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Posts: 2015
| just a side note to my post above...So that Tourney was on a Sunday, I often have family obligations on Sundays, any way received a hot tip, that a large fish was haunting a couple of contestants - she was big but she would only follow. So Monday after work I don't fish the spot until "primetime" - what should I throw? Some would say not WTD she just saw that bait a dozen times the day before...and she followed half-a-dozen times but wouldn't eat. No hesitation on my part, when she wanted to eat I knew she would eat a Weagle conditions were - right, only took one cast...she rocketed from the depths and was air-born with the weagle in her mouth completely clearing the water it seemed like seconds before she fell out of the sky - it looked like Shamu at Sea world..what a sight - coolest topwater strike I've ever seen, engrained in my mind forever. She was "conditioned" to not eat on Sunday - next day she was ready.
Edited by IAJustin 4/10/2012 7:06 PM
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Posts: 457
Location: Minneconia | IAJustin - 4/10/2012 7:03 PM
just a side note to my post above...So that Tourney was on a Sunday, I often have family obligations on Sundays, any way received a hot tip, that a large fish was haunting a couple of contestants - she was big but she would only follow. So Monday after work I don't fish the spot until "primetime" - what should I throw? Some would say not WTD she just saw that bait a dozen times the day before...and she followed half-a-dozen times but wouldn't eat. No hesitation on my part, when she wanted to eat I knew she would eat a Weagle conditions were - right, only took one cast...she rocketed from the depths and was air-born with the weagle in her mouth completely clearing the water it seemed like seconds before she fell out of the sky - it looked like Shamu at Sea world..what a sight - coolest topwater strike I've ever seen, engrained in my mind forever. She was "conditioned" to not eat on Sunday - next day she was ready.
That example is all well and good guy, but I know from first hand experience and many days spent over a few years on that water that they don't eat Weagles for as long a period of time and with the frequency they did in 2004. It wasn't a 4 degree temp window it was more like 20 that year...definitely seemed like some sort of conditioning curve to me. Of course you can still catch them with the same baits as your example states, just tougher and less frequently.
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Posts: 108
| In my opinion, to believe a fish can get conditioned to fishing pressure... but then think they cannot get conditioned to a lure is proposterous! I simply cannot understand that logic.
Survival is the strongest instinct in any living organism. Fish are stupid!! We tend to "humanize" them so we can rationalize things in our minds how things work in our environment. Fish don't live in our environment... and it doesn't exist in theirs...we are as alien to fish and aliens are to us. Fish react to stimuli in thier environment and that is all they do...they don't think...they don't plan ahead...all they do is react to their environment...period. Fish eat when their bodies tell them to eat...if they think it is food...they will eat it. If they think it is food that is bad for them...maybe not. A fish doesn't know what a lure is and they never will...all they can determine is if they should eat it or not...that's it.
We as humans have a autonomic response mechanism too that protects us from ingesting bad things for us...ever drink wasy too much tequila...the next time you smell it you get sick from the smell...it's called pyscosomatic illness...nothing made you actually ill as you didn't ingest any the second time...but that smell sent a trigger to your brain telling you last time you drank this it didn't work out so well and do not do it again.
If a fish thinks its food and it's body is telling it to eat guess what? Now let's start talking about "trigger"! 
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Posts: 2015
| Brett agree 100% - The biggest thing with "pressure" - IMO , is that if someone hit your favorite 5 spots on the lake before you arrive and caught a fish off each one of those spots - it may decrease your catch. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | Brett Waldera sent me this.... I'd say a very good article..fish are dumb, but do get conditioned for sure....
http://www.fishingclub.com/magazine/articles/articletype/articlevie... |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Nice article, and some nice tips. I liked to use "vintage" lures, like those from the 80s and 90s. But the tips in the list at the end there, certainly make sense.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, then try something else.
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Location: SE Wisconsin | Good article. |
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Location: 31 | That article is awesome, nice work posting that!!! I don't think there's any denying that fish get conditioned now. The article talked about watching the bass anglers fishing the same stretch with basically the same lures all day long. From a muskie perspective we've all probably witnessed the same thing firsthand.
Most of us can remember our first trip to Canada, beautiful scenery, big unconditioned fish… right?
Here's my story; I spent five consecutive weeks camping and fishing on Lake of the Woods in the summer of 1989. My routine was to find an area that had fish, set up my tent, and hit it hard at first light, then return to my camp for a late breakfast, take a nap and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of the day.
When I had my tent pitched in Quandary Bay, it was like watching a McDonald's drive through sometimes because I suspect someone at Big Narrows was handing out marked maps, if you know the bay it has very distinct and prominent spot, and a couple weed beds. On clam days I could hear the boats coming while I ate breakfast. They would all pretty much set up in the same spots, fish basically the same baits in the same manner, it was a regular muskie merry-go-round.
I didn't camp in that same bay for five weeks, but whenever I did, I could see the new crews come in throwing Eagletails for the first few days, then you'd typically see them switching over to some kind of jerk bait midweek, and then you could see them get serious knowing the trip was almost over. Keep in mind that this was Lake of the Woods in 1989… I wasn't a very good fisherman back then (even though I thought I was), but watching that scenario unfold certainly helps to get me “unconditioned”. |
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Posts: 2015
| IAJustin - 4/6/2012 11:23 AM
Exactly - And why long term I believe there is almost no lure conditioning. .
I believe a fish can be conditioned short term, and for sure will show conditioning in a controlled environment. It's been proven many times by scientists - what hasn't been proven is if you catch a fish on a particular lure one year will it eat the same lure the next year? That requires long term memory. Maybe a good poll question? |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | “Several studies make it clear that catch rates go down as pressure goes up, even when fish density is the same. That big picture is well documented,” he says. “Whether those fish become accustomed to a single lure—and if so, how long they’ll avoid it—we don’t have any information on that. Does switching to the latest thing increase the success? It has yet to be studied.”
What's important here is there is absolutely no evidence fish 'avoid' a lure. If they are not eating and do not eat the lure, it is no more the fish 'avoiding' the lure than 'avoiding' baitfish in the area. Some folks think I don't believe fish can be conditioned. I've tried really hard in this discussion to convince every one they CAN be and are. Lots of repeated similar/same stimuli = reduced response which requires a heightened activity level OR heightened stimulus OR a combination of both to get the response we want.
http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/wasserman/glossary/stimuli.... |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | I took that statement to mean that neutral fish simply weren't provoked into hitting a lure. That is my argument actually--the determining factor as to whether or not inactive or "neutral" fish might be turned, is the angler...and not necessarily the choice of the lure. When the angler in the camera boat started burning his lure through the water after many anglers were not doing so, an (apparently) neutral fish was provoked into striking. Admittedly, there may have been other reasons for this (the fish wasn't there before?), but it certainly could have been the increased retrieval speed.
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Tom, you are on the same wavelength as me here. |
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Posts: 2015
| Thanks for the link Steve, BA in Psychology 16 years ago...looks like a study sheet for a few tests many moons ago  |
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Posts: 2361
| sworrall - 4/11/2012 7:29 PM
Some folks think I don't believe fish can be conditioned.
But that is only a very small subgroup, of the already very small subgroup of posters here that actually believe you exist. Not to worry. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Enigma.
Or not...
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Location: Green Bay, WI | sworrall - 4/11/2012 7:36 PM
Tom, you are on the same wavelength as me here.
Cool... Not sure though--is that good for me, or bad for you?
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