paul.

i guess i assumed you had a good reason to be that close. maybe you got there first, maybe the terrain forced you to be that close, maybe there was a crowd of other people fishing, etc. you get the picture. if you had a good reason to be that close, i stick by my original answer. if not, then i agree with these guys. you probably were too close. particularly if the other guy had the spot first and you moved in on him.

same way you did hopefully. nothing says, "you suck!" like catching a bunch of fish in front of an idiot like that. cool story. way to go dude.

in a way, i kind of feel sorry for someone who does not have access to small clear water lakes. you can learn so much by putting your rod down sometimes and just watching. it certainly does not seem to make the fish any easier to catch, but you can definitely learn a ton if you just observe. how useful your findings might be in terms of actually helping you catch fish is questionable. different for different folks i guess. having had the benefit of fishing several small, clear water lakes over a period of several years, my conviction is that some adult bass do develop distinct "personalities", preferences, patterns, and behaviors. once you get to "know" these fish, you don't even have to rely on their markings to recognize them many times. with some you can actually tell which fish it is by the way it acts or by where or when you spot it once you've spent enough time around them. some fish are extremely aggressive by nature and i remember one 2 pounder in particular that would chase fish twice its size away from a group of bluegill it was stalking. saw it do this many times. others seem to be quite curious, and will swim right up to you and look at you as if to study you while you are studying them. others seem almost apathetic. they will swim right by you and pay no regard whatsoever. others seem cautiously interested in your presence and will study you from a distance. still others are so wary and cautious that you'd never know they were in there and never see them at all, except when you catch them. the interesting thing is, at least to me, that once i have gotten to "know" these fish, the same fish consistently exhibit the same traits. until you catch one that is. then a fish will completely change it's "personality". funny thing is, that it always seem to revert back to it's original and "established "personality" unless it is caught repeatedly. in that case it seems to take longer and longer for it to "become itself" again each time it is caught. fish that i have caught repeatedly sometimes change their "personality" and behavior patterns permanently. i am not speculating, guessing, or supposing here. these are things i have seen with my own eyes with fish that i "know" and recognize by sight in some of the places i fish. just throwing that out there for whatever it's worth in this discussion. perhaps others have experienced the same type of things.

to me this issue of bass "intelligence" (how much they actually learn) is inseparably linked to the truth (whatever that may be) about whether bass are basically cookie cutter clones of each other whether each adult bass is to some degree an "individual" within the system with its own "personality", preferences, and behavior patterns. if adult bass do indeed have and develop different "personalities", preferences, and behaviors, is this just the natural order of things? in other words, is this just a trait of the species that inevitably the bass within a given system will start exhibiting their own "personality" regardless of the stimuli they are exposed to? or, to some degree, does the stimuli, both positive and negative, actually determine what type of "personality" the fish will develop? or is it a little of both? when you factor in the "personality" question, it puts a very interesting spin on the "intelligence" question. if bass inevitably develop their own personalities (i.e. wary vs. curious, prefers deep water vs. prefers shallow water, etc.) regardless of stimuli, then is it their preferences and behaviors that makes one seem "smarter" than another and more difficult to catch when in reality there is no difference at all in their "level" of intelligence? -OR- if bass develop their own "personalities", even partly, DUE TO the stimuli they experience does this not prove without question that some are indeed "smarter" than others because they were able to develop behaviors, patterns, and preferences in response to and because of the stimuli they experienced that made them more difficult catch? another question that comes to mind as we study this is, exactly what is "smart" anyway? suppose a farmer decides to start feeding the bass in his pond minnows every week. half of the bass population figures out what is going on and before long, these fish are there waiting on the farmer at the spot he feeds them every day. meanwhile, the other half, for whatever reason, never picks up on this and has to scrounge out their own meals from the available forage with the pond. the fed bass become fat and healthy. the unfed bass lag behind. i ask you, which bass are the smart ones? but wait a minute, the story is not over. suppose after feeding half his bass population for a year, the farmer decides he wants a fish dinner. he promptly shows up at his regular time at the pond with a bucket of minnows and a fishing pole and proceeds to catch every one of the fat, healthy fish that he has gorged on minnows for months and puts a mess of fish in his freezer. now i ask again, which bass are the smart ones? curious to get y'all's answers, especially on the "personality" stuff.

lol. ;D i just knew someone was gonna say this eventually. shoulda known it'd be you. ;D

i closed the poll. check out the results and i think it's pretty clear what the vast majority of those who responded actually think about bass' ability to learn or be conditioned. when push comes to shove, when money is on the line or a shot at a world record, 24 out of 27 people who responded said they would choose the non-pressured lake. 24 chose to fish lake 1. no one, none, zilch, zip, nada actually chose to fish lake 2. 3 people said it didn't matter. this is pretty much what i expected the outcome to be. even some people who would argue that bass are stupid and cannot learn at all might quickly re-think this if they had a personal stake in the argument, such as in my imaginary scenario. logic tends to kick in pretty quickly in this type of situation. and when it comes right down to it, to some degree is something, even something as small as enjoyment vs. frustration, not at stake every time we hit the lake? perhaps all this discussion about bass learning and intelligence has, if nothing else, caused some of us to re-think the old, tired way we fish and abandon some of the thought processes and practices that have become so routine to us in favor of something new and "outside of the box". i hope so. and a question to the 3 who said it didn't matter. why then, did you not just choose lake 2?

bb i don't think you have anything to worry about. jay and matt both made a very good point that there is no way that all the bass in a system of any size could ever be completely conditioned or educated. i believe that as well. hopefully, your fish's stupidity will last until i can get down there and be your guest at this honey hole. and a thought about the sticks, rocks, grass, etc. in bass stomachs. could it be that a certain portion of these are ingested accidentally in the process of the bass eating or attempting to eat real food? i really don't think that bass intentionally eat these things, at least most of the time. an example of what i'm talking about would be a bass sucking in a small rock off the bottom as it also sucks in a crayfish. i did catch a bass once that seemed extremely skinny and malnourished except for an enormously large belly. i pulled no less than 8 soft plastic baits out of this fish's stomach. i figure the fish was diseased and was so sick it couldn't hunt anymore so the old, discarded soft plastics in the lake were the only things it could "catch". this fish was either stupid or just desperate to survive.

is there some way we could combine this thread and matt's so that all this good info could be in one place? :-/ at least to me, this is all very interesting.

glad to hear that at least to some degree we agree tommy. even where we disagree, i still respect your opinion. i have learned a lot from you and your posts always cause me to think and re-think. and i think you are a fine basser, much better than i'll ever be. much respect. just didn't want that to get lost in this debate.

no it wasn't.

this is just my opinion but i don't think that it's logic or reasoning george, at least not with fish. with other animals, perhaps it could be logic to some degree. i don't know what to call it with fish. i just think it's there. we use words like "think" and "learn" and "smart" and "stupid" when we know these words really don't apply to fish because supposedly their brain is not biologically capable of intelligence in the sense we think of intelligence. of course our study of the fish brain is based completely on our own human analysis and conclusions. there is really no way to completely qualify or quantify what a bass can actually "think" because animal "thought" is an abstract variable that we could never fully measure without being able to "read their mind" or communicate with them in some way. perhaps it's finely tuned instinct that allows a fish to turn away from a bait. perhaps it's a different "sense" that fish and other animals have and develop over time as they grow, something that we as humans do not possess or possess to such a small degree we cannot understand it. we have all seen footage of prey animals in africa. one minute they calmly allow predatory animals to walk among them or alarmingly close within easy striking distance somehow knowing that the predator is not "on the hunt". yet they somehow sense when they might be on the menu and their behavior becomes totally different. i have seen this same behavior, as have many of you i'm sure, with bass and a school of bluegill. how do they "know"? i haven't got a clue. and i certainly don't want to turn this into a religious discussion or take this great topic into another realm, but perhaps there is another force at work here that we fail to acknowledge. we have so much blind, arrogant faith in our own human "knowledge" and "understanding". yet it's obvious that we as humans don't have all the answers to this or many of life's other mysteries. supposedly, it is aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, yet they do. i don't know what it is with bass, i just believe it's there, at least sometimes. but after all, i'm only human and i could be wrong.

are we so arrogant as to think that we have caught the biggest bass that swims in the waters that we fish? truth be told, there are probably several fish that swim in the lakes that we frequent that are bigger than anything we have previously caught there. perhaps even bigger than anything we have previously seen or caught at all. in other words there is a "grade" of fish out there that is a cut above anything we have been able to muster. and try as we might, we cannot catch even one of these scaly behemoths. there are only two possible explanations for this. either (a) fish are completely stupid with no ability to learn whatsoever and against all odds we have been such poor fisherman that we have consistently fished the wrong baits in the wrong locations at the wrong times for years on end and have never put a bait in front of THE fish. after all, if we had, we would have surely caught it or at least hooked it since bass are so ridiculously stupid. or ( maybe, just maybe, at least once in our lives, out of persistence and dumb luck if nothing else, we have been at the right place at the right time with the right presentation and THE fish was smart enough to look at it and swim away. it's one or the other y'all. logic dictates that. i can sleep easier at night believing choice "b".

very interesting observations so far here. don't be shy y'all. feel free to chime in. there are no wrong answers since we are just speculating about a hypothetical scenario here. personally, here's what i think you would see in both lakes in my scenario. i think in lake one, the fish would be clustered on the prime, obvious spots for the given seasonal phase. sure there would be some oddballs that would kinda make you scratch your head as there are in the real lakes we all fish. but for the most part, i think the bass and the forage in lake 1 would be "where they were supposed to be". bass would have no reason not to locate on and around prime cover and structure locations. i think lake 2 would be a different story. yes, there would be some bass and forage fish where they were supposed to be. but they might not necessarily be relating to the area in the same way fish in lake #1 would be. i would surmise that a fair portion of the population would have taken up residence in the less conspicuous areas of the lake. they would still be in "fishy looking areas" and with a quick analysis you could probably figure out why they were there. but these would not be the MOST conspicuous and obvious areas in the lake that typically become "community holes". i would also guess that another fair sized chunk of the bass population in lake #2 including some of the larger ones would totally defy explanation in their location. you would find them in places that made no sense given the seasonal phase or conditions. places like bare banks or suspended in open water. perhaps if you had a week rather than a day, you could figure out their pattern and why they were there, particularly when you factored in the typical "patterns" of the anglers that frequented the lake. but maybe not even then. and for the record, i would definitely choose lake #1 to fish in. ;D

my mistake. i should have clarified this. suppose the fishing pressure applied to lake 2 also includes anglers in boats with electronics in addition to bank anglers.

not to sidetrack anyone from the poll above as those are the answers i'm really interested in, but here is another question for your consideration. again, this is just a simple test of your real convictions on bass intelligence using the 2 twin lakes in the scenario above. suppose you get a chance to dive under water and thoroughly explore BOTH lakes. since the lakes are identical twins of each other with the exception of the fishing pressure applied to lake 2, do you suppose that the adult bass would be at least roughly positioned on the same spots and in roughly the same manner on both lakes? why or why not? if you answer that you believe that the fish would be positioned differently, then in which lake would the fish be positioned "where they are supposed to be" given the weather conditions and seasonal period? would you expect the conspicuous/obvious laydowns, humps, ditches, weedbeds etc. to be at least roughly equally populated with bass in both lakes? again, why or why not? just curious what y'all think.

that rocks man! congrats big time. nothing like a pb.

i must admit i have been completely engrossed in the thread on bass intelligence. some guys i respect very much have taken the stance that bass are "smarter" than we realize sometimes and are indeed capable of "learning" and being "conditioned" or "educated". others who i also respect very much have taken the stance that bass are basically stupid, mindless creatures whose intelligence/learning/conditioning plays very little to no role in our ability to catch them. personally, because of what i have seen with my own eyes, i have to believe bass as well as other fish are indeed capable of learning and being conditioned. but i would like to hear what the rest of the membership believes if you would be so kind as to answer this simple poll question. here is the scenario: a wealthy landowner has two lakes and he has invited you to come and fish the one of your choosing. both are exactly 10 acres with identical depth, water clarity, cover, structure, and forage conditions. in other words, the lakes are identical twins of each other. the only difference is that lake #1 is "virgin water" and has not been fished since it was built. lake #2 on the other hand has received a steady dose of fishing pressure on a weekly basis by anglers of all skill levels, with all of the adult fish therein having been caught and released at least once. the landowner assures you that a shocking study revealed that there were exactly 20 bass over 10 pounds in each lake. one of the 20 double digit fish in each lake is a world record. the landowner issues this simple challenge to you. you have one day to fish either of his lakes. you cannot fish both. if you produce a bass over 10 pounds in either lake, he will pay you a million dollars on the spot. if you catch the world record, it's yours to certify and reap any additional benefits that may come your way. my question is a simple test of your convictions on bass intelligence: with a million dollars and a world record bass at stake, which lake would YOU fish? any explanation of your rationale would be much appreciated. i am really interested in what our membership honestly thinks.

nearly 19 years ago, after my wife and i were married, i discovered our landlord had a pond behind his house. i asked him if i could stock it and he readily agreed. so i put a bunch of bluegill in there along with some bass. every once in a while, i would go back there to check on their progress. one of the bass i put in there just seemed naturally curious. he would swim right up to me every time i came to the pond. so i decided to see what bass could "learn". i started trying to feed this fish. at first the fish was very cautious. every once in a while, i would throw worms out to it when i had some left over from a bluegill or catfish outing. at first it was very cautious. it would look at the worm wiggling on the bottom, then at me. back and forth like that for quite a while. it was almost like, "man, this sure does seem weird, but that worm looks really good." eventually it couldn't resist and went over and sucked up the worm. the next time it ate the worm more readily, having had a positive experience the first time. the next time, even more so. and so it went. it was quite obvious that this fish quickly learned to "trust" me and associated my presence with a positive feeding experience. of course the fish quickly became a "pet" and before long it would be right there waiting on me in our usual spot when i came to the pond. within a a few weeks, the fish would take a worm right out of my hand. eventually i could even get it to come up out of the water and get a worm, bluegill, or whatever i had in my hand. of course living the "easy life" quickly made this fish the fattest, healthiest one in the pond. one day i decided to catch my "pet" just to see how big it had gotten. of course it was like taking candy from a baby, and i even felt a little guilty doing it. i admired how this fish had grown for a few minutes and then put her back. after that she was a totally different fish. her "attitude" was extremely different towards me and it was quite obvious from her body language. she would not eat out of my hand anymore. eventually i could get her to eat the worms i would throw in to her, but it was like starting all over from square one. just as the fish had learned to "trust" me, it learned to "distrust" me and associate my presence with danger. this was the key difference though, and don't miss this point. it took weeks for this fish to eat out of my hand, i.e. to "learn" through positive experience. but it only took one incident to "learn" through a negative experience and abandon this behavior. i could give other examples, both my own and other folks. i've seen catfish gobble up pieces of hot dog or liver thrown out to them but completely ignore the pieces thrown out attached to a hook and line, and even completely vacate the area as soon as a hook and line enters the water, even though it's attached to the same food they were just gorging themselves on. it's pretty obvious to me from observing fish behavior over time in one of the clear lakes i fish that there even seems to be distinct "personality types" among a given population of fish. some aggressive, some cautious, some curious, some smarter, some dumber. like matt said originally, they are much "smarter" than we realize sometimes. don't try to tell me they can't learn.

i will go a step further. i think bass are not only conditioned to avoid biting certain lures on occasion, but i think sometimes they can even be conditioned to avoid biting, or at least biting as well, during certain highly pressured times and/or at certain highly pressured locations. i've seen all of that. what happens in a week in a tank may take a month in a small pond. it may take 2 months on a big pond. might take 4 months on a small lake. might take 8 months on a bigger lake. might take so long on a reservoir that it is hardly perceptible when you factor in (a) there is so much more water, ( most fishermen typically fish differently during different seasonal periods, © to some degree, the fish typically get a break during the winter months or "off season" on all but our southernmost waters so for lack of a better term, they "forget" their education. i'm not saying that i think fish are geniuses, but to me at least, it's pretty obvious they DO learn and become conditioned. i could list example after example with not only bass, but other species as well on some of the waters i fish. make no mistake though, like matt, i believe that fish are much smarter than we give them credit for. yes, by virtue of our vastly superior intelligence, we should be able to outsmart them and "figure them out" 100% of the time. but we don't. we forget that they have "home field advantage". we have to enter their world and "beat them at their own game" so to speak and that's not always easy. someone who assumes fish are completely stupid and cannot learn or be conditioned must be either: (a) right in their assumption and can catch fish at will, better than all or most other fisherman, because after all the fish are equally as stupid for all of us, ( right in their assumption but to some degree ALWAYS outwitted by a pathetically stupid creature, casting doubt upon their own intelligence, or © wrong in their assumption that fish are completely stupid and cannot learn. sorry, but these are the only possible scenarios i see. trust me y'all, there have been plenty of times when i've left the lake feeling like i was the stupid one.

1. yes, i hesitate to say always, but more often than not, slowing down is definitely the key. especially if cold is defined as water under 40 degrees. you might even be safe in saying "always" when it's that cold. 2. yes, definitely there are lures and techniques that perform better at certain times. 3. no, i think craw worms are a decent choice, but not a great one, for both jig trailers and t-rigs/c-rigs. they wouldn't be my first choice for either presentation for a big bass. 4. no. lizards, as well as most soft plastics, will work year round. but i believe certain plastics are better at certain times. 5. not usually. i believe uphill is generally better BUT it's foolish not to try different angles and approaches. i have seen a few times where the bite eventually slowed or stopped with an uphill presentation and then resumed when a different angle, either lateral or downhill, was applied. sometimes contact with the bottom is important, sometimes not. i think it's more important to select a bait that runs at the depth the fish are using than it is to maintain contact with the bottom. in fact, if i had to err one way or another, i'd rather fish too far above them than too far below them. 6. no, not for me. i'd rather be able to see what i'm doing. there are times though that night fishing can present a distinct advantage. 7. yes, absolutely. i wish they didn't, but they do. 8. yes, definitely. but not to the degree that i exclude other lures and techniques. good post catt. very thought provoking.

fantastic bro.! congrats big time. that sounds like an awesome trip for sure.

lol. i had to look that up muddy. i had no idea what you were talking about. too much time playing video games i reckon. ;D seriously, does anyone else on here play madden? that and street fighter have to be my favorite video game series of all time. and street fighter 4 comes out in feb. for xbox 360. that's gonna be awesome.

i have a separated shoulder and messed up right wrist from a motorcycle crash that gives me trouble on occasion. i thought seriously about learning to fish left handed it was so bad for a while. don't know if that woulda been any better though 'cause my left side didn't survive the crash too well either. i guess i just love fishing more than i hate hurting so i stick with it and take a break when it gets too bad. i'm not really sure what to tell ya muddy, but i sincerely do hope you are able to get some relief and fish unhindered by pain. get well soon buddy.

post 'em up guys. what's your favorite madden play and what makes it work so well? mine's shotgun 4 wide "hitch corners" the outside receivers do 5 yd. hitches and the slot guys do corner routes. the back does a streak route straight up the middle. if the defense comes out in 4-3 or 3-4, you automatically have a mismatch as you will have linebackers trying to cover your slot receivers. if the defense is in man coverage, one of the corner routes will be open to the tune of about 15 yards. if the safety on one side creeps up in the box, throw to that side and it might go all the way. if the defense is in zone coverage, one of the hitch routes should be open for a 5 yd. quick hit, particularly if you use motion. or you can hot route audible to a drag route across the middle. or you can audible to the draw play and gash the defense up the middle for a healthy gain (particularly if they are in a 3 man front). if the lb(s) vacate the middle of the field to assist in coverage, you can always make 'em look real silly with a qb run right up the middle after the defense drops into coverage. if the defense gives you a 3 man front (particularly with only one lb), you have a 5 on 4 mismatch with your ol vs. their dl. and you can pound the rock. back when i played a lot, i could beat the computer every time using just this one play if i wanted to. it's money baby! i guess y'all can tell that (a) i've been playing madden today and ( i'm extremly bored today. ;D anyway, i'd like to hear what plays y'all like to use so i can add them to my arsenal.

last i heard, jones was sticking with phillips in dallas. i honestly think the main reason is that he prematurely promised phillips his job was safe before the wheels fell off against philly. had jones not done this, i believe phillips would have already been fired by now. and he still might be. i believe another reason phillips is still around is that the '08 season showed that garrett was not the savior-in-waiting he had been previously believed to be. i agree that pacman should have already been gone, fired from the nfl, not just the cowboys. t.o. will stay put because for all his trouble, he's still one of the best at his position. i don't think parcells will go anywhere. shanahan and cowher (and to a lesser degree shottenheimer) could probably go wherever they wanted, both both will probably take the year off. shanahan will come closer to coaching in '09 than cowher i think. suddenly cowher had achieved super-human status. it seems with every year he takes off, he somehow becomes a better coach and a more desired commodity. with dungy, it will be the colts or nothing. i don't think he will be pushed, but he may jump because he has some pretty big goals outside of football. i say bring back jim "playoffs?" mora and dennis "they were who we thought they were" green. ;D what about brian billick? will he get another shot? at least he's won a superbowl. but perhaps the biggest question of all is, how did mangini get thrown in with those other guys and labeled a "good coach"? :P