If there truly was an exact science for bass fishing, would it still be fun? It's like coaching baseball. There's a 1000 philosophy's on how to coach but end of the day its percentages or gut feeling.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/T06-243.1
This link is to a 4 year study that supports there are fish more likely to be caught (HV highly vulnerable) and fish less vulnarable to angling pressure (LV). The logic is that as a highly pressures lake ages the more LV fish produce more than HV fish. It also supports that these traits are hereditary. Lake Fork comes to mind and would very interesting if tpwd along with an university, that has a large fisheries program, would do a study on fork and start stocking fish known to be HV and see if the catch rates of fishermen improve over the next 5 years.

Very interesting stuff.. I had a 250 gallon aquarium with a couple of bass in it and I studied them... not quite as cool as this book sounds. One thing I thought was really interesting was how they ate a crawdad. Anyone else experience this?

When the crawdad was in defense mode - claws up and in fight mode the bass would swim away - but as soon as the crawdad would get relaxed and start to walk normally - BAM the fish would eat it. Always thought about that when picking my crawdad baits - I didn't want the kind that stood up or had claws up because of that.

Also, any fisheries biologists in the house? Is it true that bass need to each crawdads or they will get "hole in the head" disease? I was told that once by someone who should know - so I fed my bass at least 1 crawdad each per month. Which is what I was told was a good amount.

Oh, and one last thing - I put a smallie in there and ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE - they don't like each other at all. So we promptly removed that guy and added 2 peacock bass - which I actually bought at a pet store believe it or not. They got along OK with the largies!

I could certainly be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that fluorocarbon wasn't even available commercially in the US when this book was originally published in 1975.

Seaguar stumbled upon the idea of fluorocarbon around the same time, but I don't think it became widely known/used until quite some time later. They had a lot of kinks to work out before they really got the ball rolling.

As others have stated, it has been my experience that line size and invisibility can play a big part in strike generation. Of course, there are so many other factors involved. Our lakes are pressured now in a way that truly wasn't even possible back then.

Interesting thread.

Interesting stuff for sure Mark. Not sure I agree with it all but still good food for thought.

Some of you may remember John Hope from Tracking Texas Trophies. He was the guy that installed radio transmitters in several large bass then tracked their movements around the lake. I had the chance to fish with him on a night trip at Fork the summer after Dennis Canada caught "Missy" off her bed.

Missy was a 15+ pound bass that lived in Wolf Creek. John and Dennis had installed a transmitter in her belly and had been following her studying her movements up & down Wolf Creek, mostly at night. Missy lived in a brush pile in 12' of water on the edge of a treeline. She typically would begin moving at night down the treeline and would seldom venture more than 300 yards form the brush pile she lived in.

I did not witness this but a friend of mine booked John to take him out for an instructional trip on Fork told me this story.

He said they idled into Wolf Creek shortly before dark and shut down the outboard several hundred yards away form the brush pile where Missy lived. Then they troll motored closer and allowed the wind to drift them silently toward her home. John told him to remain still and not make any noises. John lowered the pole into the water that had the microphone attached to it to see if he could locate Missy. Sure enough, Missy was right where she normally was on the treeline.

John said, "Now watch this". As he reached over to the console of his boat and turned on the graph, Missy bolted.

It was a lesson my friend has not forgotten almost 30 years later.

John told him that when he was targeting trophy bass he would always sit tied up or anchored with no flashers or graphs running. It was his belief that trophy bass were like trophy bucks. They were alerted to the mechanical sounds of trolling motors and ticking graph transducers.

I believe that bass in general do become accustomed to lots of noise like outboards idling overhead and the hum of trolling motors going by. However, I strongly believe that it exponentially increases your odds of catching a true giant if you can sit in one spot silently and not put them on alert as you cast your lure to them.

That's my

I dont believe anything I hear and only half of what I see !!!

I know, for a fact, that braided line does scare away more bites. I have video/audio proof of it. At least 50% less bites with braid. Of course this is while using a t rig in semi clear water. The sound kinda helped in murky water.

I simply try NOT to use it. 99% I will use Flourocarbon.

Temps do effect the bite on a large lake. Fact.

As for casting at a fish till it gets mad and then bites? Couldn't tell ya. I don't waste that kind of time.

I've also never missed a bite that involved a partial hooking and was successful at catching it on a second cast. Probably because it was missing a chunk of its face. Lol

I TRULY believe the same thing.

I know the noises scare the older, bigger fish. They are not that stupid that they couldn't remember the sounds associated with the trauma of getting hooked by an angler. When they are released (hopefully), they just became a little wiser. Some of the bigger fish have never been caught and the reason is because they are skittish and bolt at the sight of sound of anything "not normal" or threatening. That's how they get so big.

This is also why I believe in the Hydrowave technology as a mask for the unnatural sounds of a fully rigged boat. I don't believe it causes fish to bite. I just believe it helps to disguise the sounds of the boat and electronics.

This!

I bet the book holds true on all points sometimes amd somewhere, but not always. I still think it is a valid book to think outside the box. Bass certainly don't act in the box when they have to face so many different conditions to survive and eat.

I read about a study that was done with crawfish. Bass actually preferred crawfish that had their claws removed to ones that still had them.
They concluded that crawfish imitations with NO claws would produce better than ones with, but lure manufacturers would have a lot of trouble selling them because of the psychological barrier of fishermen wanting to see those claws on their lures.

And I have hooked the same bass twice this year. Using a C-Rig, I broke off on the hookset, then re-rigged and threw back into the same spot and hooked it again. I knew it was the same one because my first rig was embedded in its mouth, worm and all.

Plus one
Those 6 points are mostly pretty dang bad thoughts... Goodness!!!
I quess 4 is true sometimes.

I caught a bass not long ago in the same spot less than 30 minutes after that bass broke me off and had both of my Tx rigged worms in its mouth. I never expected to hook the same bass.

I remember watching Bill Dance catch a fish, take the lure out of it's mouth and lay the rod on the boat with the lure hanging over the edge. He released the fish into the water and as soon as it touched it spun around, jumped from the water and bit the same lure again. There have been times that I have caught a fish, released it and am sure that it was the same fish that I caught minutes later.

Bill Dance has his fish trained!

These rules only apply if someone is following the bass underwater. Just sayin'