healthier and more robust than its buddies,
which cascaded into better fitness,
better nest success and perhaps a
more fit brood, which over time became
predisposed to consuming gobies. After
several generations, those bass that
were more likely to eat gobies became
more abundant and successful than
those that weren’t, and thus the population
evolved to where we are today –
with the round goby as a predominant
forage species for smallmouth bass
anywhere they coexist.
Other examples of direct learning
include the opposite end of the spectrum,
whereby an animal learns to
avoid something due to a negative or
PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA
dangerous experience. Consider the
way bass use shade as a form of cover.
It’s easy to imagine that at some point
there was a bass sitting out in the
open, and it was attacked by an osprey,
eagle, heron or some other threat from
above. It survived, but it learned that
shade was a much safer environment.
This is an oversimplification, for
sure, as evolution is an extremely
nuanced topic, but it demonstrates that
all animals, including bass, have the
ability to learn from direct interactions
with their environment.
SOCIAL LEARNING
A different type of learning frequently
studied by biologists is the concept of
social learning, or learning not just from
direct experience, but rather from
observing and interacting with other
members of the same or other species.
For more socially involved animals, this
happens all the time.
Studies of the lined bristletooth, a
saltwater reef fish, showed that individuals
on reefs more frequently targeted
by spear fishing anglers – where they
witnessed other lined birstletooth being
hunted – were quicker to flee than
those individuals that lived on reefs and
weren’t, and the response was even
quicker when the individual diver was
actually holding a spear gun. These
results support the idea that not only
were lined bristletooth able to learn
from watching their fellows be hunted,
but also that they would react differently
to a diver depending on whether or
not he or she was holding a spear gun.
Another example of social learning
in fishes was a 2007 study in which
juvenile Japanese flounder that had
observed other flounder being consumed
by predators showed a better
ability to avoid predation than naïve
juveniles that hadn’t interacted with the
predators. This showed that not only
could these flounder learn socially, but
also that they were able to funnel at
least some of what they learned into
behavioral changes.
As interesting as these studies are,
the questions remain: Does this happen
with bass? And how can I use this
information to catch more fish?
BASS LEARNING
In 2019, researchers from the
University of Illinois published a paper
that for the first time reported on a
comprehensive study on bass’ ability
and propensity for both direct and
social learning. Unsurprisingly to many
seasoned anglers, they found that bass
do indeed learn from being caught.
Perhaps surprisingly, though, the
results also showed that bass don’t
seem to have the ability to learn
socially. Observing other bass being
caught, as well as the presence of
“learned” bass, didn’t alter the behavior
of naïve individuals (that hadn’t
been caught).
To set up the study, researchers
stocked bass into four ponds, and
then anglers fished two of them with
wacky-rigged stick baits. This gave
the bass in the two fished ponds
“experience,” and as the bass were
caught, catch rates decreased as
expected. The bass were “learning” to
avoid the lure.
Once this had occurred, the
researchers then stocked some of the
naïve bass from the two unfished
ponds into the ponds with educated
bass that hadn’t been caught and
fished again, this time with a series of
different baits: two plastics (the green
original one again as well as a white
version) and an in-line spinner. These
naïve bass showed no difference in
catch rates or response times relative
to the educated bass. In other words,
they weren’t “learning” from the educated
bass. Similarly, catch rates
declined as the bass “learned,” until a
new lure was introduced. Then catch
rates again temporarily spiked.
These results should be interesting
to anglers for several reasons, most
importantly because they address the
age-old concept that as fisheries
mature, the bass in them become educated
to certain lures.
This study helps illustrate that it’s
probably not the result of bass learning
from the mistakes of their compatriots
– like an older generation of
bass that previously was exposed to
certain lures.
Certainly, angler pressure has
been shown in countless studies to
reduce catch rates, but science would
argue that’s mostly from direct learning.
The idea that another bass
watching its buddy get caught can
learn to avoid your lure is directly disputed
by these results.
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