Provoking Strikes ?

[walkeraviator]

This is a very interesting conversation. Growing up, i was taught that the reason a bass hits a buzzbait is simply because you are making anough noise to aggrevate him. This has me wondering how true that is.

[Jeff Little]

I buy into the anger theory. Whatever the reason why, blade baits pounded on the same rock 38 feet down for over 5 minutes catches them. I'd be pissed. There again - personification of something with a pea brain.

I also remember reading in the Bill Siemantel book about situations where the fish feels as though it has the upper hand and therefore take advantage of it. The example he used was reeling a swimbait from deep to shallow, a bottleneck where the prey will eventually be trapped. It's what's going on when a crank deflects off of a rock, if you stall a spinnerbait mid water column for no reason, or when the rattletrap finally rips free - it looks like something doing an evasive maneuver.

Someone mentioned being distracted by eating something and letting a bait sit. I'm a big believer in deadsticking to the point of it almost being like fishing live bait except it's not. Suspending jerkbaits, tubes, hair jigs, finesse soft plastics all have built in action that when a fish moves past, will have subtle action that in clear water will get their attention. From that point forward, it's a staring contest. Most anglers blink first and twitch the bait. Starve them for visual information and they eventually require tactile information - putting it in their mouth.

I wish I could capitalize on that competitive throwing caution to the wind that happens when one big fish is hooked but there's another following and it's much bigger. I've tried keeping follow up rods at the ready, but have never made that work. I will slow down the fight and tell a buddy to cast on top of my fish because there's another one there. That has worked. Interesting thread. I'm new here. Hope to see more threads like this one.

[doc]

Originally Posted by Jeff Little

Starve them for visual information and they eventually require tactile information - putting it in their mouth.
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Believe it or not I was just watching a show on trapping wildlife, the old trapper basically stated that, too much scent on your snare/trap would flood the animal with scent/information and leave him no reason to investigate further. Not exactly the same thing but along those lines, you make a good point. One that I think is overlooked alot, yet makes perfect sense.