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Now tell me fish can't learn !

Ian Grant

Ian Grant

Senior Member & Supporter
From Wikipedia......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfish


Memory
In 1994, a public experiment at the Palais de la Découverte science museum showed that goldfish could be trained to recognize and to react to light signals of different colors by using positive reinforcement.[12] More recent research by the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth in 2003[citation needed] demonstrated that goldfish have a memory-span of at least three months and can distinguish between different shapes, colours and sounds. They were trained to push a lever to earn a food reward; when the lever was fixed to work only for an hour a day, the fish soon learned to activate it at the correct time. The Discovery Channel's show Mythbusters tested the contemporary legend that goldfish only had a memory span of 3 seconds and were able to prove that goldfish had a longer memory span than commonly believed. The experiment involved training the fish to navigate a maze. It was evident that they were able to remember the correct path of the maze after more than a month.[13] A study at the start of the 2000s showed that fish do actually respond to certain colours, this is most evident when it comes to feeding as fish are also aware of feeding times provided they are fed at around the same time everyday.
 
I oft read on here and sites like it that the barbel are an easily caught fish. It is an assumption on my part but I suspect those proposing such, fish rivers with high population densities.
Fish rivers like the Avon, Kennet, and I would suspect the Loddon and you'll find those who agree with the sentiment that fish do learn and are able to put into practice what they've learned will outstrip those that say they're easy to catch.
Certainly, in my experience, I have seen barbel do things which will only be explained by their process of learning, albeit by an association with the danger of being caught, and which will have taken place over a fairly long period of time, such is their inherent intelligence.



Damian
 
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You mirror my thoughts exactly Damien, if a goldfish, can learn how to push a lever, at the correct time to obtain food, i'm pretty sure a big ol' wiley barbel can learn what a tight line is, or the flavour of a bait, etc,etc.

Ian.
 
That will explain who my feeders always come back empty, the fish must be opening them with their fins and taking out all the freebies and then closing them again……………… only joking Ian!:D:D:D:D:D

I don’t think I have ever really prescribed to the theory that barbel are easy to catch, I have seen some pretty spooky fish over the last few seasons behaving in ways that would indicate that they ‘know’ something is not right with what is in front of them.

Let me elaborate a little. A couple of seasons ago I watched a small group of barbel feeding over some free offerings I had introduced using a PVA mesh bag. The water was clear and was approximately four feet deep. The fish where coming out from under a willow on the opposite bank feeding in a small hollow in the rivers bed. I managed to get the fish feeding quite quickly but I observed the fish making a ‘circling’ motion over the freebies every time before the picked one up. I thought about this for a while and came to the conclusion that these fish where ‘checking’ for hooks/hook links around the freebies.

I think they where feeling for something ‘wrong’ with what was in front of them!

Now this was only a week or so into the season (from memory) and I don’t think the fish had been fished for judging by the surroundings, there did not seem to be any evidence of anyone fishing in that area at the time.

So why on earth where these fish so spooky and behaving in such a manner, what had made them, and there was several fish in that swim that afternoon all behaving the same way, appear to be checking for ‘something’

I have on other occasions spotted fish and watched them melt away as soon as a single pellet or piece of corn was introduced as a free offering. I flicked a piece of corn to one particular fish, it stopped dead in its tracks and looked disturbed, the second piece of corn made things worse, the third piece made it drift under some weed and disappear……………. Why? That fish to this day is still one of the largest barbel I have ever seen!
 
Robb Guy wrote about how one of the biggest uncaught barbel in the gt Ouse never took a stationary bait nor one that was on the bottom. That sounds quite clever to me.

Sounds like a good case for float fishing but I'm sure he thought of that!
 
Tom,
when you view some of the many natural world programs there are out there, there's hardly one that doesn't detail a time in the cycle of an animals life, mostly annually, when either there's a bounty of sustenance available or they must make a journey important to their continuation. All of these are triggered by outside influences which they are looking to, be it environmental factors which it will most likely, but also specific days.
Is it any wonder that come June 16th after having received many a freebie no doubt, that they'll come to associate that time of the year with trepidation?
I have a theory that along with that, coming up to the end of the season, unless of course unsettled weather happens top occur at the same time, it too is a time when the fish will react instinctively. Even during periods of such weather as we are seeing now, if prolonged and approaching the end of the season, I feel that knowing this fish will choose to leave their semi-comatose state to feed in ernest almost, knowing full well that this bounty will likely be the last they'll see for some time.


Damian
 
There is a couple of threads in the archives somewhere on this interesting subject.
In my experience, there is very little difference way humans behave and show 'instinct' or 'intellegence'!
We can 'sometimes' be clever and seemingly intelligent in many aspects of life, and at other times stupid, naive, silly, make mistakes, get caught out, ripped off, moody, accidents, etc, etc.
Regarding behaviour, there is not a lot of difference in my opinion. If you can watch barbel and study them in depth at close range in the wild over a long period of time, it can become a facinating subject to where you can draw your own conclusions.
Sometimes barbel do let there guard down when in the right mood and lose the caution side and are easy to catch, but at other times they do show awareness that something is wrong and apply caution etc.
I would even say that some 'individual' barbel can be more 'intelligent and wiser' than others, hence 'mug fish' and ones that seemingly go uncaught or are harder to catch, as Guy Robb mentions.
When you know this and believe that an 'individual' big barbel has an element of intelligence, then that is when it can become a 'battle of wits' between the angler and fish, in knowing its patrol routes, feeding and other habits, seasonal locations etc. Most of the time, it will be the angler who is 'outwitted' as many have experienced, but there just be one rare occassion when the fish is 'off guard' and will make a mistake and gets caught out.
 
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I saw exactly that on the Loddon some years back Tom, and came to the same conclusion that the barbel were checking for lines, if a tight line had been present, and he'd hit it, it would've given a fair old wack on the rod top.
I remember around that time when i had several consecutive sessions in one swim, that had me pulling my hair out ! i was getting savage wrap rounds and coudn't connect with them, eventually i foul hooked one, bringing back a scale, in fact i also foul hooked a chub brining back it's scale as well, i concluded that fish wre definatley feeding on my bait, but were able to identify my hookbait, even in darkness as these sessions were.
It was then i started experimenting with pinning my line down something i'd never tried before, and threading tiny pieces of meat direct to the hook, - result i started catching again, that was a fantastic swim to learn in, there were so many barbel packed into it, unfortunatly the floods of 2003 wiped out the feature that created the crease that the barbel found so attractive.
Another subject :p

Ian.
 
You guys ought to see what oft-caught trout on catch-and-release river fisheries, particularly abroad, can get up to! Inspecting flies minutely before rejection, detecting the "drag" of a dry, floating fly or an awash emerger in the surface film, bolting from the landing of a bad cast or the shadow of a fly line on the riverbed etc etc. These fish have not merely Degrees but PhDs, and require very careful "Technical" fishing.
 
Ray Walton said:
In my experience, there is very little difference way humans behave and show 'instinct' or 'intellegence'!
We can 'sometimes' be clever and seemingly intelligent in many aspects of life, and at other times stupid, naive, silly, make mistakes, get caught out, ripped off, moody, accidents, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

We can sometimes be clever Ray but there are significant portions of our lives that are influenced by our personalities and not our intelligence.
For instance, people who are high in extraversion and driven by outward influences are generally accepted as higher acheivers than those who are introverted, who, by their nature, are not driven by outward factors. Yet the difference between the two may be looked upon as a departure in the levels of inteligence they exhbit, it is not, largely.
Similarly, those suffering with a high neuroticism level, and I say suffering because generally they do, will tend not to be very accident prone. The reason for this is that neuroticism is really a mechanism of the survival instinct. Again, intelligence levels between those who might be prone to accidents and those who are not, would not really correlate.

Regards,


Damian
 
To be honest, it's this subject that feeds my interest in angling, the reason why i ( try to :p ) target bigger fish, not because they are bigger, but because they are harder to catch, and gives me a greater sense of satisfaction than just fishing for whatever comes along and takes my bait.
Their size is not the attraction for me, if it were their looks i were interested in a fish of around 7 lb odd i caught at the begining of last season would rate, and does as the most beautiful barbel i've ever caught, deep bronze flanks, dark orange fins tinged with red, and every scale picked out by a black border, it was absolutley mint, .... i never weighed it or took a photo, something i regret now, But i can't deliberatly target fish like that i wish i could.
It just so happens - the way of things i suppose that big barbel are older wiser fish by and large, accepting Rays point about mug fish, and i've got a few photo's of those :D unraveling the puzzle, and out witting them is what does it for me, and i guess many others too.

I remember Fred Crouch saying in an article that he thought barbel were planks - ( but he loved them anyway ! ) i'd agree when they are 5 lbers, they are the most obliging of fish to catch, put a 1 in front of the 5, and the probably 10 plus years that go with it, will turn it into a pretty wary fish, worthy of a degree of respect i think :p

Ian.
 
I for one am not sure there is Darren.
I would define the level of intelligence as the limit at which environmental (conditioning) factors are no longer able to influence.
Though we're talking with regards to barbel about an intelligence related to environmental factors ie. it's conditioning, the limit to which they'll influence it's behaviour is governed by their ability to take on board certain things in the environment - their inherent (genetic) intelligence.
However, whilst they become conditioned to not picking up that piece of luncheon meat, ie a conditioning related to the association of danger, the problem of how to get around being caught with more delicate presentation is directly related to intelligence. For example, the distinction between a hookbait of caster and a freebie, and making that distinction count.
Many, many times now I have seen feeding fish over a hookbait of hair-rigged casters, yet not been caught. They've made the distinction but also worked out how to avoid being caught by feeding just slightly off of the river bed.
Big barbel, as carp, have now learned to mouth baits and patiently move to a position in the river or lake where they'll then know that that bait is not at all connected to anything.


Damian
 
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I think there are 3 main types, of cautious behaviour that they display.
The first is in bred after eons of natural selection, becomes ingrained in their genes, i.e the instinct to run for cover when sudden movement is seen from the bank, much like the way a fly will dodge your attempt to swat it, the fish has become geneticaly conditioned to take flight when it detects sudden movement.
Second is the conditioning of experiences of sight and sound like loud splashes, large beds of bait, and shapes, shiny objects etc.
These are not genetic, and may as you say be conditioning, some would say learning by association that things may be dangerous, but i agree with Damien, that sort of association might be open to debate whether it is learnt behaviour, which i believe it is, but obviously at least some fish seem to be able to display a degree of learning that can't just be put down to just association on it's own.
The fish sweeping the area for lines ? or the fish wafting baits off the bottom, and only taking those which display free movement, which may have been resposible for those wrap rounds i was speaking of, which i'm certain were liners, and not bites i.e the baits were not in their mouths.

So i'm pretty sure we are dealing with fish that have an inheirantly cautious nature, that build on it as the fish gets older, by association which i think is the lower level of learning, but also with enough experience of being fished for display a definate ability to learn by dare i say it thought process, as primitive compared to ours as it may be, it's still i believe an ability to recognise a specific problem, and find an answer to it, in the same way some carp albeit aided by a very big mouth, have learn't how to rid themselves of a hair rig - some would say barbel too.

Ian.
 
On a hungry river Ian do you think that changes?

With a big head of fish and a limited amount of bait do you think that the fish 'snatch' at the bait rather than display the usual cautionary behaviour, sort of grab it before another fish does?
 
I think it does Tom,
I also think it swings both way's, where there are a lot of fish present not just barbel, dependant on the bait being used, and the amount of it, will provoke the competition factor that many anglers try to create, with so many fish pushing and shoving, and eating, the bigger cuter fish may not have the opportunity to inspect the bait properly, and at the same time knows that if he doesn't get his head down quick he - or she may not get anything, and so grabs what he can quick, hopefully if one of the other smaller fish hasn't already had it, it will be the hookbait, - job done !

The problem is - it usually is the smaller one's by sheer virtue of numbers that get there first, reinforcing the bigger barbels caution.

The tactics i use try to eradicate that problem, not always succsesfully but i do try ! :D

On the other hand where there are very few fish present barbel or not, there is no urgency on the ( cuter ) barbels part to eat - unless it's very hungry.
Though if it's just one small one, he'll likley think it's his birthday and pounce on it !

This is what i believe has been taking place where i've been fishing this year, - a venue i know you know very well !

It appears that the Barbel - and Chub population is much lower this year than others. What i've noticed - well couldn't fail to really, is that after 21 captures of barbel ( i would have expected double that in normal years ) only 3 have come before midnight, and only one of those in daylight, some anglers have plugged away all season for just a few or no fish at all, and one factor is glaringly obvious in their failure, is that they've all packed up well before midnight.

I can only speculate ( but i think i'm correct ) that whatever the reason for the low numbers of barbel, the result is that there is very little if any competition for any given barbel in a swim, in fact it seems to me he's probably there all alone poor thing ! :p

All it's pre conditioned and learn't caution comes to the fore.
I still have been getting indications well before midnight, so i know if one's there, and as i love to be out late, i can play his little game quite happily all night. :)

I try to remove any spook factor i can, i.e fish with slack lines, one cast only if humanly possible etc, he can prod and poke the bait till his hearts content, i will not touch the rod until the tips heading for the water, In situations like this where you have one big barbel in the swim you have one chance and one only, but i think ( I hope :p ) that in the end they can't help themselves, they've spent 3 or 4 hours trying to convince themselves that tasty little morsels OK, and in the end they do :) ( maybe Fred was right after all )

I think there are many factors that will increase or decrease their caution, and you've got to use anything you can to remove that caution and thereby the behaviour they exibit when trying to establish if your bait is safe - or even the situation you've created it may not be the bait itself thats giving them the spooks, if you succeed you'll get your fish, if not..... time to rethink :D
Great fun i love it ! ;)

Ian.
 
Interesting thoughts Damian.

I do think fish have some intelligence, but I personally think they are not very clever in the scheme of things.

I was watching a program on the goggle-box the other day. A dog could fetch a particular toy by command. That's quite intelligent. The dog featured, had a 'vocabulary' that rivalled that of a 2-year-old child. That's pretty intelligent. Without any training, this dog was able to fetch particular toy's, having been shown a drawing of the toy required!

By contrast, given the amount and intensity of 'conditioning' involved with a barbel, say, avoiding a hookbait, it's not really much of an achievement is it?

Are barbel mere eating machines? No. Are they intelligent? Not especially.
 
When i refer to intelligence, in Barbel or any fish for that matter, and in the same sentence comparing fish to other wild creatures, i guess we are then talking a matter of degrees, or at least i am, fish if placed on a scale of inteligence with say Humans on the top, Apes second, third say dolphins, followed by other mammals such as dogs, i guess fish will come pretty close to the bottom.
But consider other fish, and birds for that matter, that are able to navigate by using the earths magnetic field, i watched a programme only the other night where experiments were conducted using lemon sharks, that pretty much conclusivley proved that they used the earths magnetic field to find their way around. This field fluctuates constantly and is not just a case of homing in on stronger or weaker fields, the shark they released miles away from the area it had been held and fed for years soon found it's way back 'home'. Now i grant you some form of natural instinct is at work here, but equally there must be apart of it's brain that is sorting information thats being fed to it, it must be like some sort of puzzle in it's head where the pieces have to be sorted and fitted together in order to reach a decsision of which direction to travel home, at first it wandered all over the place but soon started to move in roughly the right direction, as i believe it began to sift the information entering it's brain, before it was half way 'home' it was heading pretty much straight there.
Now on this scale i've suggested i wouldn't say that they're capable of thought at anything close to that of a mammal, but it is primitive thought not conditioning, conditioning takes repeated stimuli to be applied, that the creature would in time recognise by the association of previous similar experiences. That was not the case with this shark, it had only the information that was entering it's brain to figure out it's way home, that it could not have ever recognised having never experienced it before.

I'll give you another example .... Bees ! it is an established fact that a bee arriving back at it's hive can communicate to the other bees the direction and distance, of a supply of pollen, - and probably i would think other information that is still not understood yet, - by vibrating it's wings.
The whole life of a Bee may largley depend on conditioning, but in the passing of accurate information to other members of the hive can only be achieved by a fairly comprehensive language, which to my mind must take a degree of intelligence, very primitive by our standards but never the less intelligence.

Barbel are no different in my opinion, and are likley able to learn not just by association, but primitive reasoning.
Are they intelligent ? not especially as you say - at least not on the scale of other wild creatures, and especially mammals, as i said it a matter of degrees, but never the less i think some of the behaviour exibited by them cannot be classified as anything else.

Ian.
 
Exactly. With a brain at best the size of a pea, fish have no measurable intelligence; they, as much-predated-upon creatures living in a very uncertain wild, merely develop survival strategies.
 
Paul Boote said:
Exactly. With a brain at best the size of a pea, fish have no measurable intelligence; they, as much-predated-upon creatures living in a very uncertain wild, merely develop survival strategies.
Click to expand...

I would say it takes a degree of intelligence to develop a strategy Paul ;)

Ian.
 
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