Some striper myths are begging to get called out.
Dr. Adam Aguiar is associate professor of biology at Stockton University in South Jersey, and posted much of the following on Blackboard, a college-based class-learning platform for remote sharing of educational ideas and projects.
Critical thinking and pattern recognition are essential skills for anglers. Usually, these processes benefit, reinforce, and keep each other in check. However, they can be put at odds if either is taken to a pathological extreme. Critical thinking in its extreme can cause analysis paralysis, and inaction.
Pattern recognition in its extreme induces pattern abstraction and apophenia (the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things). Pattern recognition taken too far, especially unchecked with no critical thinking, influences the development of myths.
Opposite of striped bass, American eels are panmictic and catadromous. That is eels randomly mate within one large breeding population, and live most of their lives in freshwater while migrating to saltwater for spawning, respectively. The migration involves a fall exodus from rivers and bays to the Saragossa Sea, where upon they spawn in winter, and subsequently return in spring. These antithetical migration patterns place eels in the crosshairs of stripers in both the spring and fall. It is not surprising then, that evolutionarily, striped bass have exploited this fortuitous crossroads and incorporated American eels as a staple in the diet. However, some think the interaction between the two species results from something else.
Myth: Bass Vengeance
There’s no science supporting the idea that stripers kill eels for vengeful purposes, or to protect the broader striper population from having their eggs preyed upon by eels. The human-specific characteristics of complex emotions (i.e. vengeance) and elaborate cognition (i.e. calculus of long term, broad spanning goals) cannot be applied to striped bass. Even if this premise (that bass hold higher-level human qualities) were accepted, the concept of their vendetta against eels extends to an illogical conclusion.
A bass specifically killing an eel to protect the broader number of other bass’ eggs would be statistically detrimental to that individual bass’s offspring. The biological purpose of an individual organism is to pass their specific genes to future generations. And although safety in numbers can be argued for a robust population, competition for resources would overcompensate. This especially applies to individuals of a non-cooperative, non-social species.
Another logical argument can be made against the bass-eel myth. Many other species of fish and marine organisms eat bass eggs and juvenile stripers, including other stripers! By the myth’s rationale then, stripers would have a vengeful vendetta against a multitude of marine creatures, and approach them all with an equally spiteful, kill-only attitude. Scientifically documented striped bass cannibalism directly refutes the myth’s presupposition that individual stripers feel protective concern for other individual stripers, let alone for the latter’s procreation. Therefore, outside of spawning activity, they see each other as competition, or as lunch.
There is an obvious kill-shot when debunking the myth. Whether fully intact, or partly digested, eels are found in stomachs of striped bass. Unless one is to contest that such circumstances are by mistaken ingestion (i.e. pebbles and other non-organic debris found in the stomach of bass as a result of them rummaging up crustaceans and mollusks from the sand), this strongly implies intent of ingestion, and perception of food. There still seems a relative infrequency of eels, compared to that other forage species, found in bass stomachs. This irregularity likely catalyzed the myth.
However, logical hypotheses could be offered instead. Eels may be lower in number than other forage, or not in proximity to bass as often. Eels may be more rapidly digestible due to their tissue makeup. These are more likely explanations for the infrequency (though not absence) of eels in bass stomachs that probably spawned the myth.
Myth: Bass Pika Syndrome
A call back to stomach contents, this myth is less widespread, but just as illogical as bass vengeance. Most seasoned bass anglers have experienced, or at least heard of, bass with rocks and/or stones in their stomachs. When discussing this in my Ecology and Saltwater Fishing class at Stockton University, a student suggested that stripers purposefully consume heavy debris to weigh themselves down in preparation for storms.
This claim is based off two presuppositions. The first is that bass cognition is sophisticated, at least enough for the utilization of tools (in this case rocks/stones). Short of highly intelligent octopus species, there’s no documented cases of non-mammalian marine species capable of tool manipulation, let alone a striped bass. Moreover, in discussing the last myth, we articulated limitations of bass cognition in approaching what is arguably less complex than tool manipulation.
The second presupposition is that bass cannot effectively swim in stormy water. This, however, could not be farther from the truth. The evolved anatomy and physiology of most fin-fish allow them to do just that. In fact, striped bass have acquired a body contour that exploits such scenarios to their feeding advantage. At least on some level, most anglers know this as they look to nor’easters for increased striper-fishing opportunities.
The obvious reason in which stripers’ stomachs occasionally harbor dense, indigestible material is due to a certain feeding habit. When there is a scarcity of baitfish to prey upon, striped bass rummage through the sand and gravel digging up crabs, clams, worms, and other invertebrates. When ingesting these critters, they can inadvertently consume inorganic material (i.e. rock, stones, debris of all sorts) in and near that same nook.
This charming myth, however, is not without its merits. It’s entertaining to visualize a stone-filled bass as something analogous to sea paper weight.
Myth: Color Greatly Matters on Artificials at Night
For the entirety of my 25 years of surfcasting, I have witnessed heated arguments over the best colors for plugging. Disputes about this occur in, and across groups of newbies, experienced, and even the best anglers. Some discussions on the topic start in a shallow way, with baseless claims. More sophisticated debates involve the nuances in fishing context that may affect color choice. Pluggers, rest easy. The following will not cease the fun bickering in totality, as this myth is only partly debunked.
Like humans, stripers have two types of eye cells. Their cone cells sense and distinguish a similar range of light wavelengths as ours do. These are exclusively active in higher light situations. Their rod cells (like ours) sense intensity of light, and are exclusively active in very low to no light environments. You can test this on yourself by trying to see the red of an apple in a dark closet, and quickly realizing you only perceive its dark outline. This means color does not matter for plugging at night in low light situations. The exceptions, however, would be at night around well-lit areas (i.e. a full moon in clear sky, or by bridge/pier lights) where the bass, at least in part, use their cone cells to see color.
Colors around the green wavelength, specifically that of 528 nanometers, are what their cone cells are most sensitive too. Or said another way, greenish colors are still registered by their cone cells at the least amount of light possible. This means two things; one, if you think there’s enough ambient light to make a difference, then try a variant of green! Second, anglers advocating chartreuse (a variant of green) for lure color have science backing their claim. So be prepared when debating them about a color you feel is superior.
On a separate, but related topic, the eye lens of striped bass is unlike that of humans in that it is not adjustable. Humans use muscles to morph the shape of our lenses to visualize different distances with high resolution. Stripers cannot. This makes them perpetually near-sighted, and lessens their visual acuity at a distance. The lack of color discernment in low light contexts (as previously discussed) is then exacerbated at further distances. Coming full circle about color, I’ll amend a prior statement: If you think there’s just enough ambient light to make a difference, and are confident you can get plug near enough a fish where it’s near-sightedness will be exploited, try a variant of green first!
Getting meticulously technical on fine-tuning color and its nuanced utility, look outside of biology and into physics for the wavelengths of these relevant colors. Understanding the variations in energy across the visible wavelengths can be used to appreciate which would most efficiently pierce through sediment in turbid water contexts. An analogous, non-fishing myth would be that human blood is blue. It is not! It looks blue in veins because red wavelengths cannot penetrate out of the skin, while higher-energy blue wavelengths pierce through the skin and are reflected back off the blood vessels to the eye.
Extrapolate this concept to a turbid water context with stripers. Bluer colors more readily penetrate the suspended sediment to reach the bass’s eye. So, when the water is on the cusp of being too turbid, green or blue may be the plug colors to first try, but for different reasons.
Direct feeding-by-color studies for striped bass have yet to be, but need to be done. Until then, recommence the bickering over plug properties in well-lit contexts. In fact, this author will make the first claim: It’s of my mere opinion that profile and action a far more a priority than plug color in almost all contexts.
