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| muskydope - 2/22/2008 10:33 PM
With out a doubt! Although I will admit that certain lures always seem to produce a fish or two. Think about it, if you see the same car tearing down the street every day, you'll probably look twice before crossing the road.
You are assuming muskies are as smart as you...giving human attributes to animals is how peta makes its pitch. A muskies brain is the size of the tip of your pinky...has no idea about speeding cars... |
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Location: Illinois | Musky behavior is not rational. It is instinctual. Muskies can be caught twenty times and each time is like the first time to the fish. They do not have memories. Period. Musky stalk their prey. They follow some around, they attack others. After being caught, a musky will "shut down" because it is too tired to feed. But even as it is recouping, it has no idea why it's tired or what it was just put through. It will not be wary of anything more than usual. They follow their primal urges to feed because of the instinct to survive. They might flee if the "feel" threatened for example spooked by the boat. They are programmed to eat, not to avoid lures with hooks! The cannot "learn" jack squat.
The myth of over-pressured lakes containing conditioned muskies makes me laugh! I think everyone would be better served to just chalk it up to a tough day than to blame overcrowding for their lack of success. I respect if you feel otherwise. That's why this forum is great. Differing opinions make for interesting threads!
Mike Witowski |
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Location: Stevens Point, WI | ulbian - 2/22/2008 7:50 PM
Merckid - 2/22/2008 8:20 PM
How do you know the capture was a bad experience?
TJ,
I simply feel compelled to ask....in your opinion, from a fish's point of view, what makes an experience of a fish being captured good or bad?
Ulbian,
That was precisely the question.
When we can ask the fish and get an answer, we'll know. One assumes it's a bad experience, but that's from a human perspective. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Anthropomorphism, Ben.
Think of it this way, a stimulus encountered the very first time will always elicit the strongest response possible under the conditions. If the stimulus becomes a common occurrence, the response will diminish accordingly. Is that 'conditioning'? In a pure sense, yes, but the fish isn't making any value judgment or reasoning anything out, the stimulus simply becomes more commonplace and is reacted to accordingly, or...the fish would die. Not because of the lure, because of the 'rules' surrounding good use of expended energy and many other factors.
Most strikes are a direct strike response to the stimulus a bait 'footprint' makes. The very first time that footprint is encountered, it is very unique, and must be reacted to as such or the fish doesn't survive. Basic rule, not the bait...
A fish in a state 'neutral or negative' to stimulus/response will react even with a possible strike response the first time a 'new' footprint is encountered. In that same state, after 10,000 encounters, very predictably....nothing. Now increase the level of response controlled by the environment, and that footprint gets a stronger response. Place that 'footprint' in front of a fish when they are 'moving' and you get a fish on. Still a far stronger stimulus that a perch swimming softly by.
The muskie doesn't know what a line is, a lure is, a boat is, and they don't care.
Of COURSE if you relocate a fish, stress it by capture, and possibly screw up every rhythm the fish operates under in that process, where it was may not be where it ends up short term, and in some cases long term. Doesn't mean it 'hid' or is 'afraid' of that experience happening again, they cannot reason that way and that's a fact. In most cases it simply means the fish moved as a result of the event. At the least, capture displaced that fish from it's normal movement by what, minimum of 60 feet (you tell me)...that is considerable when talking the movement of any fish along a predictable path on any one day.
There isn't a lure out there that behaves in a natural fashion. Not one. If the fish were smart enough to not hit after one exposure, they wouldn't have fallen for it the first time.
Dealing with fish in an enclosed environment is totally different that in the natural. A fish in a tank can be repeatedly exposed to classical conditioning techniques, and will slowly condition in a very predictable manner. That's a controlled environment and MANY MANY MANY times the exposures than a fish in a lake or river would encounter. Release that fish from the controlled environment, and back to basic survival and normal behavior.
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| I have to agree with that. Let's not anthropomorphize these creatures and give them traits that only humans can possess. I think that fish are fascinating enough as they are, pinky sized brains and all. Humans looking twice before crossing the road is more of an example of reasoning and rational learned behavior than a conditioned learned response. Cognitive learning and conditioned learning both exist, but they are two entirely different things. For it to be an applicable example pertaining to fish, humans would need to suffer the experience of being hit by a car before we could be conditioned to avoid crossing the street when hearing a car coming. It would have to be a behavior caused by traumatic stresses or pain to be considered a conditioned response. Fortunately for us, and for our insurance premiums, we can be happy that we all have higher functioning brains and don't need to experience stimuli that are stressful enough to trigger our fight or flight responses when they are repeated. We know that crossing the road when a car is coming is bad, because mommy told us so and because we know that a ton of steel at 50 mph is the start and end of a bad day.
But I do have to say that the pinky sized parts of a fish brain that are shared with human beings, are also the parts of the brain that studies have shown to be responsible for conditioned behaviors in most vertebrates. Rudimentary organs, yes, essential for survival, that too. There are lots of studies on this, easy to find just by searching the internet, and I haven't read any yet that I find hard to believe. And yes, they are controlled experiments, but I don't see why anyone would have a problem accepting a scientific study that was performed in a controlled environment. The only way to be sure that the responses were not caused by outside stimuli is to perform the experiment in a controlled setting. I think that the argument that lakes are uncontrolled environments with lots of different stimuli goes more towards explaining why fish can be caught more than once. Simply too many stimuli to sort it all out for all of the fish in the lake, all of the time.
But I really don't think that anyone can guess what effect it truly has on fishing based on their own personal experiences on the waters. This is bad science at best no matter how many muskies you have moved, caught or re-caught. Because the truth is, you have an affect on the animals that alters their behavior, and makes any credible scientific observation impossible. Especially when we are talking about muskies that will follow a lure but fail to strike it. This is an example in which you would have to argue that the fish is torn by two conditioned responses, the positive learned response of a past meal, and the negative learned response of a fight or flight experience. While it is may very well be true, it is still one of many myriad possibilities, and, as such, it will always be impossible to determine the true reasons behind this behavior. Unless of course someone figures out how to conduct interviews directly with the fish. But so far, I haven't had any muskies talk back to me, and when I do, I'm not gonna blow one of my three wishes finding out why he chose to eat my bait at that particular moment. I'm getting money, immortality, and a sexier fishing partner than my brother.
Personally I accept that fish can become conditioned to being caught on lures. Maybe as a result there are fish that will never eat a lure again. Maybe they will only eat lures that don't trigger the same response as the one that caught them. Maybe the fish that are caught and don't eat lures ever again, survive to spawn fish that never eat a lure at all! (There are some articles I've read that say that genetic learning occurs in fish, which would bring a whole new dimension to this argument.) But all these are only possibilities, and can only affect a portion of the fish population and likely, for only a portion of the time. And regardless, they are still only controlled by conditioned responses, unlike humans, who have the wonderful capability of cognitive learning and and critical thinking. And therefore, we can adjust to any conditions we encounter on the water and still catch some fish using the many parts of the brain that the fish don't possess. We may not catch all of them, but enough to keep going fishing and to have a good time. I haven't learned enough yet to stop fishing Lake Webster yet, even with all the pressure the waters get, because I still manage to tangle with plenty of fish that haven't "learned?" any better. They are only fish after all. But oh, how I love them. The ones that bite, anyway.
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| I remember when I got my first degree, and we had a debate about this very topic. I actually went to some of my friends that were biologists with the question, and one of the most interesting, and sort of prof holding, responses that was found was that most apex predatory species (musky, walleye, pike...each in their own sort of environment would be apex) could not be trained to pellets, regardless of the nutrition, regardless os stimulus, regardless of anything. They do not condition to it. It was taken steps further to include that they could not be conditioned to NOT eat a bait when they were hungry, the same baits over and over again. They do what they do, because they eat, more than anything else.
If you look at trout, for example, they are able to be conditioned in many ways, scent, pellet size, fly patterns, color....many variables apply. Smallmouth, are able to be condition in many ways as well. As are largemouth.
The thing with conditioning, is that there has to be a reinforcement, an end result, if you will (I'm sure than Mr Winther could expound on this, should he happen to choose to do so, I certainly won't because I understand it well enough to know what I need to in my field.) Saying that a 'ski can be conditioned is the same as saying they have a "memory" from any of the research I've ever seen on the subject, there is nothing conclusive. There is conclusive evidence that other species do have a memory of sorts, and are therefore able to be trained. (Again, feed training as a point of reference.)
Can they be conditioned, no. I'm FAR from a professional, be it in fisheries management, or in the case of Muskies at all, but have read on the subject to a fair degree.
In response the individiual bodies of water and pressure on those bodies: I think that, to a degree, fish will have their quirks. It isn't necessarily indicative of conditioning. Having a large sampling of fish in one water body do the same thing over and over, and over again, would be conclusive, but I don't think ANY of us have fished a body of water and moved enough fish in the exact same manner at the exact same time of day in the exact same conditions with the exact bait, in the exact presentation, with the exact speed, with the exact.... well, you sort of get it, I think? If we are talking pure conditioning, that would have to be occuring for these fish to do something over and over.
sworrall - 2/22/2008 11:15 PM
Dealing with fish in an enclosed environment is totally different that in the natural. A fish in a tank can be repeatedly exposed to classical conditioning techniques, and will slowly condition in a very predictable manner. That's a controlled environment and MANY MANY MANY times the exposures than a fish in a lake or river would encounter. Release that fish from the controlled environment, and back to basic survival and normal behavior.
That's sort of what I was getting at, as far as being in a classical conditioning scenario on the water. We cant do that. Even with the abillity to do so in a tank, muskies show much less likelihood to fall subject to this process. (and, it has been suggested to me why they often don't fare well in captive environments.)
I didn't realize there was a second page to it, but Mr. Worrall summed up pretty well what I was having a helluva time saying. (it's late, I'm tired and was in surgery for a long time today)
Edited by Whoolligan 2/23/2008 1:01 AM
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| Merckid - 2/23/2008 12:01 AM
ulbian - 2/22/2008 7:50 PM
Merckid - 2/22/2008 8:20 PM
How do you know the capture was a bad experience?
TJ,
I simply feel compelled to ask....in your opinion, from a fish's point of view, what makes an experience of a fish being captured good or bad?
Ulbian,
That was precisely the question.
When we can ask the fish and get an answer, we'll know. One assumes it's a bad experience, but that's from a human perspective.
My question was not meant to be taken seriously. Perhaps I could have worded it like this: "What do you do to make a fish have a good experience when captured?"
I try to wear colors that blend in with the sky in the background. My release tools all have enough tape on the handles to they are padded. That way if I drop one and it bonks the fish on the head it won't hurt as much. When I'm working a fish at boatside I'll set some lit tea candles and a stick of burning incense on the gunnel just to create a relaxing ambiance while she regains her spunk. It's the little things that matter... |
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| Peaches - 2/22/2008 8:57 PM
Haven't studies shown that a muskie diet is made up mostly of soft scaled fish like suckers, and not of spiny fish like walleyes. Isn't that condtioning? Just because one fish does it doesn't mean that the next isn't condtioned to a certain situation.
Jeff
Yes they have...however is that preference because of conditioning or because of the ease and efficiency of catching a sucker as opposed to a panfish? If they can be conditioned to avoid eating perch then why do perch baits work so well? On a lake with little to no soft scaled forage, with only the spiny variety to eat, if negative conditioning takes place in muskies with only spiny rayed prey to eat I would expect the muskie population to die off from starvation.
Back to the whole human element...How many "conditioned" responses do we have that stacks our odds against catching a fish? Or what types of routines are we so stuck in that hurt our chances? Can the way you work a bait become too robotic, and not erratic enough that it won't trigger a response from a fish that sees it? Or how about on a figure 8....we all have preferences on how to do them. An 8, L turn, big circle, walking laps around your boat, etc. Do our preferred boatside maneuvers become too much of a routine that we are unable to change things up when a fish is engaged to something that will trigger the desired response in that fish? |
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| In response to Whooligan, you are right, in that there needs to be some type of reinforcement for conditioning to occur. But how could an experiment where fish didn't eat pellets result in a conclusion that the fish didn't eat the pellets because they didn't have the capacity to be conditioned in the first place. I'm not saying that you aren't correct, I just don't understand how the conclusions from that experiment could be reached. It doesn't seem to be a well thought out experiment, more of an assumption based on facts that are not in evidence. Were the fish force fed the pellets and then refused to eat them again when they were starving at a later time? Not sure how this sort of conclusion could be reached based on a lack of any type of stimulus existing in the first place. Hunger is not a stimulus that would cause fish to eat pellets unless they had already done so. The only other way for that to occur would be that the fish possess rational thought and knew that the pellets represented food, which is something that is obviously impossible.
But if there was some way that they found that they could scientifically conclude that predatory fish would not respond to conditioning and eat pellets, there is absolutely no reasoning that could lead to the extraordinary leap that this would also mean that fish could not be conditioned to avoid lures. That is not the way science works. The equation of pellets plus fish equals lack of response does not include lures anywhere in the equation. You need an independent experiment showing that fish plus lures equals a lack of response to prove that this is occurring. That is the only experiment that could be acceptable scientifically and there are very few studies showing that this occurs, and no conclusive ones available that I have read, which is why this argument has no real answer.
So that also means that the jump from the conclusion that fish show behavior as a result of the positive stimuli of feeding also throws out the assumption that lures can create a learned response in muskie as well based on the food based studies. It simply shows that fish have the capacity to show learned behavior based on re-occurring stimuli relating to food over a period of time. No lures in the equation there either. Stalemate.
The other factor that is different in both equations is the type of stimuli involved. Nourishment would be the positive reinforcment in the first, which is found in goldfish studies to be likely to occur in the Cerebellum of the brain, which is found in both fish and man. But a more basic negative reinforcement is occuring in the second equation, which is the basic fight or flight response, which occurs in the rudimentary nervous system that is possessed by both fish and man. In the second experiment, it would be the negative stimuli experienced by the fish that would occur when the fish is on the line. We know that floods of chemicals rush through the nervous system of a fish that is fighting to escape being caught, by line, or by another fish. It has nothing to do with emotions like fear or unease which fish are incapable of, it is a basic chemical response that is essential for survival. Muskies feel no such things as anger or fear or unease. But that doesn't mean it is not possible that fight or flight responses don't alter the behavior of the fish. So intense are these chemicals that they can alter the chemistry of the body and overpower most other bodily functions including digestion. Not hard to make the assumption that they can permanently alter the brain as well. Still just an assumption though no matter how well thought out.
There simply needs to be better studies done to show that fish caught on lures can learn to avoid them in the future. I would theorize that when the correct study occurs it will show that the fish can learn avoidance behaviors. But to what degree, I don't know. Is the negative experience great enough to change behavior after one occurrence? Several? Would one lure do the trick? Or only on the type of lure that was used? I don't know. It is a compelling theory, and there have been a few studies that show that this may occur in bass in ponds with very few negative occurrences, but they are not the best scientific models to base a conclusion on. The environments were not controlled to prevent other outside factors from possibly influencing the behavior.
But with all the fishermen on the water, and all the lures available to fish it is another good argument that most of the time when fish are caught on a certain lure by several different fishermen, that it is more likely a case of people jumping on the hot lure bandwagon than fish conditioning affecting the outcome. But what about the fish that aren't biting? And why do fish avoid suckers sometimes when it is quite obviously food? Too many questions are out there and it is fun to think we have all the answers, but I think deep down it is a lot more fun not really knowing. What would fishing for these things be like without all the mystery.
I need bed now...... |
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Location: Illinois | does anyone know where I can get the CliffNotes versions of toad's posts? LOL  |
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Location: Black Creek, WI | I think similarly to Worrall on the Conditioning topic. I don't believe it is a factor for us as anglers.
However, I do believe Angling Pressure affects fish... and this is probably what many people confuse for "conditioning".
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Location: Stevens Point, WI | I agree 100% on what you said Jlong. I think that is exactly what Sworrall is getting at. |
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| ulbian - 2/23/2008 1:24 AM
Peaches - 2/22/2008 8:57 PM
Haven't studies shown that a muskie diet is made up mostly of soft scaled fish like suckers, and not of spiny fish like walleyes. Isn't that condtioning? Just because one fish does it doesn't mean that the next isn't condtioned to a certain situation.
Jeff
Yes they have...however is that preference because of conditioning or because of the ease and efficiency of catching a sucker as opposed to a panfish? If they can be conditioned to avoid eating perch then why do perch baits work so well? On a lake with little to no soft scaled forage, with only the spiny variety to eat, if negative conditioning takes place in muskies with only spiny rayed prey to eat I would expect the muskie population to die off from starvation.
Isn't conditioning the same as ease and efficiency? Suckers are easy to catch and nummy so a muskie gets conditioned to targeting them for a meal. If the same muskie that eats suckers all the time decides to eat a couple perch one day is that fish "unconditioned"? I say no...the fish was just hungry and ate the first thing that swam by. |
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Location: Lake Tomahawk, WI | BenR - 2/22/2008 9:03 PM
I fished the fox chain of lakes for a long time and numerous 10 plus fish days. I also caught my second 50 plus incher there. It is the highest pressure muskie water there is. Take the eagle chain in WI...huge amounts of pressure, but lots of fish caught because it is a numbers game. .Ben
I completely agree. Yes, there are still a lot of fish caught out of Webster, the Fox, Eagle River Chain, etc, but you missed my point. Close the Fox Chain for 10 years and tell me that the fish wouldn't be EASIER to catch when it reopened. Your 10 fish days would become 20 fish days.
JS |
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| I would go out on a limb here and say that fish in a controlled environment is not even close to the same thing. Let alone a goldfish. As I said, realistically a bucktail would be one of the worst baits of all time due to the amount that anglers throw them. But year after year some of the fattest pigs eat hair. I'm no fish, but I would assume that no other prey item in a system gives off lateral line vibration like a bucktail, and the thing looks nothing like a fish... Making it pretty easy to be conditioned to a bad experience. |
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Location: Rhinelander, WI | jlong - 2/23/2008 7:50 AM
However, I do believe Angling Pressure affects fish... and this is probably what many people confuse for "conditioning".
You can't get off that easy, please explain.
In my opinion some of you want to have it both ways.
Yes they can be conditioned in controlled environments, but it would “NEVER” happen in a lake system, “it’s just to large”
If the brain can be conditioned it can be conditioned, doesn’t matter if it’s a controlled environment or not.
No doubt it’s easier to do in a tank, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen in a lake.
Many people every year catch a bunch of fish because they do stuff different, find that little something different that doesn’t trip the avoidance meter and it possible an extra fish or two can be caught each year.
I’ll say it again, if there was no conditioning there would be no need to ever change baits, everything would always elicit a strike. It’ a waste of energy for the fish otherwise, something has to be driving that avoidance behavior.
You can’t think of it like your conditioning a human, a dog or even a mouse. You need to think of it like you are conditioning a fish. A good friend of mine had the blue gills that lived near their dock conditioned to come to the dock when they heard the bread pan scrape on the bench. They new food was coming and these where natural fish living in a natural lake of over 100 acres.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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Location: On the water | All I know is that since musky fishing began,
musky have been eating black bucktails with silver blades
and they are still eating them!
Conditioned???
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Mike,
Nothing to do with the lake size, really. Mr. Sloan is correct, close the system to fishing for 10 years, and when it opens the fish will be easier to catch, but NOT because they know or don't know what a lure is. Lure footprint stimulus will be 'new' and response will be high. After 250000 times through the water, response will be less. Is that conditioning? In a strict sense, yes, but not in the sense most ask the question. The fish are NOT displaying avoidance behavior, the presentation just plain becomes part of the normal landscape. See my previous post... |
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| If something changes the way it behaves becasue of another factor, ie pressure, would that not constitute some sort of conditioning, adaptation, whatever you want to call it.
IF we banned fishing on a certain lake that had crazy pressure, How long do you think it would take for the fish to addapt to NO fishing pressure?
You can not say that pressure does not affect the fish.
I have watched my local sewer, not tonka, turn to a fantastic night bite. NOT becasue of night feeding opportunites, but daytime fishing pressure. sure i have caught fishi in the day there. But if I want the BEST opp at a fish, it will be dark out and two boats not twenty.
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| What about figure 8 fish. Why on some lake do fish stay in the 8 longer than other fish in other lakes. TOnka vs LOTW. IF i get a fish in the 8 on LOTW it is done. There are many other bodies of water like this. Get a fish near the boat on a highly pressured lake and your % of commitments just went down. Is this not some sort of conditioning, adaptation. |
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Location: Rhinelander, WI | sworrall - 2/23/2008 10:00 AM
...Lure footprint stimulus will be 'new' and response will be high. After 250000 times through the water, response will be less. Is that conditioning? In a strict sense, yes, but not in the sense most ask the question. The fish are NOT displaying avoidance behavior, the presentation just plain becomes part of the normal landscape. See my previous post...
verb con•di•tioned, con•di•tion•ing, con•di•tions
7. Psychology - To cause an organism to respond in a specific manner to a conditioned stimulus in the absence of an unconditioned stimulus.
Yes based on the definition I would call it conditioning.
I am going to go at this a little different and ask a few questions of those who feel conditioning is a bunch of baloney:
Explain the theory of match the hatch.
For walleye explain why minnows are good in the spring, crayfish are good in early summer, leaches are good in late summer and minnows are again good in the fall.
Explain the trolling motor avoidance some researchers have seen when tracking musky. If I remember correctly some fish after being caught could no longer be approached with the trolling motor running the rest of that season. The researchers had to drift over the fish to get close. Conditioning?
If there is no conditioning, wouldn’t the lure that elicits the strongest stimuli always get bit. I.E. visual, touch(vibration in case of a fish), sound, and smell. If you had a lure that could always combine these elements and get noticed it should always get eaten. There would be no reason not to. If it moves its food. There should never be a follow, as that is a waste of energy. Please explain why this is not the case.
By the way this is why I think a bucktail is such a perfect musky bait, it combines many of the above elements to the point that they trigger the fish to forget about survival in favor of a meal.
This is not a black and white issue, All fish do not react the same way and even the same fish will react differently depending on a host of conditions.
I think saying there is “NO” conditioning in fish is similar to saying “All musky will bite at sunset.” Or “all musky will be on the windy side of the reef.” There are “NO” absolutes.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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Location: Black Creek, WI | Mike,
Of course there are no absolutes.
But... I think your examples of positive reinforcement (selective feeding or exploiting the most abundant food source) are more realistic than an "avoidance" type behavior. How many times does a musky get caught in a season versus how many times it feeds? 1:100? 1:1000? 1:10000?
And since you are an engineer, I know you understand these ratios to help explain the impact of angling pressure and how it may give the PERCEPTION of conditioning. If fish are more difficult to catch... the easy explanation is to blame it on "conditioning" and that they are "educated" to their tactics. Quite honestly, I think its a simple game of PROBABILITY.
If there is a feeding window happening for 10 fish in a 200 acre lake.... and say it will last 1 hour. Will you have a better chance at catching a fish if you are fishing the lake ALL ALONE or if you are fishing it with 10 other boats? If you are efficient, you might catch all 10 of those fish if you are able to get YOUR lure in front of each of them. But, if there are 10 boats out there.... odds are that someone else will "burn" a few of those fish before you get a chance at them.... thus you have fewer opportunities from that same feeding window. And you may be tempted to blame your lack of success on "conditioned fish" from all the angling pressure.... rather than accept the fact that some of those "opportunities" were either taken advantage of by the other anglers or perhaps "messed up" by those anglers by initiating a "flight response" or altering their "mood" so that they are either not there when you go looking for them... or no longer in an aggressive state from the "window". |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Mike,
there wasn't any true 'trolling motor avoidance' there, actually. that entire portion of that 'study' was fabricated, for the most part. |
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Location: Illinois | MRoberts - 2/23/2008 11:15 AM
verb con•di•tioned, con•di•tion•ing, con•di•tions
**is there a syllable debate I'm unaware of?
I am going to go at this a little different and ask a few questions of those who feel conditioning is a bunch of baloney:
Explain the theory of match the hatch.
**Choosing lures that look like the predominant forage, duh!
For walleye explain why minnows are good in the spring, crayfish are good in early summer, leaches are good in late summer and minnows are again good in the fall.
**They're easy to find-Why is McDonald's so popular?
Explain the trolling motor avoidance some researchers have seen when tracking musky. If I remember correctly some fish after being caught could no longer be approached with the trolling motor running the rest of that season. The researchers had to drift over the fish to get close. Conditioning?
** I'm not familiar with this study, but unless by "some fish" you mean 60% than I wouldn't feel they were "conditioned", but simply wanted some quiet time. I'd be curious to read more about this study, so if you can post a link I'd be grateful. 
If there is no conditioning, wouldn’t the lure that elicits the strongest stimuli always get bit. I.E. visual, touch(vibration in case of a fish), sound, and smell. If you had a lure that could always combine these elements and get noticed it should always get eaten. There would be no reason not to. If it moves its food.
**Maybe the lure wasn't close enough to the musky's mouth/general vicinity, and/or your retrieve was not strike-provoking enough.
There should never be a follow, as that is a waste of energy. Please explain why this is not the case.
**Muskies can be curious creatures. Perhaps they are acting in a "territorial" manner and bullying our lures out of their neighborhood. Just because we don't get to see muskies "bully" perch, doesn't mean it never happens. Suckers get harassed by muskies frequently without intentions of a meal.
By the way this is why I think a bucktail is such a perfect musky bait, it combines many of the above elements to the point that they trigger the fish to forget about survival in favor of a meal.
**Nice flip-flop. Are they conditioned or not?
This is not a black and white issue, All fish do not react the same way and even the same fish will react differently depending on a host of conditions.
I think saying there is “NO” conditioning in fish is similar to saying “All musky will bite at sunset.” Or “all musky will be on the windy side of the reef.” There are “NO” absolutes.
**Amen, brother! So according to the "no absolutes" rule, a "conditioned" fish may abandon it's "learned" responses and let loose once in a while? Okay, that's feasible- but I'm staying in the "muskies are dumb" camp. I think this has become a debate over semantics rather than ideology.
Nail A Pig!
**mmmmmm.....pork!
Mike
**Mike W
ps- I realize that you forgot more about musky than perhaps what I think I know, but what Steve said holds the most water IMHO, but kudos for sticking to your guns
Edited by muskellunged 2/23/2008 2:43 PM
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Posts: 32927
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | There is no 'match the hatch' in Muskie angling, IMHO.
For walleyes, what one uses in the Spring is good. I start with crawlers opening day.
'If there is no conditioning, wouldn’t the lure that elicits the strongest stimuli always get bit.'
That depends on location of the lure and the location of the fish, the angler using the lure(presentation), the frequency of exposure VS variables effecting response (mood), and about a thousand other variables. One lure rules the day under one condition, another lure under another condition.
I'm not saying there is 'no' conditioning, I'm saying there is NO conditioning as the subject was approached and as most interpret the question. Fish CAN learn.
A follow is a response to a stimulus (or series of) that is not strong enough to elicit a strike response, again for any number of multiple variables.
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Posts: 906
Location: Warroad, Mn | I'm not real sure about muskies just because of the frequency that conditioning has to occur for fish to be conditioned, but I have see examples of conditioned fish. I used to go to a large trout hatchery at the Wolf Creek dam on Lake Cumberland.The trout where fed pellets. There was a pellet dispenser at the end of one of the troughs, and all you had to do was to walk up to this dispenser and every trout in the trough would start to swim toward you whether you bought any pellets or not. I talked to one of the folks who worked there, and we talked about this a little. He says you want to see something about conditioning, and he walked along the trough and every fish started to become very active They recognized him as the one who feeds them. He walked over to the tractor that pulls the pellet dispenser and started it up. Every fish in the place was immediately on the surface and swirling around rapidly in search of food, even though they hadn't been fed. To me this would be a classic example of true conditioning. The response isn't due to actual feeding, but in reaction to another stimuli that was learned. I have seen something very similar with northern pike. At the resort I used to stay at the owner first thing in the morning would scoop the dead minnows out of the minnow tank and toss them in the lake. The northern pike would gather in front of the dock as soon as he would walk out on the dock, and would aggressively hit the dead minnows as they where tossed out. Once the minnow tossing was done with the northerns would disperse and you wouldn't see they till the next morning. These fish where only there the first thing in the morning, and the rest of the day they where gone. If the owner walked down and threw a few minnows out in the afternoon there weren't any northerns. It only occurred on a regular time schedule. He only had to walk on the dock in the morning and the fish would show up, but at no other time where they there. In both cases food was the key. Whether or not anything occurs like this in a muskie population is subject to a great deal of discussion, but with probably very little proof one way or the other. Doug Johnson |
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| jlong - 2/23/2008 11:49 AM
But... I think your examples of positive reinforcement (selective feeding or exploiting the most abundant food source) are more realistic than an "avoidance" type behavior. How many times does a musky get caught in a season versus how many times it feeds? 1:100? 1:1000? 1:10000?
I think it depends on how strong the conditioning influence is J-long. A positive reinforcement may take many occurrences to cause conditioning in a fish. But a fish that is caught is given a negative reinforcement that you could hypothesize is much more likely to cause a change in behavior over a shorter period of time than that of a fish that has simply received nourishment. We know that when a fish is fighting to escape, its body releases chemicals such as lactic acids, endorphines and adrenaline that have been shown to be able to alter the brain and nervous system. As I said in the earlier post, the result of a flight or fight response in animals can cause the cessation of many bodily functions, including digestion. This would seem to indicate that it is a more drastic influence than that of nourishment, which would make sense, because an influence that has the potential to cause the death of an animal would need to be reacted to more strongly and with less occurrences of the stimuli. The area of the brain that studies have shown is involved in the conditioning of a fish during the feeding response, is a much more advanced part of the brain than that which controls the flight or fight response. Those primitive parts of the brain and nervous system involved developed earlier in the evolution of animals because they were more important to survival. The stimuli of nourishment could also be of lesser importance when you consider that a muskie is at the top of the food chain and is an efficient predator and has very little need of positive reinforcement to achieve a successful meal. No tricks or learning is needed for a fish that can eat a meal of its choosing whenever it needs to.
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| Oops, that was me. And I messed up the quote part too. Only the first part was J-long's quote. See, this debate has got my head messed up. |
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Posts: 793
Location: Ames, Iowa | I tied on a hookless "powerbait" worm and presented it to a smallmouth bass in a local stream over and over again until he quit trying to consume it. I tied on a similarly sized and colored real live worm and he wouldn't touch it. Came back a few minutes later and pow, he hammered it. Did he forget in that much time?
I wonder if by conditioned we mean memory. I think Esox addict and Dacron have it right on the 1st page. After a fish responds (bites) to a stimulus enough times without being satisfied, does it change its response (no bite) to that stimulus, and how long does it take the fish to return to the first response (biting) when the original stimulus is presented?
Not very long. To say otherwise, that is that the fish is conditioned, denotes remembering or learning. That is giving these critters with such small brains alot of credit. If fish were conditioned to avoid boats, then they wouldn't be caught on the most popular spots on the lake- but they are. They don't seem to have memories of boats. Maybe they flee from boats because they are big and dark and loud and fast, a threat. Maybe a predator/fish/bird/lizard/frog, because of the way that it is wired with its large eyes forward facing, associates movement with food. In my koi pond, my fish get excited and ready to feed when another fish makes a splash at the surface, a bird lands near the water to drink, or when someone walks along the pond trail. It would be great to find the answers to these questions about fish memory and learning, but in the real muskie world this kind of research seems impossible to complete.
I saw a lot of stimulus response when I worked on the Iowa Cooperative Fisheries unit tiger muskie project many years ago. I see a lot of conditioning, memory, and learning working with behavior disordered adolescents now. Big difference in brains. For what its worth.
djw |
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Posts: 2091
Location: Stevens Point, WI | No, if they became conditioned they would never eat again. Nearly everything you hear about this is anthropomorphism. |
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