Fish use a combination of senses - primarily sight, smell, taste, and sound - to locate and
identify their natural food sources. Different species use these senses in different ways to locate
different types of prey and forage.
Fish also use these senses to avoid danger and injury from eating non-food items.
It's often said that a lure or bait works by "imitating" a fish's natural food source such as a
baitfish, shrimp or squid. While that's not incorrect, it misrepresents the way a game fish relates
to its prey. Fish don't think and "imitation" implies the ability to do that, to make and understand
comparisons between similar but non-identical items. Fish can't do that.
Instead, a fish strikes out of pure instinct, when stimulated by the right combination of sensory
factors such as movement, shape, scent and sound. Many different lures and baits can provide
the right kind of stimulation to provoke a fish strike, and they needn't resemble natural prey
species to do so.
This is why it's possible to catch game fish with baits and lures that don't resemble natural
forage or anything else fish would encounter in the natural world; fluorescent power baits,
garishly colored tuna lures, crankbaits, dough balls, chartreuse plastics, neon spinnerbaits,
among many other examples.
On to Part Two. Back to the BiteGrease home page.
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