Hi all i was lucky enough to catch my best conn brownie of the season today at a little over 2 1/2 ilbs,on slipping him back into the lough a thought popped into my head,how long would it be before he surfaces again or is even caught then i got to thinking about this seven second memory span that some fish are suppose to have so i thought i would throw it out there and see wat kind of opinions or facts that some fellow anglers might have about this....tight lines
T.T.

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"Thats why its called fishing,not catching!"

Well I think the seven second theory is out the window.
I caught and lost a lovely fish last week, and he wouldn't come up again several hours later.
I think some fish catch on very quickly, which makes it all the more interesting.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

Hi Tom,

If I have time . . . and I can find it, there was an article in New Scientist where they reported on an experiment in which a number of different species were held in tanks and caught on a variety of baits. The trout proved to have the best memory and avoided a bait on which it was caught for up to 6 months. Amusingly, the carp seemed to have a four month memory which put it in second place to the trout, although most species' memories were measured in months, not seconds!

Rather more anecdotally, I fish a stretch of the Spey where very few others fish for trout. And I have found that the fish I had previously caught from specific lies were much more tricky or impossible to tempt than those in 'new' lies I had not cast to before, after a two week period when I had been away on holiday.

So . . . .they are certainly not daft!

Andy

the seven second thing......catch a trout un-hook it.....count to eight.....trout says as you slip it back in "blimey what's all this wet stuff"....can't see it to be honest

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an interesting mix of apathy and panic

Clive M

I read an interesting thread on Salmon forums about this sort of thing

http://www.salmonfishingforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=12033

We all like to kid ourselves on that our quarry is intelligent but a fish must be a pretty dumb animal, why else would they be selective feeders?

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How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
Will captivate a greedy mind - Isaac Walton.

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Hi', Tom. As far as selective feeding goes, trout are by no means dumb. They latch on to whatever is there in the greatest numbers, or that which is easiest to gobble, or a combination of the two. Hence, the pre-occupation with tiny midges etc at times when they ignore bigger flies passing by. They will latch on to spent spinners, very easy to sip in, and ignore floating duns, not daft, just doing that which takes the least energy from their tanks.
If you wait long enough, it could take hours, the repetetive riser will eventually take a fly out of sheer reaction, so long as a fly ( that was formerly refused, possbly repeatedly ) is presented well and is not outlandishly sized. I've done it and proved the point to my satisfaction, and can relate the details recorded in my diaries, at the risk of boring you. TerryC
PS nothing clever about me, I'm just patient, persistent and I used my eyes.
I wish the reflexes were still as good as the patience etc.