"...In bass, thanks to all those bass tournaments, there has been a tremendous amount of money invested in understanding catch and release. And what they did find were two things. One is that bass bit at different rates - certain bass, based on certain aspects of their metabolism, bit differently. So the long question people have had is, "Can you kill all of the biters?," and the 'biters' being those fish that bite your hook and then you kill and take home. If you catch all the biters, you're not going to have anything left to fish for except for the 'non-biters.' Well, there's some truth to that, though that's very simple because every fish has to be a biter at some point in its life, because you got to eat to grow...So what they did find in bass is this. Those bass that had really slow metabolisms, that were not very bold...they would bite and be hooked, but then it would take them a long time to be caught again on the same lure. In fact, it could be several weeks to even months, and sometimes they just didn't bite again at all. Now again, you understand all the challenges with doing this research, but it was pretty convincing evidence that those fish that were not very bold, that had that slow metabolism, they probably don't need as much food. They probably don't have to take so many risks to get the food, so they were more skeptical in terms of biting again. Now, on the other hand, those fish that had really fast metabolisms, those fish that needed to eat 10 crawdads a day to keep their shit going, those fish would bite again right away, within a day or two."
- John McMillan, fish researcher
Excerpted from an interview with April Vokey
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