What Are The Bass Eating???

Consider this as a possible theory why and what bass strike:

1. Bass are predators with sensitive innate abilities. (lateral line, ear, smell, bi-directional eye sight.

2. Like all animals, bass respond to different stimuli in different ways: sudden object appearance, noise/vibration, visual cues regarding size, shadowing, object brightness and hue, all within a changing environment of light, temperature, cover changes and depth

When a fish struck your Shad Rap, other things mattered, which always matter to sophisticated bass anglers such lure speed, size, depth, action,hook size and lastly, but not less important - color. An angler  will consider those lure characteristics beyond what species he may think the lure may represent to a fish, but none of those, except maybe shape, size and color, have anything to do with  species imitation.

Granted, many times bass are cued in to a prey type such as other fish that are in a school or hunting crawfish near rocks, but what bass share with all animals is that they are stimulated by stimuli regardless the type. The stimulus might provoke a response or not (even easy prey are ignored more often than not).

When someone suggests a blade size change on a spinnerbait, a prey species is not even considered when lure vibration, flash, lure speed are prime considerations along with how the change fits in with certain presentation such as slow-roll,  bottom hopping, a fast retrieve, waking the surface, greater or less skirt/trailer pulsation, etc.  What the lure does and can do is at the top of the list.

Make a surface commotion with a surface lure and watch it change its attitude regardless of what a fish may think it is (and considering the fact that a fish doesn't have that ability.)

Worm rigs? At least eight I can think of that have more to do with lure action and speed than anything a worm may represent (but doesn't when you consider action and appearance).

Better built and designed crankbaits are chosen for their action most of all, what they may look like secondary if multiple colors can be used to catch fish in the same time period.

Jig types vary as do trailers, both having to do with presentation and lure action rather than whether bass are eating crawfish for other prey type. (Some have suggested the skirted jig can represent another fish when worked the right way in the right color - yea right!)

Even various line types affect lure action and presentations. Type of prey, not so much.

The type of stimulus is as important as any reason bass strike lures. To believe that hunger based opportunism is the prime reason is fine, as is believing bass have emotional responses to lures or prey, but when an angler chooses lures, he or she is thinking about lure factors that make more of a difference, little of which has anything to do with prey species or type. Most important is to get the lure close enough, worked the right way and let everything else about it do the rest.

Fishing can be difficult enough without adding other things that have never been proven when it comes to lure choice, but that are easily proven when it comes to the lure, the line and the presentation, with more than one at times as successful at the same moment.