Thread: Bullies don't need a reason to strike

I've come to some other conclusions why fish strike lures and at times many times on the same retrieve.

Fish are predators and fish senses detect motions produced by prey. Do fish know what the prey animal is before attacking it? Does it have a mind that knows what a minnow is vs a larvae? Do fish always strike because of hunger or the feeding impulse?
I've held fish up to eye level and asked them those questions and they ain't talking.

When it comes to manmade moving-objects we call lures, fish are just as silent before I remove the hook as to why they struck it. So, my imagination and experience catching fish on hundreds of lures has told me: fish don't need a reason to strike lures. They do or they don't simple as that.

But lure design - shape/size/action - is everything when it comes to what works best to provoke a dumb animal - similar to a bull attacking a cape in a bull fight - to attack for no good reason (as if fish could reason). This year I found more good combinations of shape + size + action fish strike more often when the bite is less active. Is the bull angry when it attacks? Are fish angry, hungry, territorial or any one of 100 reasons? Science can only prove so much when it comes to wild animals - especially marine animals.

We would like to believe that fish ambush lures, waiting for something to dare enter their zone of sensitivity. But fish sensitivity is never covered in the multitude of articles written to this day how a lure turns a fish into a charging bull. Call it a reaction strike, but that is too vague a term simply meaning fish reacted.

So, here's the gist of what I've found - and truly believe - when it comes to why fish strike various lures based on thousands of fish caught on hundreds of different lures over the last few decades:
Specific lure actions mean everything because it's part of a fish's DNA to detect and react to them - some more, some less.

How many lures have proven better than others most of the time at provoking strikes? The Crappie Magnet grub is one that is always in my tackle box. If other lures aren't cutting it, the Magnet will catch fish when a location-pattern is discovered. The RUNCL swim grub is another I found incredible at getting fish to attack and many times on the same retrieve!
Are the fish po'd that attack like no tomorrow?!!! Like hunger and anger, motive means nothing when it comes to my selection of lures. All I know is that some lures produce that reaction in fish while other less so or never.

Examples of locked in DNA lure characteristics by design:
Crappie Magnet double thin straight tails quiver; the lure darts and pauses when worked
A curl tail wiggles and flaps
A fin tail flaps slightly up and down
A thin straight tail quivers
A spike or stinger tail quivers even under a float
A grub formed by joining two grub bodies together using a candle flame, bobs back & forth; a grub body with curl tail removed is similar in motion.
A swimbait with boot tail (like the Sassy Shad), causes the lure body to quiver on a steady retrieve and now the RUNCL swimbait's shape and action combination is even better. (Today 5 fish species clobbered it !)
A lipped crankbait wiggles on the retrieve.
A Beetle Spin has flash and the soft plastic lure's action

There are many more, but fish have shown me time and again that action matters as well as type-of-retrieve that goes with a lure action!

150 fish caught within three days last month proved the theory - by example - to be true.

When it comes to sensitivity, we humans have it covered when something is crawling up our legs or a fly land on our necks! The immediate concern is being bit! We don't know what animal is finding our skin interesting or appetizing, but it doesn't matter - the thing simply doesn't belong there! The response covers all animal life with senses: feel the presence of something unknown (like a lure) followed with a fight or flight reaction, figuratively speaking.

Another thing about multiple strikes by the same fish. Fish aggression levels are hard to predict. The fish that strike only once sensed the object not worth the effort; fish that go crazy all the way to the boat or dock and then get hooked on the next retrieve or then vertically jigged lure after many attacks, are in manic-mode. You might call it a temper tantrum or 'I will get you no matter what!' or 'you thought you could get away from me - I'll show you!'

In human terms, we may be napping (activity suspended) and then our sensitive skin alerts the brain to wake up (danger danger!) and swat the intruder! (a high level of aggression). Or we may just roll over and hope the annoyance will disappear.

Activated school-fish slam lures or baitfish like no tomorrow.! Even after seeing their buddies disappear in a panic they still attack the same lure. (Kinda disputes the fact that fish can reason and learn from the moment or others' mistakes.) It seems the rise in aggression level was contagious (for reasons I'll never know), but what I do know is that my addiction-to-the-strike has been satisfied many times over as has my ego (at least until next time when I struggle to catch four fish in 5 hours).

Sensitivity/ aggression level relationship is everything. Ya can't have one without the other.

Thanks for reading when you got noth'n better to do. LOL