Do fish associate danger with hooks?

peter crabtree · Nov 17, 2014

Hooks come in a wide variety of colours from black to red to silver et al. Mainly made of forged metal or fine wire in a variety of sizes and patterns.
Are fish intelligent enough to see and understand the ( conceivable to us ) danger a typically bent piece of metal poses?

Ray Daywalker Clarke · Nov 17, 2014

I would say No. On the grounds that we are told fish have very short memories.

If that is right, then I wonder how can a fish remember a hook ?? or anything else come to that.

I don't think it could be the colour of the hook either, as they would associate danger with coloured baits.

Thats my take on it anyway, but i may well be wrong.

flightliner · Nov 17, 2014

Not to sure that they bother fish in a general sense, they must see so many a piece of weed, detritus, breaking down leaf skelatel remains that look hook shape or similar.
I tend to think that if the baits natural action under water is hampered in any way by the hooks weight then that could be reason for a fishes wariness so heightening it natural caution in taking or not the anglers offering.

Mr Cholmondeley-Corker (PaSC) · Nov 18, 2014

Well just last week I flicked out my live bait whip rig to check the float cocked and u caught a perch on a bare hook. Did it look like a tiny grub or something?

bennygesserit · Nov 18, 2014

There is video "evidence" of fish eating all the bait in an erea except the hooked one e.g. Catching the impossible and a barbel doing just that , its not conclusive evidence for me.
In the Korda underwater footage there are lots of carp that shy away from the hookbait at the last moment , but also lots of footage of carp that feed right over the hookbait or indeed take it.

I'd like to see a scientific study , is it the hook , the hooklength , the way the bait behaves ? Or is it that fish cant distinguish the hook anyway after all they get caught often enough.

One thing the Korda stuff did show is carp leaving the baited area while there was still bait there , I always assumed fish would eat the lot , so sometimes you don't get bites because the fish have moved on anyway , not because of the hook.

Fish must recognise danger , thats why they take flight.

Some fish get caught over and over so maybe the mechanism that coverts sight or feel of a hook into a danger signal is better developed in some fish than others.

I was amazed when dabbing for carp on a commercial how quickly the carp could blow the bait out once they felt the hook ( or the resistance ) it was almost instantaneous - sweetcorn in , BAM then out , very rapid. Still the daft old carp didn't see the hook yet I could see it.

Lord Paul of Sheffield · Nov 18, 2014

If fish shy away from the hooked bait it maybe more the way that bait reacts differently to the freebie as fish swim around the bait ?

john step · Nov 18, 2014

I agree that it is the action of the heavier baited hook that is different however fish such as carp and barbel have highly efficient barbules for tasting.

I wonder if the metal of a hook gives off enough of a taste or electrical charge to warn them.

I think the first person to market a non metalic maybe ceramic hook would be a millionaire very quickly.

I suppose that is still the stuff of science fiction.

greenie62 · Nov 18, 2014

john step said:
I agree that it is the action of the heavier baited hook that is different however fish such as carp and barbel have highly efficient barbules for tasting.

I wonder if the metal of a hook gives off enough of a taste or electrical charge to warn them.....

Nah John,
It's the added weight of all the H&S Warning labels that should be adorning the hook:

This product may contain nuts
Eating bait seriously harms you and others around you
Caution - May contain sharp object

etc.

mg:

sam vimes · Nov 18, 2014

There are several factors that might come into play. However, I believe that fish having short or no memory is a myth that's been debunked.

For the vast majority of fish, I'm not entirely convinced that it's hooks themselves that fish are wary of. There are other factors that might come first. A bait not acting naturally, as surrounding loosefeed might, because there's a hook and line attached is the prime issue. Then comes the possibility of fish being able to see the hook or line.

However, I woundn't be at all surprised if fish can sense the presence of metal, especially iron based metals, in the water. For that to be an issue is going to require some degree of long term learning and associating it with danger. Similar is likely to apply to hooks that the fish might actually be able to see clearly, as with hair rigs. Both issues are only likely to apply to older, wiser and more frequently caught fish, where there is ample sources of food. Their fear needs to outweigh their need to eat for it to be a big problem for anglers.

chub_on_the_block · Nov 18, 2014

Difficult to tell whether its the hook or the line, or the resistance caused by the line that can spook fish. Seen evidence clear as a bell with roach taking free offerings but ignoring those on a hook - maybe they sank faster, or maybe the fish could see the line...as i say difficult to tell.

I agree with Sam that the short memory theory is almost certainly a myth. They remember where the spawning areas are year after year and the tame fish in my garden pond come over to me for some food even if we havent fed them for 2 weeks.

john step · Nov 18, 2014

At the risk of being labelled daft I will disclose a ruse I employ when surface carp fishing.
The carp would take all the mixers thrown at them except the one with a hook.
I started using a large lump of bread flake( amongst the floaters) which would fluff out and hide the hook. This worked to a degree for a while...

I then started painting the hook white with "Tipex" to hide the hook against the flake and the confident takes started again.

Now I cannot say if it was A. my confidence or B. camouflaging the hook by sight or C. camouflaging the hook by metal taste or whatever. But it works.

Titus · Nov 18, 2014

I was struggling to catch mullet on floating crust while on holiday a few years ago until in desperation I tied on a big white booby fly and a bubble float.

I simply fed bread and when they were taking that confidently I overcast the baited area and pulled the fly into the taking area where it was hit without hesitation.

Who knows what the fish were thinking when they were ignoring a bit of crust with a hook hidden in it yet they happily took a great lump of fluff with a size 8 hanging out of it.

rubio · Nov 18, 2014

I've certainly heard of hook shanks being tippexed for hemp fishing. Red hooks for bloodworm? It can't hurt I guess but as to whether it's necessary for anything more than angler confidence I'm not so sure. 'Scientific' studies are pretty much impossible due to the number and range of variables so we're most likely stuck with our usual best guess theories based on experience, observation and intuition. How can an experiment be designed to test the concept? I'd be willing to give it a try out if anyone comes up with a plausible strategy.
The ultimate fish for nibbling baits short of the hook are dace I think. Seals biting off mackerel repeatedly show that mammals at least can distinguish them underwater.

chub_on_the_block · Nov 18, 2014

Re hook colour i have distant memories of using gold finish hooks - something like these (see link) but in an oldskool format - when using sweetcorn for tench. It was a confidence thing really. Kamasan B100G Hooks

Still have some old long shank blue or red hooks in my hook wallet (size 20-22 i think) that i believe were designed for hemp and bloodworm respectively, but cant remember ever using them.

Paul Boote · Nov 18, 2014

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=b...mHsQSYmYLABg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=640

Long been excellent for grayling for me. Sight-fished roach and dace, too. With painted shanks to well around the bend, or with wrapped super-fine copper wire in red, pink, purple, white, cream, orange and lime green. In sizes 12 to 22 - chironomid - midge larvae - jokers imitations in short.

terry m · Nov 18, 2014

chub_on_the_block said:
They remember where the spawning areas are year after year and the tame fish in my garden pond come over to me for some food even if we havent fed them for 2 weeks.

I think this is more attributable to conditioned reflex rather than our everyday perception of memory.

tigger · Nov 18, 2014

Although fish arn't the brainiest of creatures they're not totally thick, especially the larger ones that have been around longer. They obviously remember being caught and some will recognise a baited hook. I've watched many fish shy from my baited hook (and maybe line also) and yet sucked in all the other offerings around it.

binka · Nov 18, 2014

Years ago I always assumed that fish associated hooks with danger, especially prior to my hair rigging days when you would generally fish as small a hook as possible and conceal it as much as you could.

These days I'm not so sure as many of my baits are now hair rigged with the hook in full view right beside the bait, as mentioned already by some I think it might be more to do with the way it makes the bait behave.

Ray Daywalker Clarke · Nov 18, 2014

No one knows why fish return to the same spawning grounds, Eels travel thousands of miles, Salmon, Trout, maybe its comes natural to them from breading.

Fish may not take a hook bait some times, but will take them at other times.

I was fishing a pit with some mates, i was getting the fish, they had nothing. So i told them to try my swim, Nothing, I even gave one my rod, still nothing, yet when i cast, i caught, they didn't.

Now was it something on their hands getting onto the baited hook ?? It had nothing to do with the hook as I caught and they didn't, same rod, rig etc.

I have also heard of others who have had the same thing happen. If fish had a memory as some think, then they would know danger from bait, so they wouldn't go near it. If its a short memory, then its very short, as I have seen the same fish caught just a minute after being return, a Barbel of 13lb 6ozs. I have also seen a pike take a plug 3 times on the trot, having got off the first 2 times.

sam vimes · Nov 18, 2014

Ray Daywalker Clarke said:
I have also heard of others who have had the same thing happen. If fish had a memory as some think, then they would know danger from bait, so they wouldn't go near it. If its a short memory, then its very short, as I have seen the same fish caught just a minute after being return, a Barbel of 13lb 6ozs. I have also seen a pike take a plug 3 times on the trot, having got off the first 2 times.

I've witnessed the same sort of thing. However, I wouldn't put it down to a lack of memory. I'm not one to bestow fish with genius level IQs, as some anglers seem to want to. However, I'd put that kind of thing down to a compulsion to feed overcoming any sense of danger the fish may have. Even the trickiest of fish can have such days. As anglers, we can only hope that they happen for us more often than not. I'm sure that most long term anglers will have fished for species or in places that are usually far from easy, yet inexplicably have red letter days from time to time. A classic example would be the highly visual but notoriously fickle mullet. Usually a very tricky and frustrating proposition, but some days you just can't help but catch them.

Do fish associate danger with hooks?

AKA Simon, 1953 - 2022 (RIP)

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