Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
John wrote:The best example someone told me once was this....
Say every time you walked through your kitchen you saw a juicy steak siting there and every now and then whenever you touched it you'd get an electric shock.. before too long you'd become very wary of this meal and to the extreme leave it well alone.
Hey! Does anyone know how to set up that electric shock thingee??
Mythbusters on the discovery channel proved that fish had memory. It had something to do with reacting to different colours and then food. But I agree with the Brown trout being the smartest
What you are attributing to intelligence is really a conditioned response to threat. Casting a shadow over a body of clear water is representative of a huge predator on the prowl. Trout especially will dart off but so will most fish. A moving boat will force shallow fish off to the sides for example.
Minnows (baitfish) form schools to take on size and create the same sort of thing and fool large predator fish. That's why you see certain species (salmon are famous for this) circle schools of bait fish and when stragglers change the pattern they attack and bust the schools up.
Fish can be conditioned over an extended period of time to orient a comfort zone to certain stimulie but quickly lose this quality soon after the conditioning object is removed. Fish do not remember the sting of a hook as we like to describe it - they have no nerve transfer to their brain to create such a reaction. The reation to a hook set is simply caused by an imbalance in their environment emphasized by thier swim bladders and lateral lines going into overload when the balance is upset.
Humans are quick to try and explain things in a natural way relative to how we get along in our enviroment - it is just not the same for fish.
There are however fish that have higher sensory capabilities to support the "fight or flight" reaction.
If we were to re-word the question to include local freshwater species, I'd say that Browns are probably the most sensitive fish out there. Carp and Cats are probably next up.
The least sensitive fish out there has to go to the voracious yet delicious Yellow Perch, the proverbial "Al Bundy" of the fish world.
There is no such thing as a smart fish.