Few fishermen can dispute the bass fishing has been tough on Clear Lake. The two recent big tournaments — FLW and the American Bass Championship — showed that even some of the top pros had a hard time catching fish. Several bystanders said the reason for the poor fishing is that the bass have been hammered by tournament fishermen for the past month.
At any given time during the past month there were at least 50 bass boats on the lake. The subject also came up about bass getting conditioned to seeing the same lure over and over again. In other words, once they had been hooked a couple of times on a certain lure they quickly learn to ignore that lure.
There have been a number of studies conducted by scientists to see if bass can become conditioned to avoid a certain type of lure and they have all revealed that is indeed the case.
In other words, a bass is not a dumb creature. In one study five bass were placed in a large tank and not fed for a period of five days. The researchers then cast a minnow-type lure into the tank and the bass immediately attacked the lure and were hooked. This action was reported several times during a period of a few minutes. After being hooked and released a few times the bass would ignore that lure.
A different type of lure was then used and the bass attacked it, also with the same results. After being hooked a few times they ignored the lure. A live minnow was then substituted for the lure and the bass immediately attacked it. A minnow rigged with a hook was then used. The results was the same as being hooked on a lure. The bass would attack the minnow but after being hooked would ignore it.
The scientists were also surprised how long the bass would remember it had been hooked on a particular lure. After weeks of research it was determined a bass has a memory of about three months.
For example, a bass can remember for up to three months that a certain lure might mean danger. Of course, bass are like all living creatures and no two are alike. The studies showed some bass would shun a lure whereas others would strike it again and again even when they were hooked.
Bass can also relate certain objects to food. It has long been known that in lakes where trout are planted on a regular basis bass will soon learn the days the trout are being stocked. Most of the time when trout are stocked in a lake a truck carrying the trout backs down a ramp to the edge of the water before dumping out the trout. Bass have been known to associate a truck backing down the ramp to the release of a food source nearby and the bass will congregate near the stocking site.
I observed this firsthand at Indian Valley Reservoir a few years ago. I launched a small cartop boat at the ramp at the north end of the lake and went trout fishing. When I returned to the ramp with a limit of trout I observed at least 30 pike minnows (squawfish) following my boat. A fisherman launching his boat told me the pike minnows had learned that fishermen normally cleaned their trout at the ramp and the minnows associated a boat with trout guts.
This behavior could be the reason bass will bite like crazy in one area on any given day and refuse to bite the next. That”s why the most experienced tournament fishermen will only fish an area for a few minutes when prefishing. If they get a strike or catch a fish they will immediately leave the area and return on the day of the tournament.
What we can learn about the behavior of bass and other wild critters is that in the wild nothing is certain. Also, the more one studies the behavior of wild animals the more we learn just how interesting life is.
