Not all bites are the same.
Think about us humans - we'll eat when we're hungry, when we're bored, when we're curious to try a new food, and even when we're emotional.
Having different reasons to eat something is also true for bass.
From the time they hatch bass will use trial and error as well as other instinctive methods to get their fill of food.
When it comes time for a bass to strike your lure, here's four reasons why one may be inclined to do so.
Hunger
The obvious one.
Just like us humans, bass have to eat to survive.
Depending on the season, weather conditions, and the abundancy of food, a bass may eat multiple times a day or once every couple of days.
Regardless, when a bass is hungry it's going to go searching for food or set up at a good ambush point in hopes of an easy meal.
Reaction
Reaction strikes have everything to do with the anatomy of a bass.
Bass tend to use either their sight or lateral line to queue in on their prey.
Visibly seeing a lure and going after it makes perfect sense but what about the lateral line?
The lateral line of a bass is responsible for most reaction bites.
Think of the lateral line as a series of sensors that run from behind the gill plate to the base of the tail.
These sensors that make up the lateral line enables a bass to literally feel their surroundings.
That's why so many of us use lures that produce various sounds and vibrations (crankbaits, chatterbaits, etc.).
When the visible presentation of a lure isn't enough of a reason to produce a strike, overloading the lateral line and other sensory organs of a bass can sometimes be the ticket to getting one to bite.
For a more detailed take on the lateral line, check out this Bassmaster article.
Defense
These strikes almost always take place around the spawn.
During the spring season when the spawning stages are in full swing, bass are in the business of making and protecting their beds.
Since not having any arms or legs a bass has to use it's mouth as a means of defending what is theirs.
So when you see anglers making repeated casts to one spot in the springtime, they are most likely trying to entice a bass to strike as a means of defending their spawning bed.
This is a great time to fish lures that are seen as a threat to the eggs laid within the spawning bed.
Popular choices include crawfish, bluegill, and lizard imitations.
Also note that this is not always an aggressive strike as you may think.
Sometimes a bass just isn't in the mood to completely devour a threat to their bed and will instead just pick it up with their mouth and move it away from the bed.
This makes constant awareness of what your lure is doing very important since you may see the fish take your lure before ever really feeling the fish take it.
Curiosity
Last but not least, bass are very curious creatures.
This goes for both largemouth and smallmouth bass.
As mentioned above, since the time a bass hatches it uses the method of trial and error to determine what is food and what isn't.
You may have helped the cause before without even knowing it...
You make a cast, feel the tick tick of a bite, you set the hook - and nothing.
After your lure goes flying by your head from setting the hook so hard you say to yourself "I'm pretty sure that was a bite".
It very well could have been.
You may have peaked the curiosity of a bass enough to take your lure and get a quick feel for it in their mouth before suddenly spitting it back out.
That was probably a curious bass who realized something wasn't right.
Sometimes the bass win too!
This is one reason why it's so hard to catch bass on a pressured fishery - they tend to lose the curiosity bite.
But that's OK!
Even in heavily pressured areas, we as anglers still have 3 other bites to count on!
Time to go catch 'em!
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