How To Fish – Using Sound and Vibration to Entice Interest
To understand how sound and vibration affect fish we need to understand some things about how sound and vibration travel through water.
Sound is vibration and travels through water by means of energy waves. These waves move through water very efficiently and can roll and roll for long, long distances. Sound travels faster through liquids than through air. The medium of which sound is traveling through and the variables that influence that medium affect the speed of sound. One type of medium is air and another is liquid. Variables that influence how sound travels are temperature, humidity and altitude. On base comparison, sound travels through air at a rate of 1,087 feet per second while sound travels through water at a rate of 4, 862 feet per second. Bass hear sound as humans do and sound has the same effect on bass as it does on humans. It is very difficult to identify the direction that sound is coming from and to determine distance.
Fish live in a noisy environment. The sounds that fish are hearing come from man made devices like propellers and sonar and the noise that are created by the uniqueness of other creatures in the deep. Bass have two means to sift through all this sound to decide if it a threat or opportunity. Bass have a inner ear with an ear bone that works similar to humans. They can hear a bunch of sound but have difficulty doing much more than that. Bass also have a lateral line system that detects vibration as low as 50 hertz while the ear only detects vibration as low as 500 hertz. The noise that the lateral line detects are pressure waves and bass can detect the low frequency waves given off by swimming prey. The lateral line system is very accurate and can detect the vibration that is set off when an angler cast a bait into the water.
Spoons, swimbaits and trailers create the pressure waves by their swim action that entices the lateral line system of a bass. To appeal to the inner ear and spark interest, rattle type baits are used. Rattles imitate noises a prey fish makes or are used to get the bass’s attention and hopefully trigger a strike.
There are no special techniques or tricks to implement when wanting to use a type of rattle bait. Fish strike at the presentation and not the sound. The sound is simply a mechanism to help get the attention and that decision from the bass to determine: threat or opportunity. As with anything, sometimes rattle baits help trigger that strike and sometimes it repels fish. The best approach for using a rattle bait is to select one that emits a wide frequency range by using different size BBs. Several types of lures are designed to attract bass with sound as the lipless Rat-L-Trap that can be found on Cabelas or ebay.
Rattles function as a means to get the attention of bass and other predator fish in an area. Rattles used with jigs to imitate crawfish help attract bass to the expected click noises that are associated with crawfish moving around. Other rattles can attract the attention of a bass by imitating the swish sounds of a school of baitfish.
To attract bass to your action and presentation, throw a rattle bait configuration close to the weedline or drop off and fish that action. Beads that slide along the line and hit the split shot weights or other tackle are means to create noise within the water to help bring attention to your bait action and presentation. Another means is to use bobbers that have varying sizes of split shot in them to create that sound disturbance.
Learn more on how to fish by understanding the variables that can trigger a strike. Fishing is a lot more than just throwing a line, hook and bobber and waiting for the fish to find you to be interested in your bait. How to fish to catch the limit is about knowing how the climate, terrain and specifics about your targeted fish all interact to trigger continuous strikes.