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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | I came across this in a book I was reading last week and being Psycho, I tried to immediatly relate it to musky fishing. It is from the novel “Prey” written by Michal Crichton, though the story is fiction his research is usually pretty good, don’t know where he pulled this info from, but thought you all might enjoy it.
Talking about flocking and schooling and how it protects prey:
“…The same holds true of flocking birds and schooling fish—those coordinated group movements made it harder for predators to pick out a single individual. Predators were drawn to attack an animal that was distinctive in some way. That was one reason why they attack infants so often—not only because they were easier prey, but because they looked different. In the same way, predators killed more males than females because nondominant males tended to hang on the outskirts of the herd, where they were more noticeable.
In fact, thirty years ago when Hans Kruuk studied hyenas in the Serenhgeti, he found that putting paint on an animal guaranteed it would be killed in the next attack. That is the power of difference.”
There goes the whole match the hatch theory. …..Well maybe not considering you can still work the bait differently, but some food for thought. I may try that shocker color more often next year.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | C'mon now MRoberts.... we all know you are not psycho (heh heh).
Since we are more often than not fishing AWAY from the school... than your lure is already standing out. But, I do think there is merit to making your lure as visible as possible, but in an unthreatening or natural way. If simply being the most visible is best, than my 10" Jake painted with Glow Paint should be the greatest night fishing lure known to man.... and you and I know it just ain't so. Thus, you probably still gotta resemble a real meal in some way.
But... perhaps fishing around the perimeter of those giant schools of cisco we love so much rather than casting right into them is a better practice???? Then, make that bait easier to see (how you do this is probably the real question here) and your score should increase???
What do you guys think, is MRoberts onto something hear or should he be discussing this with his Fictional Book Club and not us Musky Men (heh heh)?
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Posts: 2361
| first off he shouldn't get too excited about the science in any M Chrichton book. Next he will be espousing nano bots to go find fish and report back, rather than using depth finders. I don't think that the hyena predation habits and that of musky are necessarily the same and the musky must often of necessity eat the healthy and behaivourally correct, to stay alive. My take is that incorrect/vulnerable behaviour is more important than color. | |
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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | I did check the Hans Kruuk reference, and apparently he was a scientest working in Africa and has a couple of books published on pred/prey relationships. The Kruuk stuff isn’t fiction.
Of course hyena predation and musky predation aren’t exactly the same, but a preditor is a preditor and I am sure there are times that a hyena, a lion, a cheetah or even a bear have to eat a healthy critter to stay alive. It is nature after all. Watch a cheetah or house cat stalk a prey and there are similarities to ski.
Could the above behavior partly be the explanation of why bucktails are so successful. Many people say a bucktail imitates nothing natural. Could the fact that it is unnatural be the cause of the many strikes they provoke. Look at a Mepps Musky Killer, they are high vis, and high vibration, yet unassuming. We know that musky don’t just attack everything they encounter, something has to trigger that strike.
Like Jason said the trick is finding the balance between getting noticed and causing flight. And as far as your Q-Beam Jake, Jason, how do you know that wouldn’t be your most successful Jake if you threw it more. I saw you make about 10 casts with it, the next time I heard that you used it, it was at the request of a young kid you where fishing with and as I recall you scored on it. Maybe you should be using it more.
Working on Doug Johnson’s mantra, “If it moves, it’s food”. I’ll add a second line, “if it acts like prey, it gets eaten.” So now all we have to do if figure out how to make all our baits look like easy prey every time, and we will hook up with every musky our lures encounter. No more slow lazy follows. Easy right?
Nail A Pig!
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Posts: 1023
Location: Lafayette, IN | I'd like to submit (as a non-pro) that some of the best patterns we miss on our outings probably have as much to do with what we don't observe as what we think we do. Case in point: I'd like to know how many times the fish we catch have a direct relationship to the school of forage we just busted up with our "artificial" bait busting through it but we weren't aware of that because the action was away from our depth finder? Some of the best patterns I've heard of or utilized in all species of predator fish were fiding the prey, making some determination of the presence of musky, bass or pike, then placing my bait of choice just beyond the forage and bringing it "through" in an attempt to make my bait stand out as the weakest and easiest target. Attitude of the fish, color, and speed may all factor in but I believe what many have said, "If you locate fish they can be caught." I'm still learning...... | |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | Wow Mike, those are some pretty organized thoughts! I also like the new name for my glow Jake, Q-Beam. You bring up a good point about that lure. However, there was an extreme difference between the two occurrences. The first time I used it was with you in extremely clear water well after dark... and we gave it a full charge off the 1M candlepower spotlight. That baby looked like a meteorite flying through the sky and a volkswagon swimming through the water. I think in that situation it caused a FLIGHT reacting with any nearby fish (of any species for cryin' out loud) due to the obnoxiously high-vis flash. However, when that lure scored for me it was pulled directly from my dark tacklebox and pitched out right at dusk. The very soft chartruese glow may have been just right for the chuckled about Purkinje Shift. Then again, I'd bet my money that the real reason I caught that fish was because I bonked the fish on the head with the lure. You know... the lure hit the water... I gave it one good rip... and the fish slammed it. Right place, right time = reaction strike. The lure could have been ANY color and scored.
In regard to the rest of the discussion.... if a predator seeks signs of vulnerability.... just what are some of those signs? A certain type of flash, a certain type of movement, other? If this is the real question... then we just converted this topic to "what triggers strikes".
jlong | |
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Posts: 323
Location: In the slop! | I think MRoberts hit on something important. Any predator will naturaly select the easy targets, sick, weak, crippled, etc. But when that predator is hungry and nothing easy is to be found, it will have to hunt something healthy. This is when, in my mind, they are the most vulnerable. I just wish they were like this more often. | |
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Posts: 20211
Location: oswego, il | MRoberts, I have seen heyenas and muskies feeding together on the same pack of gazels. That's why natural deer hair mepps have been so good.
I think it's simple. make it erratic. I believe in the movement that triggers fish. Color can be important but I think movement is moreso important to get e fish interested. | |
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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | I agree Todd, I believe color will get a bait noticed, and action will get the bait eaten.
The first step is getting the bait noticed, this can be done by trying to optimize the color so the bait is most noticeable from the longest distance possible. Many people believe that color is of no issue, but I don’t agree with that I think there are things we can do to use color to our best advantage. The Perkinji shift is one example of this, and people can laugh all they want but it works. And as I think more about it, it may be more proof to me that the shocker technique, with colors, is way underutilized. For sure it is, in my boat.
Then action portion is harder and is most likely dependant on the fish’s mood. But I don’t think you can go wrong here trying to imitate a dying or wounded bait fish. Frank Suick developed the Thriller after spending hours watching dying trout struggle in a trout pond and it has been catching fish ever since. By twitching and jerking crankbiats and jerkbaits that’s all were doing, making it look troubled. I think the key here is the pause, less than optimal conditions a short pause if fine, tough conditions a longer pause is needed.
My guess would be that straight cranked bucktails, surfacebaits and crankbaits simply represent fleeing prey the wobble of the crank of vibration of the blade may give some kind of injured signal, but most likely they are just indications that it is something un-natural and it might be possible that color is actually more of a factor with this technique.
Yea, Jason you’re right this post did go down the road of triggering, but isn’t that what it’s all about. This is the big variable we are all trying to uncover, to turn our selves into the ultimate musky fishing machines.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | Mike,
I recall a conversation between you, John and me over some barley pops, that was remarkably similar to this thread. My personal belief is that color is the last variable that needs to be tweaked. 90% of my baits are of a natural color, but nearly none of my retrieves are straight line. In the water, an erratic, "injured" retrieve is more noticeable at longer distances by a fish than color. In the open air, where a predator can see several hundred yards, I could see where color would be more important, or even in gin clear water. In the water I think the difference in vibration much out-weighs color. Here is a simple list that I follow on the water to try to find and catch fish.
1. Location--without a doubt the biggest variable to making you the ultimate fish catching machine. If they aren't there you will not catch them.
2. Bait type -- if you've found the fish you have to give them something they will chase. If they want bucktails give them bucktail, if they want glide baits, don't throw a bucktail.
3. Retrieve style/speed -- you have to trigger those fish that are willing to chase your offerings. I feel this is where the real "power of difference" lies in musky fishing. My catches on cranks went up significantly several years ago when I abandoned the straight retrieve. I also believe this difference, is what drives the whole glide bait market.
4. Color, the last thing to tweak (in my mind) to get the unwilling to commit. I almost always start out with a natural color (far from the "power of difference"), but will keep PREY in mind this year to see if it triggers a few more. | |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | Very interesting stuff guys! Thanks to Mike, I now have some reading info I'll have to look up over the winter time.
Not sure if I am correct here or not, but I believe the reason Zebra's have stripes is so that the predator gets confused when a herd of Zebra's are running. You ask why am I talking about Zebra's? Stay with me. To me this relates to let's say perch. The famous perch bars are one of the most popular paint scheme on fishing lures today. Now if you see a whole school of perch together, that's a lot of bars that start blending together. Why would you want a lure then that "matches the hatch" and blends so good with the other fish? If you have ever seen a perch on it's own a few feet off the bottom you would understand. Last winter while ice fishing we watched a few perch on the Aqua View, and what an eye opener. When one lone perch came through it stuck out like a sore thumb because of it's bars. To me this kind of explains why the fish on the outside of the school get picked off even if they aren't acting erratic, making them easier to get noticed.
To me color is a lot more important than it is to most of you. It probably has everything to do that most of my fishing is on clear water lakes, and very little done on the dark/dirty waters. I have tried the "shocker" color quite a bit on the clear water lakes the last two years, and haven't done worth a squat on them. That seems to tell me that they don't like "shokers" on those waters. Also, some waters definately have a preference for color of bait over others. A few lakes I go to I won't throw hardly any color other than black/white (or silver) because over time that is the color that has produced.
Sorry the whole color thing is a bit off subject, but I think it matters more than what is lead on to. Yes an erratic bait is very important (in my eyes), but if I am using a Q-Beam Jake in a water that you can see 20 feet down I don't care how tantalizing you make it. I don't think it will get eaten. Hopefully some day I will be suprised by this. | |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | NWild, it looks like your system is similar to In Fisherman's F+L+P=Success formula. I think everyone does their best to learn about the Fish and their habits, which helps us better identify optimum Locations. However, I think Presentation is where the glitz and glam are and really makes the difference when fishing "community" spots or searching large areas. Sure, learning the "spot on the spot" is one way to improve your Location element... but this topic is about presentation... and more specifically.... how to get your lure bit (more often). I believe Mike's thought process here by coming at it from the predator-prey relationship perspective is to help identify what "signals" may help elicit a strike response or help get your lure noticed more readily. The gist of his info was that the most visible target will get attacked first.
This lead to the discussion about Perch bars. I think the "other" thread entitled "Fish Camouflage" covers this topic well. In my opinion, perch bars are ALWAYS helping to conceal the fish.... whether an individual or an entire school. The more "edges" there are for you to decipher, the more difficult it is to pick out your profile (target) from the background (contrast). Bars increase the number of "edges" the predator must determine are simply part of the target's coloration vs. the actual profile. That is why I question the need for us as fisherman to add bars, dots, stripes, etc. to our lures since it essentially makes them more DIFFICULT to see. Then again... why is the Pearson Perch color pattern such a phenomenal fish producer??????
Oh yeah... and as far as color vs. movement.... I believe there are times where vision is the long range sense (clear water) and should be your primary interest for presentation. However, lure action/movement can increase the visibility of your lure (flash) as well. In dark water situations, you may want to target vibration as your intial attention getter and use color to offer a better target for the final phase of the strike... or to possibly trigger a strike once the fish has already responded to your lure.
All this is fine and dandy... but we all know you can catch a fish on a perch colored crankbait just steadily retrieved. But... it seems some of us believe you can increase your odds of getting bit if you do a little more than that. I think the info by MRoberts was trying to offer up some justification to that belief. In the end... I think this is clear as mud.
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Posts: 32884
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Shoaling behavior in fish direclty addresses this thread. There is quite a bit in the literature covering this behavior, interesting reading for sure. | |
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Posts: 1137
Location: Holly, MI | Just a quick thought on the statement on maybe we should not match the hatch..
Even when we do our best to Match the hatch do you really think your lure looks exactly like the real thing it is trying to immitate? I say even when we match the hatch our lure stands out as different and possibly weak or injured. | |
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| in other words the new ads by Rapala are acutually demonstrating how BAD they're lures will work since they blend into the school so well!
lol. | |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | lambeau,
Here are my thoughts on that cool Rapala commercial.
The lure sure LOOKS life-like to me in that commercial and blends in pretty well with the REAL baitfish surrounding it. But, the large bass that ate the Rapala probably could pick it out of the croud because it FELT different.... making it easy to pinpoint a SINGLE target to ambush. The lateral line is a glorious weapon for predators. If you are duck hunter, you know it is better to put the bead on on a single duck rather than just pepper-spray the entire flock.
So, when trying to "match the hatch" you can't just consider how your bait looks. You also need to consider how it FEELS, smells, sounds, tastes, etc. When it comes to muskies I feel how it looks and feels are the two most important..... and I think Steve Worrall has shown quite well that our lures don't exactly feel/sound very natural in the water.
jlong | |
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| I think the comparison with hyenas, cats, and other predators is key. Ever play with a cat? Move the piece of string slowly and they don't care. Make a quick, erratic move with it and they can't help themselves, they have to pounce or slap at it. If you had 6 balls of string, the one trying to "get away" would be the one they would chase.
I read a story once about a kid trying to catch a huge bass in a creek. He had seen the bass eat a frog, so he caught one and put it on his hook. The frog wouldn't hardly move with the hook in it, and the bass ignored it. Finally, out of disgust, the boy reeled in, pulled the frog off the hook, and tossed it in the creek. You guessed it: the frog took off frantically and the bass nailed it.
But I think one thing we all miss on this is that we don't know what a musky sees, hears, feels, or thinks. You can't make every fish react the way you want. Sometimes your fluorescent pink lure triggers a strike, sometimes it scares them. We can't control everything. | |
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Posts: 32884
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | jlong,
A good portion of the reason a lure gets bit in the first place is it IS different from everything else in the water. The last thing anyone wants is for the lure to exactly immitate any baitfish, and it's totally impossible (and I mean IMPOSSIBLE!!!) for a lure to actually behave like a baitfish, anyway. That is a good thing; last thing I want to do is compete with the 'natural' food available.
The behavior described (schools of baitfish moving together as a mass, and MUCH MUCH more) is shoaling behavior, and is described very clearly in fisheries biology literature. Coloration of many baitfish is described much as you guys are discussing. When I have some time, I will reference the works I read here so you can take a look. | |
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| I have an important question.
Did Jason Long actually come on this thread and personally place his bling signature on every post or does he have a program that does that automatically, LOL!!!
I think we need to call him on this thing before it gets completely out of control!!!  | |
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Posts: 177
Location: Lake Forest, Illinois | Mike,
Last year while on our family vaca, a medium sized musky would cruise the pier every night to feed. There were literally thousands of bait fish to choose from. He would feed multiple times..you could watch him do it and other times simply hear him. So one night I decided to try something....as soon as I saw him or heard him, I put a large walleye minoww on a Big yellow jig, tossed it out there and he ate it straight away. What I took from that was, match the hatch with a splash of color, enough to make it stand out from the rest of the bait.
Sean | |
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An interesting idea on PREY!!!!!