convinced me to bite it ", so what could I do to convince her ? maybe changing the presentation would help ? ok so change the presentation, from reeling in steadily to reeling in and stopping, as I said, since the water was so clear I could see how she responded to it, made a cast and reeled in, then stopped, twitced the bait and ........ man she got closer to the lure but .... didin´t bite it, ratz ! .
There we go again, cast, reel in, stop twitch, reel in, stop, twitch and .... I´ll be danged I ran out of pond again ! , but this time, instead of me pulling out the bait I left it there with her inches away from the bait.

So, I left the bait and began twitching it so the bait lip would bang on the bottom, as I did this she got closer, twitch, bang the bottom and she got even closer, it was a battle of nerves, every time the bait banged on the bottom she got closer to it, she must have been an inch from the bait but still wouldn´t bite it, then finally she lost the battle, problem for her was that I was watching her, she barely touched the bait with her lips and I was able to hook her. The fight began when out of nowhere a second big momma appeared after her following the fish as it fought ( a behavior I´ve seen many times before, an opportunist ) and the chase ended when I pulled the hooked fish out of the pond.

We can theorize, speculate and try to deduct till the underworld freezes over why the fish bite and why they don´t, we could be right or we could be wrong however in the end it really doesn´t matter, hunger, territoriality, "anger", curiosity don´t matter, what is important is what you do in order to provoke a strike and it boils down to your presentation, the more creative you are with your presentation the greater the odds in provoking a strike will be in your favor.

Lessons I learned from this fish:

1.- Following a lure ---> I´m interested !
2.- You see me, I see you ---> I´m aware you are trying to catch me
3.- Keep it there ---> you have to convince me into biting.

Those are the lessons I learned that day, lessons that have served me well after that event.

[boloson]

Originally Posted by Raul

I can´t tell if females have a different reason or reasons to strike a bait, when I say she it´s because I know the fish I caught was a female because she was more than 10 lbs.

A female or a male or both will have one particular reason to strike a bait during a particular time of the year and that´s during the spawn, male and female will remove any object or try to scare away any intruder that fall into or gets too close into the vecinity of the nest and a lure is an intruder.

In this case of my fish, other than curiosity I don´t see any particular reason for the fish to bite the lure, it was not the spawn. One thing that bugs me with the kind of stories that are told by who we consider "people in the know" ( like Homer Circle ) is ........ how the hell they "know a fish is there" ? I´ve fished for more than 3 decades, I have a home lake that I´ve fished to the point of knowing every part of it better than I know the palm of my hand and like hell if I know a big fish is in X spot of the lake for me to go and tickle it´s fancy. I can say that only once in my entire life I´ve known where a fish lives for me to go and tickle it´s fancy and that´s because she lived in a pond 30 mts wide x 50 mts long so she didn´t have much where to go, but in a lake or large pond, yeah .... right !

So, that brings me to my second 10+ pounder ( not that I go around and catch a truckloads of ten + poounders every time cuz that´s not the case, I mention particular fish that I remember because they taught me something and that lesson learned is later applied ) . There I was fishing a pond, caught several fish during the morning, I made a cast and reeled in a crankbait when I saw this shadow following the lure ( the water is always extremely clear ), as the crank got closer to the edge of the pond I was able to really see the fish, oh boy ! a big momma , what to do ? well I continued to reel in and ..... dang, I ran out of pond , the fish stopped and went away, so I cast again in the direction I saw it swimming again and began reeling in and there she come again following the crank until I ran out of pond again , this went on a couple more times when .... duh ! I remembered the crank I was using was a suspending crank, she was telling me something but I wasn´t able to decipher the language, what she was telling me ? she was telling me: "I´m interested in your bait but you haven´t convinced me to bite it ", so what could I do to convince her ? maybe changing the presentation would help ? ok so change the presentation, from reeling in steadily to reeling in and stopping, as I said, since the water was so clear I could see how she responded to it, made a cast and reeled in, then stopped, twitced the bait and ........ man she got closer to the lure but .... didin´t bite it, ratz ! .
There we go again, cast, reel in, stop twitch, reel in, stop, twitch and .... I´ll be danged I ran out of pond again ! , but this time, instead of me pulling out the bait I left it there with her inches away from the bait.

So, I left the bait and began twitching it so the bait lip would bang on the bottom, as I did this she got closer, twitch, bang the bottom and she got even closer, it was a battle of nerves, every time the bait banged on the bottom she got closer to it, she must have been an inch from the bait but still wouldn´t bite it, then finally she lost the battle, problem for her was that I was watching her, she barely touched the bait with her lips and I was able to hook her. The fight began when out of nowhere a second big momma appeared after her following the fish as it fought ( a behavior I´ve seen many times before, an opportunist ) and the chase ended when I pulled the hooked fish out of the pond.

We can theorize, speculate and try to deduct till the underworld freezes over why the fish bite and why they don´t, we could be right or we could be wrong however in the end it really doesn´t matter, hunger, territoriality, "anger", curiosity don´t matter, what is important is what you do in order to provoke a strike and it boils down to your presentation, the more creative you are with your presentation the greater the odds in provoking a strike will be in your favor.

Lessons I learned from this fish:

1.- Following a lure ---> I´m interested !
2.- You see me, I see you ---> I´m aware you are trying to catch me
3.- Keep it there ---> you have to convince me into biting.

Those are the lessons I learned that day, lessons that have served me well after that event.

Perhaps the bass thought the crank was real but realized that it wasn't when it finally got close enough to sniff it out.

[TN_Bassin]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

Because by the 50th time the bass who did not take your lure as a threat was then hungry
Look Lure manufacturers and a lot of fishermen put either humanistic traits on fish, who having too small a brain, cannot reason or think like we do
I have read research from Uni. of Michigan and one from So Cal ( on salt water fish) and one other, they are easily found, Please make sure you are reading Scientific , Peer Reviewed articles.
I have seen even here that many believe bass school, a recent thread said pack which is exactly what they do, school fish form strategic defense patterns and feed co operatively, that’s not what bass do.
There are good strong scientific reason why bass don't think like us, it's a whole lot of self preservation, reproduction and hunger that guides them through life.

Please do some reading that’s other than Bass master, tackle world and some of the other sources sited here.
I hope this helps explain where I got my information and why I go with that

Either way, fish with what works for you and what you believe, what I know put's fish in the boat and leaves me happy---Vey Happy

Could you post the links to the research you've read? I would be interested to read anything on the subject.

[Ebbetsguy]

I read them in 2007, I have no idea of the links anymore. I used Netscape as the search engine, and please ask Raul, he led me to some of the readings if I am not mistaken, it's been a while.Also there is a fellow named ROBBIE Z>, he works at Hamburg Cabelas, and is an active member of Bassresource, also a Fisheries Grad, from Penn State, he gave me the lead to the University of Michigan studies,Raul is also a Vetanarian and worked as a DNR for somewhere in Mexico
Just type in Large Mouth Bass: Neurological Studies, and a second search should be : LMB: Feeding habits, i believe thats how I found most of the material. Do yourself a favor and stick with scientific peer reviewed papers, there is a lot of crap out there also. Thats how i found the articles, changed the way I fish for the better, good luck


here is a chain from a search I started for you on Google, sift through it;



http://www.google.com/#hl=en&&sa=X&e...5733a97aebfa72

Muy Friend Dave, a guy in our club just led me to this chain he is digging through now, more recent scientific stuff, about territorial behavior

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=...=1&oi=scholart


it's easily accessible, I did my reading a while ago, and was satisfied with the reults I got by incorporating it into my fishing

[TN_Bassin]

Ebbets, I want to clear something up. My previous post was in no way trying to question your facts. I was merely trying to bring some evidence into the light because I thought it would add to the discussion of whether or not bass feel anger. You said that you found some material with ties to Berkley and Pure Fishing? Am I safe to assume it was this book?

http://books.google.com/books?id=uKB...page&q&f=false

Endorsed by Berkley or not. I've found it to be very informative. Granted I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but from what I can tell, the Berkley affiliation only comes in because they are some of the few people that have done the studies. Their chief motivation for the study was profits I have no doubt, but that doesn't mean their science is wrong.

For those that want a closer look at LMB. Give this book a look. I'm only at page 12, but I can tell it's going to be very informative. Caution: Reads like a textbook after the Preface.

[Ebbetsguy]

Not at all. it was my pleasure to share it with you, I just did not keep the links, I wanted to explain how I found my material, and since I am getting forgetful, I wanted to mention who helped me, I enjoy the fact that others are also interested. Please always feel free to ask me , I am not expert but i can point you in the direction where it came from
My issue with the Jones book, is that it is paid for corporate research, pay attention you willl notice that there are word for word experts from the research right on some Berkley packages. Most do not agree with that, but i am okay with it. Have fun, it's a good read.
I am going to re read the Perry book, right before ice out this year