Way out reasons fish strike lures - though not so way out to me

[SenkoSam]

First off, lures - not brains - are what matters when it comes to provoking fish to strike.
For as long as lures have been mass-produced, a belief system has evolved that supported using them. When it comes to the media that mention or sells lures, anglers want to hear what they already believe is true and factual regarding strikes and how to get them. In other words: a narrative takes precedence over fact as to why fish strike lures vs prey. Lure companies and their salesmen (pro anglers sponsored by them) cater to their audience while delegitimizing facts and the truth.
Some fallacies are:
1. Fish tire or become wary of the same lures that caught fish recently or that they even
    remember the lure they were caught on

2. Fish can be line-shy caused by line diameter thickness requiring the need for
    fluorocarbon - a semi-clear line.

3. Fish are capable of fear (though simple avoidance IMO may be a better word).

4. Fish only strike a lure to eat it or kill it, thinking it is an animal.

5. Fish compare or associate lures to real prey (matching) before striking and therefore:

6. Fish pick & choose only lures based on their recognition of them, preferring
    certain lures at times based on:

7. Fish recognizing prey anatomy such as eyes, scales, gills, fins, claws and antennae
    that are added to lures for effect.  (And yet large treble hooks and line are ignored?)

8. Fish strike out of curiosity.

9. Fish think logically and prefer natural-looking lures.

10. Fish have color preferences depending on their thought process at the time,  i.e.
      prey of a certain color.

11. Fish smell and taste – especially scented lures – that contributes to the strike while
        disregarding the fact that many lures, in general, move too fast to be smelled or
         tasted. (note: I've caught many catfish on lures they should have avoided
         considering the fact that they detect smell better than any freshwater fish.)

12. the greatest of all fallacies:  fish think

My point of view:
1. Fish are as dumb if not dumber than most vertebrates and are incapable of having a thought process. The IQ of all fish is 0 which, shoots down the idea that lures fool fish into striking. A guided missile is programmed to strike a specific target. It doesn't think, it just attacks. (sidenote: I've trapped mice that, regardless of seeing another mouse dead in a nearby trap, go for the bait in another and are killed. Talk about a lack or correlating ability!)

2. Fish are incapable of emotions such as hate, fear, curiosity or domination. They do not
    prefer or have a thought-out preference for lures. Protection of the nest by males after the spawn, is programmed into a fish's DNA.

3.  Fish, like any wild animal, have senses - not sense - that are cued to their water
     environment and to their survival, those being the lateral line, ears and  eyes.

4. When it comes to vision, fish can feed on a moonless night with no problem, where color is not a factor and less so in murky or deep water. Sun angle, cloud cover and shade also affect color (hue) accuracy comparable to what humans see above water in the dark or at sundown. In fact, no waters I fish are crystal clear, so how can color be important? (More on that later.)

Why is all the above worth considering?
1. lures have caught fish for thousands of years – few that resembled anything in nature.
    Here are a few examples:
a. One Roman writer near the end of the 2nd century first described the practice of "
  fastening red wool to a round a hook, and fit on to the wool along with two feathers
    which grow under a cocks wattles" which were used on the Aestreas River." (BTW, you
    won't catch me near a cocks wattles no matter how good it catches fish!)

b."Nordic people have been making spoon lures from the 8th-13th century AD. Most of the lures were made from iron, bronze, copper, and in one case an iron hook soldered to a copper spoon."  note: I myself have caught bass on a metal spoon handle that I cut off and attached a treble hook with a split ring.

c. The Chinese made wooden surface lures and also used silk on hooks to catch fish as
    early as 960–1279 AD.
Why did those lures and, for that matter any lure ever made, catch fish?
Answer: simple biology  – much of it comparable to any animal or human detection and reaction to - stimuli.
stimulus - a thing that rouses activity or energy in someone or something

When it comes to reactions or reaction strikes, depends on the source that caused those reactions. Basically, animals react to sight and sound stimuli sometimes instantly, sometimes over a longer period. When I feel an itch or tickle – I immediately scratch it. Something doesn't taste or feel right in my mouth, I spit it out. When I smell something good to eat on an empty stomach, I salivate. No thought process is involved when it comes to involuntary responses. That which humans and land animals smell, taste and feel, as compared to fish, is as different as air is to water
    On a clear day, humans can see objects clearly thousands of feet or even miles away such as stars and the moon. Fish see through a water filter that reduces visual distance and therefore depend on the lateral line to determine the characteristics of any moving object via its vibrations. Once an object gets near enough, fish can see how big it is, its speed and direction of movement and shape. More than that, it can see a lure's action and take note of the most subtle of movements. To accomplish this a fish's senses serve to:
1. target moving objects (like a programmed guided missile)

2. once tracking starts, it then uses its other senses to do one of two things: leave the
    object be or bite it. But why bite it? Maybe it's because the unknown thing
   (lure) irritates its acute sense of feel along with any fine motions detected by the
    eye, further holding its attention.

To sum it all up, in my opinion a fish's brain functions like a basic computer that receives input via its senses - which is everything when it comes to the strike. Depending on a fish's level of agitation or activity level, a lure sends out vibrations a fish's brain receives and may or may not strike. Some lures provoke strikes better than others of the same type - no question about it. Putting it another way, its brain is programmed to strike when a combination of factors hits a fish's sense just right. But in fact, there is no limit of the various combinations of lure characteristics that provoke aggression – some far superior to others. We've all seen this time and again: not all crankbaits do well nor do all soft plastics of the same shape.
    Feeding activity uses a separate program than that for striking lures. Unique prey movements /detection and tracking is also part of its brain's programming that assumes an animal is edible even if the animal is foreign to its environment such as earthworms or slugs. Fish sense sense the difference - no thought process involved. Fish don't even need to have ever seen an earthworm, but a programmed brain knows it is edible by its movements and shape. Do fish recognize different flies? At birth, I doubt they even know what a fly is much less what different flies are supposed to represent. When it comes to when a fish feeds, there's no predicting it. I doubt their stomachs rumble with hunger. Much of the time opportunity knocks when a prey fish or crawfish gets too near. Of course, when other fish go into a feeding frenzy, there's no reason not to join the party - hungry or not! (Which reminds me of a school of sunfish that get near to where I'm standing on shore daily as I throw bits of bread to them causing a feeding frenzy and the bumping of heads!)
     All of the above is based on the thousands of fish caught on many different lures over many decades, comparing each's strike potential against others. As one who consistently catches fish on different lures on the same day knows, lure basics matter as well as presentations.

Hope you have enjoyed the read. Please don't judge the author.

[SenkoSam]

Edited.

[big g]

Thanks Senko Sam, good job!

[Dark3]

Interesting read!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pat Dilling]

Interesting read.  I agree that fish are pretty dumb.  That said I am convinced that they can become conditioned to lures that are used by many fishermen.  Does not mean none will strike them anymore, just not with the fequency or ease that they did when they first appeared.  Great examples of that are Senkos and Ned rigs.  When those first appeared, it was almost impossible not to get bit on them.  Now that they are being widely used, they still catch fish, but not like they did when they first appeared.  I also believe that fish are curious.  Curious in the sense that they want see if an unknown object is something they can eat.  A great example of that is a buzzbait.  Looks like nothing in nature, but several varieties of fish will attack it.  I also believe that scented lures or atractants help catch fish.  Perhaps not to entice them to strike, but certainly they will hold on to something artificial longer before spitting it out.  I fish a lot of very clear water, visibilty up to 20 feet.  In those situations I believe that eyes on lures make a difference, especially on baitfish type lure that are fished slowly or even statically like a worm on a drop shot or a minnow imitation on a Damiki rig.  Fish generally get a pretty good look at those.  Same it true with big swimbaits that imitate a trout or other large forage.  The more they look and move like the real thing, the better your chances are a fish will hit them. I believe that matching the hatch in size and color can also make a difference.  If fish are feeding heavily on silver bait that is 3 inches long, they pay less attention to something different.    They ae keying on a particular size, color or movement.  Good discussion

[Larry Francis]

Thanks for this post. Makes a ton of sense.

[SenkoSam]

Pat, we agree that we disagree. But hey, if what you or I  believe doesn't limit our catches, who's to say either is wrong? We must be doing something right!

[Pat Dilling]

Pat, we agree that we disagree. But hey, if what you or I  believe doesn't limit our catches, who's to say either is wrong? We must be doing something right!

OF course.  We each have differnet experiences and fish in different condittions.

[SenkoSam]

Same it true with big swimbaits that imitate a trout or other large forage.  The more they look and move like the real thing, the better your chances are a fish will hit them.

I haven't seen swimbaits that do that. Examples?

Granted, there are some lure shapes and actions that are closer than the majority of lures, but very few. Those that do, don't do better than most good lures I've cast that have caught fish - many different ones on the same day in the same lake.
  Curiosity as a reason for the strike is a possibility but has in no way been confirmed, considering the vast majority of strikes are simply reactions. For whatever reason, the slowest-moving lures - define slow - regardless of how forage-like, may or may not provoke fish.
  Proving hunger as the reason hasn't been studied and confirmed, only guessed at as a possible reason. I can't and won't choose lures based on that or any human motive.

[Pat Dilling]

One of my favorites is the River2Sea S-Waver glide bait.  I have caught big largemouth and spotted bass in lakes that have rainbow trout.


Another I have just started experimenting with is the Baca Burrito


The Little Creeper Trash Fish in Hitch color is effective for big fish on Clear Lake in Northern California.


With all of these you get a lot of followers that seem to be examining it.  Can be very frustraing, until one decides to eat it.   You do not get a lot of numbers on these baits, but amazingly, sometimes even a 2 pounder will strike one.

[SenkoSam]

The two on the bottom, like all paddle tails, do not swim like any prey fish, regardless of eyes and fins. Take away the top and bottom fins and eyes and cast in colors like chartreuse or pink, and I bet you'd catch just as many fish and more fish if you went to a jerk minnow that is more natural-like in action (I can't believe I used the word natural in a sentence  )

Again, lure speed tops the list when it comes to my first consideration followed by lure action & shape, and especially when there is a range of speeds/presentations that can be used.

Of course I'm no expert, but I what I share with all of you is based on 40 years of making and using lures and catching thousands of fish that answered questions such as color, size and shape. Also, fishing with different anglers on different waters has taught me a lot regardless of skill level.

[Smallie_Stalker]

("Curiosity as a reason for the strike is a possibility but has in no way been confirmed,)
considering the vast majority of strikes are simply reactions."

@SenkoSam - while I tend to agree with many of your thoughts I would not necessarily agree here because no one has ever confirmed or proven the vast majority of strikes are simply reactions.

Fact: We as humans have no real idea why fish do what they do. We observe and then ascribe our best guesses stating them in human terms that humans can understand. Thus we asceibe human motive (such as "simply reactions") to fish behavior.

However, by your own words, you

"can't and won't choose lures based on that or any human motive."

So then, how do you choose your lures?

For the record I'm not trying to be antagonist or argumentative here. Your posts always spark good dialogue and exchanges of ideas so I am just trying to gain some knowledge from a different perspective of something that none of us truly understand.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[SenkoSam]

SS you are a gentleman I enjoy conversing with. I bet we would be good fishing partners - you possibly outfishing me!  But lure craft and design is a passion/obsession of mine and has been since I tied my first deer hair jig and caught fish on it.
Here are just a few answers to questions I needed answered:
If color is so important, should clear plastic lures catch fish?
My fish bass (any many after that) was caught on a clear plastic Zara Spook. I even paused the lure at times giving bass a good look at. Bass and pickerel slammed it! I bought a florescent pattern (no longer sold) in Fire Tiger - a bright chartruese, orange, lime green back with a black coach dog pattern. Slammed it! The walk-the-dog swish was everything!

Years later I poured clear soft plastic lures in different shapes and did great catching ALL species of fish like the 4 lb catfish (note clear tail) and crappie (large curl tail).
Note: water clarity was never clear and mostly a green-algae suspended and fish were caught regardless.

After hair jigs, I started making living-rubber skirted bass jigs and used Uncle Josh's Pork Frog in #11 and #1 sizes. The skirt color and trailers ranged from all black, brown & orange and chartreuse/orange and black. Slammed by bass either hopped off bottom or swam just off it. Later on, silicone skirts came out with an incredible color selection. Didn't matter - fish hit all of them. Different trailer actions were used and no difference catching SM or LM bass.
But of course the next step was to tie spinnerbaits and experiment with blade sizes & type as well as use many different skirt colors. Short arm/ long arm made no difference - fish slammed them!
Question answered? : does an extremely bright flash put off the strike such as when adding a giant willow leaf blade? Nope!
(note:What prey fish has a bright flash that blinds??!!)

I discovered that crankbaits vary in action depending on lip size and shape. The bigger the lip, the more waddle, the smaller the lip the less waddle. The former did just fine leaving a mud trail/ cloud on bottom or trolled; the later did great for suspending minnow-type shapes. Many also colors did fine.
Questions: do rattles in a crankbait matter? No, both caught bass. (what prey animal rattles?! It seems it would be a clue to stay clear.)
Question: does the side-to-side action matter? No, even though no fish in this world waddles. Note though: a subtle lip action matters when a low presentation is desired.

How about a large Johnson Silver Minnow  Spoon with its wild flipping action with or without trailer and hook gurard?  Good memories catching bass on it!
Question answered: Spoons regardless of shape and action (1/2 oz Hopkins vertically jigged in 15'), are capable of catching fish, despite their totally unnatural action.

What were the fish thinking when they slammed those lures. I stopped thinking about that decades ago and to this day try to discover new and unique actions fish strike. In a sense, being a technician by trade has taught me technical details matter.

Regarding color: if a lure catches fish in certain colors, I ask myself if the hue and brightness enhanced its action. To this day, just to be safe, I use only those colors, whether black, white (and shades of), fluorescent colors, with or without metal flakes and basic hues, that are either subtle in order to enhance subtle actions or bright to stand out big time. Again - I match nothing! But of course, confidence soars after fish are caught consistently using colors unique to a lure.

I realize few anglers have the time, money or interest trying out so many different lures and colors like I have. But my examples are real, tried & true and after so many years can still be counted on with no thought as to what fish were thinking when the got hooked.

[SenkoSam]

So then, how do you choose your lures?

When you go to a restaurant and look at the menu, how do you decide which meal to order? For me, it's usually something I liked from a previous visit or that I'm guessing might be good.
 Choosing lures is like that: caught fish on it = confidence high it will do well once fish are found or
Trying a new lure design and/or color = guessing it might work like any lure cast for the first time.
Yesterday was an example of a fantastic fall bite that blew me away, catching 100 fish on different lures before a 20+ mph wind kicked me off the lake. Lure shapes and actions varied, but all caught many fish species. Here are a few:





These are just a few that caught yellow and white perch, bass, pickerel and sunfish. All were different in action, size and color. Almost all of them caught many fish on the same day/ some were attacked and caught on the second cast and third cast to the same spot the fished was missed. Some were even caught with the lure hanging over the boat in shallow water with the fish hooking itself!

When nothing is for sure why fish strike lures - (guesses that correlate a lure to a prey species, don't prove anything except an imagination at work) - the only thing left is simple:  the proof is in the catching.

[SenkoSam]

I started the discussion, not to prove to anyone why fish bite lures or reasons to choose specific lures, but to illustrate that lure choice can be based solely on how a lure moves, its shape and size. Once I catch fish on certain lures for the first time and then the 100th time, it becomes part of an inventory of valued lures such as the examples pictured.

Rather than suggest they are struck because of the reasons given by others such as what they resemble in nature, I keep it simple: similar to turning the pages of a fishing catalog (i.e.Bass Pro), each lure falls into a category such as:
surface lure
soft stick
grub
metal blade baits
crankbaits (surface, mid-depth, deep dive)
jerk baits (hard, soft plastic)
skirted jigs/ trailers
shad tails
Kut Tail worms
wacky rig soft plastics
finesse action lures
...and the list goes on and with some of the above overlapping.

Digital photos are reminders of each lure that did well and indicate when the photo was taken, where it caught fish and fish species (usually more than one), I won't second guess why a lure becomes a favorite, but know that it fits certain presentations, can be used at one or more depths (surface/ mid-depth and/or on the bottom), in cover or nowhere near cover, and a host of other categories.

Lures are the tools of our sport no different than rods and reels, hook size and types, blade sizes and shapes, line type, diameter and test, etc.

If you want to label a lure as a simulation of prey and base your lure choices on that, so be it. Regardless, it still comes down to the technical aspects of a lure and the basis for casting it, i.e one that fits into the above categories.

I'm lucky in that by strictly paying attention - after fish are caught - to what a lure looks like - exactly- combined with how it moves in the water, I can guess the reason the lure excelled vs others in the same category. Ya gotta admit: some lures are freak'n awesome, others not so much. Discovering which may be time-consuming, but worth it!

[SenkoSam]

Final comment - promise!

Live bait and lures that consistently catch fish prove one thing: fish strike them because it is in their catalog-of-object-actions that force them to become aggressive.

Live bait and lures are moving objects. When it comes to lures, that they move at all and how they move vary greatly depending on everything mentioned above. The indisputable fact that many different lures can catch fish on one outing proves not only that fish are fickle as H***, but that specific lures within a category, have whatever it takes to stimulate fish to react.

Humans react to stimuli they may or not recognize. I don't know what caused the itch that made me scratch it but only that it needed scratching. Bass don't know what that flashing light is followed by a pulsating skirt (spinnerbait) - and never will. But strike it, it must because it's in its DNA to do respond.

When it comes to lures, details matter.
Suggestion: after a lure proves worthy, watch how it moves in the water. In your mind, the shape and action now have a title such as the spinnerbait further defined by the blade size and shape, the number of blades and skirt color, If a trailer was attached, its shape and size.

A Texas-rigged Phenom Worm moves differently than a Kut Tail Worm. The curl tail of the former, affects the lure's action, just as the body taper, type of plastic and tail design affect the latter's action. Both are stories in of themselves that fish react to.

There are stories you nor I will ever know, but sharing them opens up a world of possibilities. Granted, you may find a few lures that do it all for most species, but where's the fun in that?  

[Hobious]

super bummed you laid out the false stuff in a nice list and then went off on a list of you own that doesnt coincide with the first list.

I subscribe to the thought that we will NEVER fully understand what a fish thinks.  it's difficult enough to sometimes decipher what another human is thinking..a fish?  forget it.

you cannot lay any of that stuff down as fact. 
I just fish.  some days I get skunked like any other person, and some days, I do really well. 

you ever get skunked?

[SenkoSam]

I subscribe to the thought that we will NEVER fully understand what a fish thinks.

you cannot lay any of that stuff down as fact.

My answer to the first statement: maybe that's because fish don't and can't think. Rather, it seems fish act in a way that evolution has programmed them to when it comes to various strike triggers - those that include live prey vs those that respond to specific lure actions. Live prey produce subtle actions; lures are designed to produce subtle to extreme actions and vibrations. Knowing which to cast is key.

example: quiver is one of the best and most trustworthy subtle actions a lure can produce - especially at low retrieve speeds with pauses. Many different hard and soft baits demonstrate the quiver-trigger.

Here are a few more action-profile examples that I've caught fish with:
Zara Spook: violent back & forth waddle creating surface splashes and wake

curl tail grub: tail flaps like a flag whipping in the wind - but only while the lure is in motion
(NOTE: not all curl tail shapes produce the same type of action - some are wide, some have a thin attachment (Ribbon Tail)

Kut Tail worm on a light jig: darting action and body whip when twitched due to a combination of weighting & softness no other soft plastics exhibit

Senko wacky rigged: tail rotation and body roll as it sinks, due to the same composition as the Kut Tail

deep dive crankbait: violent back & forth waddle along with clacking hooks (and rattles if present)

shallow dive crankbaits (Rapalas): subtle waddle and paused after a shallow dive and then floating to the surface creating ripples

Mepps spinner: strobe-lke flashes

spinnerbait: strobe-like flashes and a pulsating skirt that flutters and flairs (long-arm different in action than short-arm)

Mann's Shadow minnow: the closest in action to a minnow I've ever seen, gliding along with slight tail-fin action

Sassy Shad and other boot-tails (swimbaits): thumping tail that imparts a body quiver

Jitterbug: large waddle with cupped blade splashing & swishing

Buzzbait: three triangular, in-line blade that swishes while imparting a pulsation to the skirt

Flat Fish: extra-wide back & forth waddle with clicking treble hooks

skirted bass jig with trailer: skirt flair & pulsation on the drop and while laying on bottom prior to being jigged.
Note: the Uncle Josh Pork Frog was the only trailer available before plastic trailers became available. But, frog is just a label that has nothing in common with frogs either in color, shape or motion. The tails flap & flutter; the body provides a target for bass to attack. The plastic trailer on the right does just as well and doesn't have to be stored in brine to prevent drying out.


My answer to the second statement:

you cannot lay any of that stuff down as fact.

In fact, I can. Of the various lure types/ action-profiles listed, most of them do not catch fish most of the time and much of it has to do with presentation. If fish aren't prone to chasing lures at a steady retrieve that swim horizontally to the bottom, why cast them? Ditto for surface lures where the potential for a surface bite is near zero under a bright sun at midday.

Fact: presentation combined with lure type, action-profile, size, and speed make all the difference between getting skunked and doing as well as can be expected given the right location(s) fish are found. Besides, for me it's more of a challenge catching fish on many lure shapes and types that are capable of catching more fish regardless of size or species.

Studying and experimenting with many lures have led to the catching of many fish and has been my obsession for years and one that others may find useful. My grandkids sure have!

[SenkoSam]

you ever get skunked?

Depends. I may catch few or no legal size bass, but make up for it by catching nice size pannies, pickerel, maybe a channel catfish and in general numbers of fish rarely less than 50. This goes for all of the 6 different waters I've fished for years and those I stopped fishing due to the price of gas and distance from home. The more I know a water and seasonal fish locations, the more predictable.

[SenkoSam]

So much for only humans using lures to catch fish.
Watch this bird use a piece of something white to catch a fish to eat. It reminds me of a great cormorant:

[SenkoSam]

deleted