Are we really fooling the fish into biting?

In the world of fishing there are "rules".  Things that we are taught that basically build the foundation for our advanced understanding of the sport.  These are things that we don't really even think about because, well, EVERYONE knows them and every piece of media out there reaffirms them.  One of these "rules" is that our lures must be made to imitate natural forage.  A crankbait looks like a shad.  A jig looks like a crawfish.  A frog looks like....well... a frog of course.  This all makes perfect sense right?  If you're going to try to catch a fish what better way than to mimic it's natural food sources.  The problem with this theory is that we in no way actually achieve this goal.  Not by look, sound, vibration, taste or by any other means.  All those that have taught us this are wrong.  That's right.  Everyone's wrong.  The world is not flat.

Ok.  So it's one thing to say that everyone's wrong but what evidence do I have to back this up?  The same evidence that you all have.  Let's start with the most obvious the crankbait.  The idea behind the crankbait is that it mimics an injured baitfish.  Yet the bait doesn't really swim like a live baitfish.  With a little imagination maybe you could say that it does.  Our crankbaits are packed with rattles and create a huge disturbance under the water, yet a live baitfish doesn't sound or feel like that to a bass. Common sense tells you that.  Some of the best selling crankbait colors on the market don't look anything like the real thing and even the most expensive custom painted crankbaits, while they make us feel good, don't really produce any better than the standard colors.  And last but not least, let's not forget that to get a bass to eat a crankbait we need to crash it into something or it just won't work.  Hmmm......

Not convinced yet?  Let's move on to the spinnerbait.  This one really takes some imagination to see the resemblance to a live shad and yet that's what we believe.  All the same things apply to the spinnerbait as far as sight, sound and vibration go.  No where near duplicating the real thing.  But wait the blades give off flash that resembles that of a shad and that's why they eat it.....yet they rarely try to eat the blades and yet eat the skirted portion. ( It would be an awfully frustrating bait to throw if they continually tried to eat the blades.)  Add onto that the advice of all the best spinnerbait fishermen on the planet...."Always use a trailer hook".  Why do we need to do that if the fish are convinced that the bait is a shad?  Hmmm.......

Still not convinced????  How about the jig?  Well that, of course, looks like a crawdad.  Duh....  Unless your fishing it around bluegills....then it looks like a bluegill.  Or if you're swimming it then it looks like a shad.  Interesting.  Just by looks it doesn't really look like a crawfish.  I mean really, if I held up a jig for 1 second in front of 1000 bass anglers not a single one would be confused into thinking it was a crawfish.  Right?  We drag it on the bottom which is where the crawfish live, but that shouldn't automatically mean that the bass believe it's a crawfish.  Yet that's what we assume.  You know what they say about ASS U ME.

I could go on and on with virtually every lure known to man.  A red crankbait is considered crawfish pattern even though I've never seen a red crawfish besides on the dinner table in the bayou.  Smallmouth love pink flukes because.....I have no idea.  A senko looks like a dying shad fluttering to the bottom....Sure..  A spook, a jerkbait, a crankbait, a spinnerbait, a swimbait, a fluke, a spoon, and a buzzbait are all supposed to imitate  the same natural forage yet none of them look, sound or feel alike whatsoever.   There is a definite err in our judgement.

If we're not fooling the bass into believing our baits are natural forage then why do they eat our lures?  The answer is simple.  Our lures appeal to the fish's senses for what they are....a potential food source.  Do you think that smallmouth on the Great Lakes had to figure out what a goby "looked like" before they decided to eat one?  They don't know what a crankbait is but it's making noise and swimming through their environment banging into stuff so they react to it the only way they know how by eating it.  A worm has a seductive tail action that looks alive so they eat it.  A frog dancing above their heads means an ambush is likely to be successful so they attack..sometimes.  Even though our intuition tells us that our baits don't look like the real thing,  we still need to try and figure out what it looks like or we simply won't use them.  Tune ahead to the 1:04 mark of this video with Mark Zona for a perfect example.


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz4q-isT6S8&feature=youtu.be



You may be asking yourself if they are reacting to our lures as a potential food source, then how can I be so sure that they don't think they're native forage? That video for one but also this became clear to me on an outing last fall on the Pool 8 of the Mississippi River.  The backwaters were full of shad and bass gorging themselves.  Fish were busting bait continuously in about 6 feet of water.  I threw literally every "shad imitating" bait that I had and was only able to coax a few fish into biting.  Traditional wisdom would lead you to believe that by mimicking natural forage I should have been able to clean house, but that wasn't the case.  Later that day a buddy of mine was in the same area and he too went through the same ritual of switching "shad type" baits trying to get bit with the same results.  However, the guy that he had fishing with him tied on a dropshot with a pink roboworm and started wrecking them.  Even though the fish were clearly feeding on shad not a single shad style bait tripped their trigger, yet a 6" pink wacky-rigged roboworm smashed them. That's not a unique experience.  It happens all the time, all over the country, but we have this idea that we need to match the hatch to get bit.  That cemented the skepticism I had about our lures actually tricking the fish.  I believe that certain baits on certain days simply appeal to the fish's senses more than others.  Not because they're more realistic but because of some reason that we simply cannot understand.  This explanation might not be appealing to our psyche but I believe it to be the case.

I understand if you think I'm crazy for going against the grain on what's believed to be one of the simplest rules of fishing.  I'm sure you're not alone.  It'd likely take someone far more influential to make these assertions before it would become the mainstream way of thinking.  In my future blog posts I'll talk about how I believe these misconceptions came about, as well as, what it means for the way we fish and potential lure making opportunities in the future.



Think I'm crazy?  I want to know what you think.   Feel free to comment in the section below.