I don’t believe in so-called reaction strikes.  I believe that fish will often experience periods where the desire to feed is suppressed while other biological needs are met, primarily digestion.  If you keep tossing lures, and on the 20th cast you catch one, it is because either the biological process that suppressed  feeding are ‘turned off’ and the fish bites, or a hungry fish has come to see what all the commotion is about.

2 minutes ago, Bazoo said:

Would you happen to know anything about those studies? The names? The place they were published?

I am looking because I think there are some other studies that I’m interested in revisiting.  I used to subscribe to several journals, but no longer have any hard copies.  I will see what I can find online in their archives. I will make sure to forward you links.

11 minutes ago, Bazoo said:

Would you happen to know anything about those studies? The names? The place they were published?

I don’t know whether or not you’d be interested, but since you brought up fish sounds there is a site that has/is cataloguing fish sounds. 
fishsounds.net

I have only seen it mentioned, and have not visited it so I know nothing about it.

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

If this were true, then lures that look the most like forage fish would always catch the most bass. Also, lures that look like nothing in nature that bass eat, like my Shimano Flashboost pink popper, would catch no bass. However, that little lure has caught hundreds of bass for me. 

It is true. LMB eat crawfish, bluegill, crappie, minnows, shad, and LMB eat smallmouth bass etc etc. and lures that look and mimic these work. Birds and duckling are eaten, also dragonfly’s and other insects. That is nature and the truth of the matter and yes, your choice of baits also work because it’s cue’s, stimulate the fish into a strike. Why that particular bait works so well for you I cannot say exactly but it’s triggering your fish properly I’d say. There have been studies on color also.. look, guys have caught fish on Budweiser can baits ok, but those are nobody’s confidence baits 🤣. I’ve been fishing highly pressured waters for years and it’s a way different gig than fishing un-molested waters. Fortunately I get to fish a couple of private lakes where the fishing is spectacular, across all species. My confidence bait is a Texas rigged plastic worm however I love a crank bait bite or a spinnerbait bite.. 

 

Patoka lake in the spring, I’ve caught 150 bass a day on it when waters are warming and fish become active you can throw whatever bait you desire and get bit, those fish are highly active and feeding. I even caught a bass off a chicken liver one time, explain that one.. 🤣😂

1 hour ago, OldManLure said:

I don’t know whether or not you’d be interested, but since you brought up fish sounds there is a site that has/is cataloguing fish sounds. 
fishsounds.net

I have only seen it mentioned, and have not visited it so I know nothing about it.

Thanks. That is interesting.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLoP7EJOoqc/?igsh=MXN5a2QwaGFmYTduOA==

5 hours ago, Susky River Rat said:

Vibration, scent, profile, sink/float rate, action. I think on days this order varies. I don’t even look at what I throw as food. I don’t look at my lures as mimicking something else.  I look for what is triggering them. Is it a square bill grinding bottom? Is it the thump of blades? Is it the painful slow sink of the fluke?  It can be the most realistic looking bait ever. I still look at what is triggering. Bass see, smell, taste. They do not have hands so they use their mouths for feeling. 

This is also how I approach fishing most of the time.  If you look at underwater video of the lures we fish with,  most of them do not look like anything in nature.  Crankbaits looks nothing like a fish but they catch fish.

 

3 hours ago, Bazoo said:

Would you happen to know anything about those studies? The names? The place they were published?

This study found that largemouth foraging success in a tank was 95% in sunlight and the same in moon light.  It dropped to 62% in starlight and near 0% in total darkness.

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229574086_Foraging_success_of_largemouth_bass_at_different_light_intensities_implications_for_time_and_depth_of_feeding

9 hours ago, OldManLure said:

You’re right.  I recall seeing results of studies examining feeding behaviors that found that when bass were ‘blinded’ through the manipulation of light, their feeding behavior was negatively impacted. This was not the case when deprived of the input provided by their lateral line system.  When relying on vision alone, they seemed to need to be much closer to the prey before deciding to strike and were less successful.  When relying on only the lateral line and the spatial information it provides, their success was not affected as much.  Another observation I found interesting was that without the information gathered by the lateral line, fish relied more on inhaling food than attacking and ‘biting’ it.  

While these studies may not have addressed what bass see, they did provide some answers on how they ‘see’ it.  

How can they blind the basses lateral line? I understand blocking light to block vision, but how would you “blind” the lateral line? That’s fascinating.

7 hours ago, F14A-B said:

Me too, the forage in the waterways are well known and because of this Lure Manufacturers have designed baits to mimic nature. 
 

Match the hatch isn’t just a saying it’s factual and is well known and understood by fisherman. This is in all water, fresh or salt, highland reservoirs, natural lakes, swift rivers, lazy rivers, streams, creeks, farm ponds. 
 

I would encourage anyone to read and study Doug Hannon’s work. 
 

Enticing a largemouth to strike is a different topic all together and it’s why we say the words, “reaction strikes”

Pods of baitfish (shad) golden shiners etc, have been recorded making sounds and our rattle baits try to emulate this and are in fact successful. Crayfish make clicking sounds and it’s why some of our jigs have rattle bands on them and are usually dressed with a crawfish imitation.. 

 

It's an interesting topic and whole books have been written on the subject of LMB behavior, covering the topics we’re discussing here plus effects of weather, high pressure vs low pressure, structure types, deep vs shallow, moon phases, insect hatches and crawfish hatches. Tidal influences and sunlight and its biological effects. 

 

So why does something like a brush hog work so well? What is it matching? What about a bright firetiger crankbait/spinnerbait? 

6 minutes ago, woolleyfooley said:

How can they blind the basses lateral line? I understand blocking light to block vision, but how would you “blind” the lateral line? That’s fascinating.

 

Chemically.  

1 minute ago, OldManLure said:

Chemically.  

Ah, interesting. Thanks!

3 hours ago, F14A-B said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLoP7EJOoqc/?igsh=MXN5a2QwaGFmYTduOA==

 

He was a heckuva teacher. He explained his observations with such clarity.

2 minutes ago, woolleyfooley said:

Ah, interesting. Thanks!

I don’t recall if it was something they fed the fish, injected into the fish or added to the water.

On 8/22/2025 at 10:27 AM, Swamp Girl said:

they don't look at a frog lure and think it's a frog or look at a jerkbait and think it's a minnow.

I believe that if something's in the water and seems to be alive then a bass thinks it's food. It's no more complicated than that. Also, I think if they hit whatever you're throwing, it's likely they'd hit a myriad of other baits. While it might seem specific at the moment, it really isn't. It just seems so compared to whatever else one might be throwing at the time.

I think for a bass it’s a combination of reaction and pattern recognition. How that is weighted may be predicated on how hungry the bass is at that moment.

 

This is why I place more importance on presentation of baits than anything else. It’s trying to get bass to bite out of shear reaction or they recognize a pattern of what might be food.

 

Case in point - top bass anglers don’t heavily rely on chuck and wind as primary techniques. They work the bait.

 

 

I was told once a top water plug, or walk the dog, the bottom color is for the fish, the top is for the person fishing. 
The Bass only see looking up, might see a little of the sides, other than that, it's the pink, orange, silver, or black on the bottom of the lure. He went on telling me about with all the surface disturbances near the lure, at best they saw light or dark colors. 
I still bought a baby bass and a silver blue back spook. 
Wether for me or the fish, those colors catch bass in my area. 

9 hours ago, Kayak Koz said:

They work the bait.

 

By working the bait, do you mean varying the retrieve?

9 hours ago, PhishLI said:

I believe that if something's in the water and seems to be alive then a bass thinks it's food. It's no more complicated than that. Also, I think if they hit whatever you're throwing, it's likely they'd hit a myriad of other baits.

 

The bait monkey isn't going to be happy to read what you wrote because the bait monkey's business is predicated upon the belief that there's one specific lure that will catch each bass and you have to own all the lures to have a chance at catching each bass. 

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

By working the bait, do you mean varying the retrieve?

Not Kayak Koz but for me working the bait is not varying the retrieve.

 

Give an example.  I fish mostly clear water so I often see the bait and the bass.  

I pitch the creature bait close to a mat at the edge of reeds.  I give line so it falls as close as possible.

The plastic bait lands at the edge and is there at the bottom.  Nothing happens.  After a few seconds, I shake the rod. I don't want the bait to move ahead, I want it to move in place.  Just a shake to show LIFE.  A bass comes out to investigate.  Sometimes it just grabs it but most often it stops a feet from the bait at the edge of the mat to look at it.  Then it's time for some movement, but not too much.  Just an inch or so forward.  A natural prey reaction when it glimses a predator.  The bass surges ahead, gils flare and it's time to strike. 

 

Here the bait has moved maybe a couple of inches... not a retrieve.  

 

Chucking and winding is another approach totally.  It' a numbers game.  The more fish that are agressive that see your bait the more success.  It works also.

4 minutes ago, Reel said:

Not Kayak Koz but for me working the bait is not varying the retrieve.

 

Give an example.  I fish mostly clear water so I often see the bait and the bass.  

I pitch the creature bait close to a mat at the edge of reeds.  I give line so it falls as close as possible.

The plastic bait lands at the edge and is there at the bottom.  Nothing happens.  After a few seconds, I shake the rod. I don't want the bait to move ahead, I want it to move in place.  Just a shake to show LIFE.  A bass comes out to investigate.  Sometimes it just grabs it but most often it stops a feet from the bait at the edge of the mat to look at it.  Then it's time for some movement, but not too much.  Just an inch or so forward.  A natural prey reaction when it glimses a predator.  The bass surges ahead, gils flare and it's time to strike. 

 

Here the bait has moved maybe a couple of inches... not a retrieve.  

 

Chucking and winding is another approach totally.  It' a numbers game.  The more fish that are agressive that see your bait the more success.  It works also.

 

Thanks. It's cool that you can see the action. I can't, for whatever reasons. 

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

By working the bait, do you mean varying the retrieve?

It could be varying the retrieve, shaking or twitching the bait, ripping it, lift and drop, popping it, hopping it, or anything that imparts additional action on the bait.

 

This action could be subtle, medium, or aggressive and could be incorporated with pauses.

20 minutes ago, Kayak Koz said:

It could be varying the retrieve, shaking or twitching the bait, ripping it, lift and drop, popping it, hopping it, or anything that imparts additional action on the bait.

 

This action could be subtle, medium, or aggressive and could be incorporated with pauses.

 

I try all of the above from time to time. I have the best success with pausing. However, the kid uses a steady, fast retrieve, as opposed to my slower retrieve with occasional action, and he catches as much as me. 

48 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

I try all of the above from time to time. I have the best success with pausing. However, the kid uses a steady, fast retrieve, as opposed to my slower retrieve with occasional action, and he catches as much as me. 

My problem is I tend to chuck and wind, especially when the fishing is slow. More appropriately, I run and gun to new spots and chuck and wind. To me, this is the curse of forward facing sonar.

 

I haven't fished much lately, but when I have fished I shut off FFS most of the time and try and pick spots apart. My goal for the remainder of the year is to work on being more patient on the water, with or without FFS.

 

The irony here is that with the rest of my life, I have the patience of Job. But when it comes to fishing you'd think I had a triple dose of ADHD.

14 hours ago, Kayak Koz said:

Case in point - top bass anglers don’t heavily rely on chuck and wind as primary techniques. They work the bait.

 

 

Not always. When dealing with clear water and pressured fish, the slow crank is usually the best retrieve possible. Watch minnows cruising around - they don’t move around the water column much, and there isn’t a lot of erratic movement. 
 

Gerald Swindle just recently did a bass university video on YouTube about this, and I cannot pretend to have his command of the English language to discuss tapdancing crawdads.

 

 

I don’t think bass “know” what they’re eating, like off a menu or something lol But I do think they’re highly aware of all the attributes that are associated with what they’re eating. Whether it be a frog, a baitfish, a crawdad … all these particular meals ring a different kinda dinner bell. A frog is a frog but move it a certain way, plop it just right and boom! Seems like that for most baits, at least from my experience.  

Logic tells me a bass has to have some idea what they are eating otherwise they’d be chowing down on sticks, rocks, weeds, or anything else that is in the water.  We have a tendency to overcomplicate things.  If it looks like something they eat and moves like something they eat, they eat it.  

46 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Logic tells me a bass has to have some idea what they are eating otherwise they’d be chowing down on sticks, rocks, weeds, or anything else that is in the water.  We have a tendency to overcomplicate things.  If it looks like something they eat and moves like something they eat, they eat it.  

That is the best, simplest answer to it I have ever heard.