Five Fishing Lessons From My Home Aquarium

Photo Copyright 2011 by Helenah Swedberg

A little over a year ago I scooped a small green sunfish out of a nearby pond. It was only about three inches long. I placed the fish in a bucket of water and brought it home to live in a 30 gallon aquarium in my library.

This fish grew to almost seven inches in length during the past year and has been fed almost exclusively on live food that I collected from the wild. Moths, beetles, flies, mosquito fish, leafhoppers. When one of my kids leaves a door open and a bunch of flying insects get inside of the house I get rid of them by turning out all of the lights after dark, except for the lamp over the tank. The insects fly to the light, hit the surface of the water, and the fish deals with them.

A year of watching a popular game fish feed on live prey has taught me a lot of things about feeding behavior that has made me a better fisherman.

1. Motion matters. The sunfishes generally (a group which also includes bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass and smallmouth bass) rely more on movement to identify prey than on scent or shape. A moth dropped on the surface of the water will tend to live longer if it doesn't move. Sometimes my fish will go for a non-moving insect, especially if it sees it hit the water in the first place. More often the fish ignores the potential prey if it isn't moving.

A struggling insect almost always attracts the interest of the fish. So long as the fish isn't already sated, it will pay attention and probably make a pass.

2. Fish screw up sometimes. They aren't perfect predators. Often a fish will attempt a hit on prey and fail to take it. My fish only succeeds in eating smaller fish on, at best, one out of every ten attempts. It succeeds with insects struggling on top of the water in about half of all attempts. When there are plants in the way then the odds of a successful strike drop significantly.

The fact that you don't feel a hit on your lure after the first few casts does not mean that a spot will not be productive. You may have fish trying to take your lure but they need a few more tries to do the job.

3. Fish pay attention to what is going on outside of the water. Far too often fishermen tend to act as though there is an impenetrable barrier between themselves and the world under the surface. My fish has taken many flying insects on the wing by jumping, and even more that clung to the side of the tank a few inches above the surface. When I approach the tank, the fish recognizes me as a source of food and moves excitedly to the area of the tank where I usually drop a meal. It also recognizes my five year old son, who often feeds it. But when anyone else approaches the tank then the fish tends to back away.

Don't make a lot of noise. Approach the water carefully. Sometimes it pays to hunt for the fish as you would stalk a deer.

4. Sunfish almost always turn back after they strike, whether or not they succeed in taking or even hitting their prey. Whether the fish comes in fast or slow it will almost always do an immediate and rapid 180 degree turn right after the moment when they expect to take the food. If the single hook happens to be pointed such that it is curved toward the direction of the fish's turn then I believe that this will decrease the odds of successfully hooking the fish. The quick 180 also tells you something about where the fish is likely to be for at least a few moments after charging a lure and failing to be hooked.

5. Fish can learn. I never expected to ascribe any sort of intelligence to fish, given the simplicity of their brains relative to animals that we tend to consider intelligent. But some fish are absolutely capable of learning to respond to stimuli in new ways that are contrary to their first instinct. I haven't gone putting any hooks in my pet fish's mouth, but if the fish could learn over time to recognize and approach me as a source of food, then certainly it should be able to learn how to respond to the negative stimulus of a hook in its mouth. My observations lead me to believe that a fish which has been caught before will become more difficult to trick over time. This is probably why out of the way farm ponds can be so easy and fun to fish, while heavily fished public spots can be such a tough grind even when almost everyone else on the water is practicing catch-and-release.

Post-Script: Last week my sunfish died of unknown causes while I was on a road trip. I plan to catch a young largemouth bass in the next few days to see what I can learn from watching it. I'll report back on it in a year or so.