Do Bass Think Like Humans? The Answer Holds the Secret to Catching More Bass

Unlock the secrets of bass sensory perception and how it impacts your fishing strategy

Discover how bass perceive their world differently from humans, and learn how understanding their senses can boost your fishing success. / Kurt Mazurek

Table of Contents

1. Understanding Bass Behavior: Are They Like Humans?
2. How Bass Senses Differ from Humans
3. How to Use Bass Senses to Your Advantage

Over the years, I’ve heard many fishermen, including some really accomplished anglers, try to explain bass behavior in human terms. “Bass are just like us, because…” or “If I were a bass, I would…”. There’s a big word for this line of thinking called, anthropomorphism. It refers to humans assigning human emotions and behaviors to non-human animals. It’s easy to understand how us humans come to these conclusions.

Understanding Bass Behavior: Are They Like Humans?

We understand the world in the way we experience the world. Our sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch provide us with all the data we need to have those experiences. It’s easy to assume since a bass has eyes, ears (Wait, do they have ears? They do.), a nose (Yep, I can see the little nostrils where a nose should be), a tongue, and nerves in their skin, then of course as humans we know what the bass is experiencing and what those experiences mean to them.

How Bass Senses Differ from Humans

Bass perceive the world in ways that are vastly different from humans. While they rely on the same basic senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—the functionality of these senses diverges dramatically. For instance, a bass' vision processes motion at a rate three times faster than humans, a phenomenon known as critical flicker frequency. To put it simply, if you showed a bass a movie, it would see each frame individually rather than as a continuous flow. Which also means the spinning blade on your spinnerbait looks pretty different to them than it does to you.

A bass' vision processes motion at a rate three times faster than humans. If you showed a bass a movie, it would see each frame individually rather than as a continuous flow. / Dreamstime.com | © Phillip Lowe | 190629282

And even more important to consider than the differences in the way their senses work, is the brain they use to interpret and react to those senses. Humans have a relatively giant brain, which means we have lots of functioning power to instantly add memories and emotions and complex programing into everything we sense. A bass’ brain, while still an amazing little computer, can’t possibly have the same capacity as our human brain. Even if their sensory organs were the exact same as ours (which would look pretty creepy), but the information filtered through their brain rather than ours, their experience of the world would be vastly different than ours.

A bass’ brain, while still an amazing little computer, can’t possibly have the same capacity as our human brain. / Knowing Bass, K. Jones | Dreamstime | © Guniita | 54987873

But with limited brain capacity comes extreme specialization with maximum function focused on survival. Each sense quickly interprets signals from prey, or your lure, looking for key indicators. The more you understand how a bass’ senses function and what signals trigger them to eat, the more success you’ll have fishing for bass.

How to Use Bass Senses to Your Advantage

So, if you’re casting a red craw-colored Rat-L-Trap, does the bass you catch think he was eating a crawfish? It would seem, probably not. But the good news is, it doesn’t matter. A bass is an opportunistic feeder. Its senses and brain are optimized to catch suitable prey in its environment with maximum efficiency in order to survive. If your lure demonstrates enough of the proper feeding cues, it really doesn’t matter if he thinks it’s a craw, or a minnow, or a T-bone steak.

So forget your preconceived notions about what bass do and trying to relate it to what you’d do. Use your critical thinking power to analyze every bass that you do catch and find the patterns in what triggered them to bite. Even though the bass can’t possibly understand how you think, you have the capacity to try to understand how bass think.

READ THIS NEXT!
Understanding Bass Behavior in Late Fall
Mastering Bass Tournament Strategy: Fish the Moment for Big Wins