artificial sweetcorn

[Martin56]

Martin,

 

Yes, fish are some of the worlds great thinkers.

 

Phone

Reckon you're right there Phone - they always seem to sense when I have Flask in 1 hand & cup in the other = scalded thighs

[Andrew]

Nice Barbel & chub there Andrew - Artificial baits probably work best in fast / streamy water where they don't have time to think about taking it - or not!!

 

These were taken below a fast weir on the river trent Martin, very fast and turbulent.

 

Here,s a few more from the same spot.

 

 

 

[Andy_1984]

btw Andy Macfarlane had some artificial sweet corn that was hollow, insert a paste of your choice

[gozzer]

btw Andy Macfarlane had some artificial sweet corn that was hollow, insert a paste of your choice

 

That's like the old sponge 'bait'.

A piece of sponge on the hook, and soaked in a flavour of your choice. A couple soaking in a jar, attached to a hook length and swivel/split ring, ready to clip on after a couple of trots. A groundbait with the same flavour attracted, and kept the fish in the swim.

Anything, liquidised cheese, condensed milk, honey, sandwich paste mixed with a little cooking oil, (in summer), all caught fish, mainly chub.

 

John.

[chesters1]

Going by experience fish do think and theres shoal pressure,i remember a hot day with the temp at 30 degrees fishing next to some weed beds with my mrs

Now her casting isnt great so she had 3lb line straight through i had 3lb but a 1.5lb hook lenght

Now if i casted 2ft from the weed a few fish would rush out and usually take the bait the same if i cast a foot way ,if she casted 2 feet out a few fish would rush out but generally rush back seeing the line i presume ,if she cast a foot most of the time she would catch .

Now theres two reasons i think ,time to see line and change mind or less pressure to grab the bait as fish turned back giving the fish more time to reason danger over full belly in the couple that came nearest

With the same scenario theres more pressure to grab food before someone else did so less attention given to danger.

 

You could use the same scenario with a shoul of river fish ,they grab what they can before someone else does but a lone fish has less pressure and time to look at the dangers so not so easy to catch

 

With my setup the dangers were harder to spot so more fish went for the bait giving more pressure to grab it before someone else did

 

Any further out bites stopped i guess the danger overcome the greed both from visible man made dangers and more natural ones coming further out made it further back if a heron or other fish eater was about.

 

So i think fish can think but only in a balance of survival thing ,the more hungry may not make them more stupid but a shoal mate homing in on the prize could make them less cautious

 

Same could be said of fake corn in a bed of corn and the reason its taken but i never loose feed corn so its not that in my case ,if no-one is catching on corn i wont if its the bait of the week i do ,fish obviously see fake corn as corn and if its acting like corn would its food and they take it

Edited July 21, 2017 by chesters1

[Phone]

Chesters1,

 

You reckon English fish are smarter than those on the other 5 continents known to have sport fish?

 

Phone

 

We've done this "fish learn" thing a thousand times. Want to do it again? Fish are stupid. ONLY

[ayjay]

Phone

 

We've done this "fish learn" thing a thousand times. Want to do it again? Fish are stupid. ONLY

 

 

I don't know if it's "thinking" or "intelligence" or what, but the Barbel on the Middle Avon are far from stupid, some of the Chub are worse, (from an anglers perspective).

 

If you saw as much of them as I have, you'd change your mind, at least a little.

 

Let me outline one event that I witnessed:-

 

In clear water on the Avon you can watch fish pick up a hooked bait as small as a single grain of sweetcorn from the bottom in as much as eight feet of water.

 

a clear swim, about four foot deep, with a liberal bed of hempseed laid on the bottom via a baitdropper

 

a piece of luncheon meat on a hook over the hempseed - a barbel rooting about just downstream of the hookbait

 

it picks up the bait just in the edge of it's lips - (if you watch them enough you'll learn to see the jaw working differently when they take a bait right in) had I struck the hook would have missed it's mark and the barbel would have disappeared for a while

 

it deposits the hooked bait about a yard upstream and drifts back down to feed on the hemp that was underneath where the luncheon meat had been.

 

So, you tell me Phone, is that clever or stupid?

[Phone]

Ayjay,

 

 

Flexible or innovative behavior is certainly advantageous but how to define “learned” is and will continue to be THE problem. Many tree huggers believe plants “learn”.

 

Fish have a hierarchy of cue preferences with evidence of cue overshadowing and redundancy. The question is one of “chicken or egg”. Currently, the action of fishes is thought to be innate. Fish don’t have the ability to conclude that if A>B and B>C then A>C.

 

The behavioral patterns of fish are the result of innate (‘built-in’) patterns of maturation (developmental changes) and of learning processes (imprinting and trial-and-error learning). Innate behavioral patterns are considered to be ‘hard-wired’ and inflexible.

 

I think you can assume that the feeding mode of fish involving snap-responses is innate, but some developmental chabges enables fish to modify their foraging behavior in response to a fluctuating environment. I personally believe this affects partner choice as well. The biggest fish gets the best nesting site. The biggest carp feeds where ever it wishes.

 

Ohh, and I don't believe much of your barbel story. However, I've seen an event on more than one occasion where carp put grain in a granary for later consumption. They do so on a collective basis as though it were a social effort.

 

Phone

 

Much of this is from a 2003 post of mine on the subject. Truthfully, I'm not up to date on current science opinion. This is what we used to believe.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Phone

[chesters1]

Fish do learn look at that one playing netball

The difference here is a great number of fish are caught endless times in their lives where perhaps in your big country they may not be .

Why would fish avoid swimming over light coloured groundbait but ignore dark stuff so there is an element of learning outside of natural things as they say once bitten twice shy (wink)

 

On the subject of sayings why do you say ashes in ring a roses the word should be attishoo we all fall down

 

Anyway if fish didnt learn how could our oscars recognise faces?

Heres one that thinks its a dog

Edited July 23, 2017 by chesters1

[ayjay]

Ayjay,

 

 

Flexible or innovative behavior is certainly advantageous but how to define “learned” is and will continue to be THE problem. Many tree huggers believe plants “learn”.

 

Fish have a hierarchy of cue preferences with evidence of cue overshadowing and redundancy. The question is one of “chicken or egg”. Currently, the action of fishes is thought to be innate. Fish don’t have the ability to conclude that if A>B and B>C then A>C.

 

The behavioral patterns of fish are the result of innate (‘built-in’) patterns of maturation (developmental changes) and of learning processes (imprinting and trial-and-error learning). Innate behavioral patterns are considered to be ‘hard-wired’ and inflexible.

 

I think you can assume that the feeding mode of fish involving snap-responses is innate, but some developmental chabges enables fish to modify their foraging behavior in response to a fluctuating environment. I personally believe this affects partner choice as well. The biggest fish gets the best nesting site. The biggest carp feeds where ever it wishes.

 

Ohh, and I don't believe much of your barbel story. However, I've seen an event on more than one occasion where carp put grain in a granary for later consumption. They do so on a collective basis as though it were a social effort.

 

Phone

 

Much of this is from a 2003 post of mine on the subject. Truthfully, I'm not up to date on current science opinion. This is what we used to believe.

 

You disappoint me Phone, you hide your barbs in a whole raft of pseudo scientific gobbledegook.

 

I know exactly what I saw.