Where we went wrong

If you read my previous post on why fish bite our lures, you might be asking yourself how it's possible that we could be wrong for so long on this basic principle of fishing.  I believe there are two main reasons for our false reasoning.  The first is the idea of anthropomorphism.  (Big word but has simple meaning)  The second is our inborn need to know why something happens.  These two combined create the perfect environment to breed misinformation.

Let's start with the term anthropomorphism.  The definition of this term is the attribution of human form or other characteristics to anything other than a human being.  In other words, we try to explain and justify what a fish does based on how we act or make decisions.  This is a big problem that we need to overcome if we're going to have any chance of understanding fish behavior.  A fish's brain is much different than ours.  We make our decisions based on the process of reasoning.  Fish don't do that.  They are purely reactionary creatures.  They don't think.  When a fish sees a potential food item it triggers an instinctive feeding response.  Some days these triggers are different than others and each fish may have a different set of triggers that set them off.  These triggers can be influenced by the weather, the time of year and the need to protect, amongst others,  that I don't believe we truly understand yet.  These reactionary responses aren't limited to the fish's feeding behavior.  They play a big part in how a fish responds to danger and how they respond to changes in their environment.  If we can understand how a fish's brain works,  it well help us to stay out of the anthropomorphism trap.

The second major player that has led us down the wrong path is our unending need to know why something happens.  This is a trait that is unique to humans and plays a huge role in the process of reasoning.  This trait is something that we are born with.  It's not a learned trait.  If you have young children you know this to be the case.  Not long after our kids learn to talk they're favorite word becomes "Why?"  "Why dad?"  If you have children you know what I mean.  They often times ask why when you've already explained why.  It's how our brains work.  How does this play with fishing?  Before the age of the internet, our information gathering mechanisms were limited.  Everything we learned came from either personal experience or from limited traditional media.  Our questions were answered by a select few experts in the field and being experts they had the answers.  When asked why fish bite our lures it was natural for them to assume and then pass on to us the idea that it must be because they're fooled into thinking it's something that they already eat.  No one would question these guys at the time because they were looked upon as gods of fishing.  And they were gods.  We all have certain figures embedded into our memories from our youth that were larger than life to us.  How could you question someone with vastly more experience and knowledge than you, even if it didn't make perfect sense?  You couldn't and it became "fact". 

We came to a fork in the road some 100 years ago, or so, and we went down the wrong path.  From then on, we've been trying to find our way out of this maze not knowing that we made a wrong turn.  The key now is to backtrack to that fork in the road and take the correct course.  When we do that I believe we'll unlock new opportunities that we don't even know exist.  It will allow us to open a new way of thinking and with the information gathering capabilities we have now, maybe we can master the sport of fishing.