Natural selection; bass tournaments; dumb fish?

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richg99

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This ought to get some crazy theories out in the open, including mine.

We all know about "survival of the fittest" which, it is said, produces "Natural selection". The weak, dumb, slow animals get killed off. The stronger, faster and better equipped-for-survival animals stay around until they get old and weak.

Enter bass tournaments ( or any tournament where the prizes are returned to the water). The fish that you catch, I would assume, were not the smartest fish in the lake. The smarter fish might have been caught once or twice, but they are NOT as easy to catch the next time.

Soooooo...if we continually put the dumb fish back, and they reproduce...aren't we filling the gene pool with dumb, and dumber, fish?

That is OK for catching, but, over the years...are we just perpetuating the weak; dumb; and not-as-fast..... population?

Wonder what would happen if the "caught" fish were NOT returned to the water? Would we have a strain of bigger; faster; smarter; and harder to catch fish over the next few years?

Just wondering......

Can't go fishing, so I thought I'd mess with your brains for a while.

regards, richg99
 
I don't think you've considered the extensive stocking programs administered by each state into your theory.
 
I gues it depends on your definition of dumb.

Selection pressure on fish, in this case LMB, is greatest at juvenile stages, as usally some 95% plus don't make it over X months or a year. As they age, the chances for survival increase.

So I would say the mature LMB you release is not dumb and if it successfully reproduces, the offspring would have inherited genes from a parents that have reached sexual maturity, which probably only happens in less than 5% of cases. Pretty good for natural selection, huh?
 
Is your name Scopes? Are you saying evolution really works? Ha Ha

My wife and I attended a musical re-inactment of the Scopes trial here in Dayton TN. in the very courthouse where it happened. Maybe that got me thinking.

regards, richg99
 
I believe that certain fish won't hit the same lure over and over. After they have been caught on it a few times, they avoid it. No way for me to scientifically prove that opinion, of course.

I do recall catching 13 bass on 12 casts once in my little pond. The last two hit the same lure. I NEVER caught another bass from that pond on that lure.

I have no idea if they told one another that a glow-in-the-dark She-Dog was bad JUJU...or what. But, I never caught another bass, on that lure, on a pond that is full of very easily catchable fish.

All bass are released every time they are caught. 99% of the catches came on plastic worms. I do believe that a bass doesn't understand that a plastic worm is not a real worm.

richg99
 
Rich, the two young men that live across the road from me are avid fishermen.
last week, they brought me 4 bass, over 16" - - - one had a big 5/0 hook in its stomach.
Last night, they brought me 5 - - - two of them had hooks in their throat or stomach.
So, my solution is to just simply EAT THE DUMB ONES !!! LOL
And let the gene pool replenish itself.
 

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