Bass & Laser Pointers 2024

OCdockskipper reply :

A buddy of mine has a koi pond in which he added a keeper bass to a few years ago. The fish has grown well, is near 4 lbs and and because of the ponds orientation to the sun, is currently in full autumn mode of eating everything he (she) can get his (her) mouth on. Last week, I watched as 10 large goldfish were devoured as soon as they entered the water - the feedbag is on!!

So I was over at his place this afternoon and saw something I had never seen before. From inside the house, my friend shot a laser pointer through the slider window onto a rock in the pond in about 6 inches of water. Immediately the bass shot across the pond striking at the red light. The fish didn't just mosey over to inspect the light, it was in full on attack mode splashing water out of the pond. When he moved the light to another position, the bass attacked it there. He only did it for a minute or so, he didn't want the fish to possibly injure itself trying to eat something that wasn't there.

I don't think this experience is useful as to lure selection, unless I decided to throw a super miniaturized Ned Rig in red. Also, while this could be useful to help locate fish that are either cruising or spread out on an area like a shallow flat, I think a fish aggressive to show itself like this would also strike most of the presentations we throw. What I did learn is how aggressive a feeding bass can be and that they will often try to eat something before they figure out what it is.

hawgenvy reply :

That's a cocky bass, a lucky one, one that has plenty of food on which to fatten up, and can freely attack and swallow whatever moves. It is not challenged over and over by the anglers' sharp hooks. Most places I fish the bass are wary. They have a bad case of PTSD from being stung and fought with and brought into the suffocating air to face a man. They are careful about what they eat, and are rarely fooled by plastic, and probably wouldn't be tricked by a glimmer of light.

But maybe I'll try it.

WRB reply :

The bass is trained or conditioned to eat gold fish and it's hungry! The lazer apparently looks like gold fish to this bass.

Tom

soflabasser reply :

A pet bass will eat anything that it's owner puts in front of its face.

Big Bait Fishing reply :

there was a gimmiky lure that had a red dot on it , on some infomercial , somebody will remember it

just looked it up , called the Laserlure http://www.tackletour.com/interviewlaserlures.html

Bluebasser86 reply :

On 10/4/2016 at 12:22 PM, soflabasser said:

A pet bass will eat anything that it's owner puts in front of its face.

When I worked at Cabela's we'd do demos dragging the hot new bait back and forth in front of the fish through the glass. The bass would crowd and snap at the bait on the other side of the glass and we'd sell out of that color bait almost without fail. Thing is, you could do the same thing with a bell sinker and the fish reacted the same.

"hamma" reply :

This "pet" is king of the domain,.. anything that moves, introduced to its environment,..is considered food.

Sam reply :

Hey all, want to have some fun at BPS or Cabela's?

Go to their fish tank with one of their spinnerbaits in the package.

Put the spinnerbait near or up to the glass and shake it as you move it around.

The bass, and other fish, will watch it and follow it around as you move it.

I love doing this to entertain the small children at the tank and also watch the bass, that can see me, follow the lure.

May not be as much fun as a laser light but it will show you how the bass, as a predator, thinks.

Give it a try.

scaleface reply :

I wonder if they make a laser in pumpkin .

soflabasser reply :

On 10/4/2016 at 1:29 PM, Bluebasser86 said:

When I worked at Cabela's we'd do demos dragging the hot new bait back and forth in front of the fish through the glass. The bass would crowd and snap at the bait on the other side of the glass and we'd sell out of that color bait almost without fail. Thing is, you could do the same thing with a bell sinker and the fish reacted the same.

Those bass are so well conditioned to being fed that they will eat any lure thrown in the tank.They even feed them dead baitfish in the BPS by my house which is surprising since bass usually only eat a live animal or a lure imitating one.

OCdockskipper reply :

One thing that is different with this fish than those aquarium kept bass is his environment. Being in an outdoor pond, he gets what little weather changes Southern California has as well as our weak excuse for seasonal changes. The pond has 24/7 current and is located in an area that gets more shade than normal, so the water temperature in it is a little lower than local lakes. This seems to make this fish go into fall & winter behavior earlier and spring & summer behavior later.

The seasonal behavioral differences are really evident. I have watched my friend toss goldfish into the pond in mid December and the response is so different than just weeks before. The bass will eat 2 or 3 of the goldfish in a less aggressive manner & then ignore any other ones (which sometimes end up in the filter area, where they eat lost koi pellets and get pretty big themselves). Mid-summer, the koi actually will outrun him to chase some of the goldfish, something that is inconceivable if you were to watch the way he banzai's after food right now.

He probably has lost some of his "wildness", I would hate to see him back in our lake, swimming up to a dock and waiting for someone to toss him some goldfish or nightcrawlers. However, by not being in an aquarium, he still gives off clues to behavior & abilities that I never had the opportunity to see while out fishing.

Yeajray231 reply :

Imagine what one of those Chinese high powered lasers that you can put on signs miles away would do.

Bring up all the beasts from the depths. Lol

Team9nine reply :

Seems to be an inherent behavior with many species of fish...as well as dogs and cats Simply type 'laser fish' into the YouTube search box and you'll see a plethora of videos on a wide variety of fish species, all willing to "chase" the laser beam. The fact that baits like the "Laser Lure" and others haven't set the fishing world on it's ear tells you that it isn't necessarily as simple as putting a laser beam/LED light into the water.

-T9

riverbasser reply :

I have nothing to add to this topic except that I want a pet bass!

soflabasser reply :

On 10/5/2016 at 4:59 AM, riverbasser said:

I have nothing to add to this topic except that I want a pet bass!

One of my closest friends had a 125 gallon freshwater aquarium where he kept a bass he called Hank. Hank would eat from his fingertips and he even ate a piece of turkey meat on Thanksgiving.

ec1 reply :

I've always been under the belief that bass are very similar to cats. Their ability to chase down something moving, and ambushing while waiting for food to pass by. My cat loves laser pointers, so I can't see why a bass wouldn't.

Either way, if you want to practice envisioning why sometime bass need the bait sitting on the bottom for a while without moving, get yourself a cat and check it out.

OCdockskipper reply :

On 10/5/2016 at 4:53 AM, Team9nine said:

Seems to be an inherent behavior with many species of fish...as well as dogs and cats ...

-T9

So True. Not only does the bass chase it, but the koi in the pond are drawn to it as if it was a glowing pellet (they aren't nearly as aggressive). One of my friends dogs, a 100+lb Anatolian Shepard, literally does laps in his yard trying to chase the light down while his Golden/Irish setter mix doesn't see it at all. He also has a pair of indoor cats and one of them jumps a good 4 feet in the air trying to get at the light when it is shot on the wall.

With all that entertainment, I'm surprised my buddy ever leaves the house...

Wind Knot reply :

I can see a new trend in the industry: "Fiber-optic drop shot fishing"

Onvacation reply :

On 10/4/2016 at 8:12 PM, scaleface said:

I wonder if they make a laser in pumpkin .

You have just inadvertently started the debate on size of laser, color of laser, and speed of laser movement.

J Francho reply :

What were those crankbaits with lazers built in them?

OCdockskipper reply :

Laserlures, they were referenced by Big Bait Fishing in a post above along with a link to an article about them.

It is interesting how Ike was promoting them, he said they were good lures even without the laser. It sounded like he was hedging his bet, not wanting to go all-in on something that ended up being a bit gimmicky.

J Francho reply :

My buddy Burnie Haney (look him up, some good articles on his site), was fooling around with a pointer and bedding bait. Drop his bait there, and lead the fish to it with a pointer.

The fish had to be in the shade for it to work, though. I don't think it was that earth shattering.

Big Bait Fishing reply :

On 10/4/2016 at 9:49 PM, soflabasser said:

Those bass are so well conditioned to being fed that they will eat any lure thrown in the tank.They even feed them dead baitfish in the BPS by my house which is surprising since bass usually only eat a live animal or a lure imitating one.

i used to fish a lake for catfish at there , i was using cut mackeral , 6 out 10 times i would catch a bass ..

soflabasser reply :

On 10/7/2016 at 3:27 PM, Big Bait Fishing said:

i used to fish a lake for catfish at there , i was using cut mackeral , 6 out 10 times i would catch a bass ..

Doesn't surprise me,bass can be strange animals at times.There is one lake that I have caught decent sized bass on hotdogs when fishing for channel catfish.

GetBent reply :

That bass would mess himself if he saw a boat with red LED lights cruising around.

WRB reply :

Where are all the "bass can't see red" crowd that use red line and hooks?

Tom

OCdockskipper reply :

I think those may be two different crowds.

Folks who are comfortable using red line think either the bass don't see red or that it doesn't make a difference.

I am a member of the opposite group. I have a hunch that bass do see red, that it can be a trigger, so I like to use red hooks, especially on moving lures. I don't know if it resembles blood, but in the same manner of dipping the tail of a worm in chartreuse dye, it does create a flash of contrasting color that the fish seem to like.

I may be wrong about it making a difference, but after all these years it has become a confidence thing, not unlike your preference for a small bit of red in your jigs.

J Francho reply :

They have a limited ability to see red as "red", but they can and do see the contrast of say red paint on a white lure.

WRB reply :

Not only do bass see red they see it in more detail than the human eye. I make this statement based on Eppinger lure company experience with changing red paint suppliers back in the 60's and thier Daredevil spoon sales dropped significantly as a direct result. Both the diamond and stripped red patterns dropped, anglers were buying up the older lures on the self because they caught fish, the new spoons were not as good. Same exact spoon the only difference was the new suppliers red paint. Eppinger learned the red dye used looked brown under ultra violet light, the old red and new red looked completely different. Eppinger duplicated the old red paint and sales returned to normal. There some things about fish eye sight we don't fully understand.

Tom

* source Lucas on Bass.

J Francho reply :

That's interesting.

Molay1292 reply :

The theory of bass seeing red has less to do with the fishes ability and more to do with the simple physics of light. Red is highest wavelength color, what this means to fisherman and bass in this situation is that when light is filtered by water the color red will be the first to loose it's ability to reflect light at that point it becomes a gray scale color.

WIGuide reply :

Lots of animals have a reaction to a lazer light. I had a dog that would chase that thing wherever it went. I used to have all sorts of tropical fish and they'd be all over it. I used to have bass too and it was the same deal. I've seen cats chase them all over. Humans react to them too some more than others. That's the basis of lazer lure and livingston lures. Sure Livingston has the sound feature too, but a lot of their baits have a red light in them as well.

DrMarlboro92 reply :

On 10/11/2016 at 1:19 AM, OCdockskipper said:

I have a hunch that bass do see red, that it can be a trigger, so I like to use red hooks, especially on moving lures. I don't know if it resembles blood, but in the same manner of dipping the tail of a worm in chartreuse dye, it does create a flash of contrasting color

One thing I've noticed, is that a red hook can make interesting changes. I had to replace a hook on one of my lipless cranks a while back and all I had was a red trebble. I put it on the back, and started noticing all my fish were slamming the back of the bait and only getting the back hook. I moved the red hook to the front and started sinking both hooks. I have a theory that it gave them a target to key in on, whether it was because it was red, or just a contrast I'm not sure, but I do know moving the red hook changed the way they hit the bait.

Further North reply :

I use red hooks a lot on soft plastics...I have no objective data to prove they work better...but since they catch fish...

Jon P. reply :

if you wanted to paint a laser pattern crankbait i would go with a dyed red resin and just dip a clear bodied crankbait in the dyed resin.

j bab reply :

This thread was mentioned in the Bass Blaster. It's kinda cool to see stuff from the forum show up in there (he has around 100,000 subscribers to that newsletter). I assume Kumar asked the OP for permission to quote this?

J Francho reply :

Jay is a member here.

Paul Roberts reply :

I don't think the color of the laser has much to do with bass, or other critters, interest. Dogs are sensitive to yellow-green but not red, yet they will chase. Bass retinas are highly sensitive to both red, and green. It's the motion, and size, that triggers a predatory response. It's an intriguingly intense response though, eh?

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