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In reality can Barbel really know the difference ?

David Gauntlett said:
The answer to this question as far as HNV fans go is obviously yes. They argue that if a fish couldn't tell what was good for it, then it would take the easy route and eat whatever was most easily available...and would soon die from inadequate nutrition. Can't really argue against that.

All animals (including us) do many things instinctively. It's not a measure of intelligence, it's pure unthinking instinct, they are not consciously aware of why they do it, only that they must. Herbivores roaming on the African or American grasslands are one prime example of this. They ALL periodically go in search of a salt lick. They don't do that because their local shop has run out of their favourite salt and vinegar crisps...they do it instinctively because nature has built the desire to do that into the autopilot part of their brain, simply because their natural diet is short of that vital mineral.

There are a million and one similar examples of this sort of thing which all point to one thing. All critters (including fish) have built in instincts that drive them to eat what is good for them for the majority of the time. You can con them into eating something that gives out false food signals (as in attractor type boilies)...but they WILL learn in time to avoid these and go for those with genuine quality food content. You can also feed them into going for items that have half decent food values, but an incorrect balance, so are not brilliant for their health (hence obesity perhaps?). However, ultimately, they MUST eat what their body requires...or else they will die.

Eating the correct food does NOT suggest that fish are more intelligent than us, as some will sarcastically infer. It merely means that they have subconscious instincts that drive them to eat enough of what they require to survive...and further, to prosper. Natural selection will ensure that those with the strongest, the best developed natural survival instincts will come out on top...even though they have no idea of why the hell they are doing what they do :D

Cheers, Dave.
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Innate behavior Dave, thats one thing i am happy to believe in, great post.
 
Hi Tom ,not sure exactly but possibly chasing a single maggot probably uses up the same energy that the fish gets from it,whereas picking up a piece of meat or a boilie uses up a lot less energy for a much better gain,would that be right?
 
Mark Swaby said:
Hi Tom ,not sure exactly but possibly chasing a single maggot probably uses up the same energy that the fish gets from it,whereas picking up a piece of meat or a boilie uses up a lot less energy for a much better gain,would that be right?
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So what if they found loads of them Mark ? We regularly got through a gallon in an afternoon on the Cherwell, those fish seemed to do ok.
 
Simon i was just trying to see if this was what Julian meant by his statement about maggots and weight gain.Without doubt if they get enough they must get a weight gain benefit
 
Im not suggesting they chase a single maggot around,that would be silly, but two or three barbel will suck up a good few pints of grubs in one sitting no problem. If you took all the man made bait out of the water and only left them natural would they still grow and put on weight ?
 
I was going to contribute more and had started to type a lengthy post in reply to Simon. It seems though that having an opinion is attention seeking, so I will leave it there. Jeff your a ****.
 
David Gauntlett said:
The answer to this question as far as HNV fans go is obviously yes. They argue that if a fish couldn't tell what was good for it, then it would take the easy route and eat whatever was most easily available...and would soon die from inadequate nutrition. Can't really argue against that.

All animals (including us) do many things instinctively. It's not a measure of intelligence, it's pure unthinking instinct, they are not consciously aware of why they do it, only that they must. Herbivores roaming on the African or American grasslands are one prime example of this. They ALL periodically go in search of a salt lick. They don't do that because their local shop has run out of their favourite salt and vinegar crisps...they do it instinctively because nature has built the desire to do that into the autopilot part of their brain, simply because their natural diet is short of that vital mineral.

There are a million and one similar examples of this sort of thing which all point to one thing. All critters (including fish) have built in instincts that drive them to eat what is good for them for the majority of the time. You can con them into eating something that gives out false food signals (as in attractor type boilies)...but they WILL learn in time to avoid these and go for those with genuine quality food content. You can also feed them into going for items that have half decent food values, but an incorrect balance, so are not brilliant for their health (hence obesity perhaps?). However, ultimately, they MUST eat what their body requires...or else they will die.

Eating the correct food does NOT suggest that fish are more intelligent than us, as some will sarcastically infer. It merely means that they have subconscious instincts that drive them to eat enough of what they require to survive...and further, to prosper. Natural selection will ensure that those with the strongest, the best developed natural survival instincts will come out on top...even though they have no idea of why the hell they are doing what they do :D

Cheers, Dave.[/QUOTE

If as you say the HNV fans say yes ? So what were Barbel eating before the introduction of HNV baits and what are they eating on stretches of rivers that hardely ever see a angler that introduces a bait in to the water ?

If food was put in front of some one ? . Would they know instinctively what was good or bad for them ? Or would it be because of what they have seen and been told on the tv or read in the papers ?

As human beings with the knowledge availaible to us . We can make a informed choice as to what we eat and dont eat ?
I dont know what a Barbel tastes buds are like and if they have any sort of taste when eating ? We all know that some flavours or baits seem to work better than others for what ever the reason .
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Unfortunately as soon as you start comparing human habits/ emotions, sences etc. with a fish it really complicates things, what we know is that they can't digest complex carbs, their natural diet is protein rich ... the rest ... only the fish can tell you.
 
There are two chapters in the Barbel Tales book that consider these arguments, both scientific and observational, but my only comment is that we overthink these things, and confidence, persistence, simple basic skills and rod-hours produce best results!
Had a really good season on shop-bought pellets and maggots so far, bait selection is more fun than anything!
 
Simon Lush said:
Thats the billion dollar question isn't it ? another way to look at it is will a Barbel having eaten something palatable that is of a high food value eat more and eventually start seeking it out ? my opinion, and it is my opinion is yes it will, will they also continue to take other foods ? yes, of course they will, will they over a period start to favour the better foodstuff ? well they would be fairly inefficient creatures if they didn't, surely ? Nutritional recognition and innate behaviour, you either believe in it or you don't, i do, particularly the latter.
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Evening Simon /everyone . I think the key word in Simon's post is ''palatable ''My view is that barbel will eat foodstuffs that they have found to taste nice [ whatever ' taste ' means to a barbel ] I would think that barbel will eat more of the stuff that they like , but I do not think they seek it out because it is a better foodstuff .There is a big difference between better and nicer .They seek it out because they like the taste or the scent or whatever turns them on . However as Simon points out they will eat anything that comes along because they have to survive , they have to a large degree to be an opportunist .I don't think they will pass on a nice black slug or a lobby in the hope that a nice HNV boilie may turn up , but if there were all 3 in their sights they may well go for the boilie because they like it more , or it stimulates them more , but I don't believe they will choose the HNV bait because they know it has more nutrients / is better for them , they do not have the level of ability to discern on that basis . After all it is well known that barbel aren't the sharpest knives in the draw
 
Joe Fletcher said:
If as you say the HNV fans say yes ? So what were Barbel eating before the introduction of HNV baits and what are they eating on stretches of rivers that hardely ever see a angler that introduces a bait in to the water ?

If food was put in front of some one ? . Would they know instinctively what was good or bad for them ? Or would it be because of what they have seen and been told on the tv or read in the papers ?

As human beings with the knowledge availaible to us . We can make a informed choice as to what we eat and dont eat ?
I dont know what a Barbel tastes buds are like and if they have any sort of taste when eating ? We all know that some flavours or baits seem to work better than others for what ever the reason .
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Hi Joe,

What were they eating before HNV baits? They were eating HNV insects, crustaceans, worms etc., etc., Joe, all natural stuff, and all highly nutritious. For instance, the protein content of an earthworm is over 70%...that beats most boilies for a start! All HNV baits do is offer the same type protein, fatty acids etc. as natural food, but in a readily available form that is/can be presented to them in quantities they would not find very often in nature.

You ask (I think) If a variety of foods were to be placed in front of modern man, would they instinctively know which of them was good for them? The answer to that would be no Joe....but place those foods in front of our primitive ancestors, and you may well get a different answer. The reason for that is very simple....all our natural instincts have atrophied, eroded from lack of use. Our senses of smell, hearing and sight are now almost useless too. Compared to even a domestic dog, they are laughably poor. The reason for that is the very same as the reason for the deterioration of our instincts....we no longer need them. We have developed a vastly superior brain, and basically all we have to do now is read the can/packet info panel to find out all we require :D We ARE vastly more intelligent than primitive creatures Joe...but the price for that is the almost total loss of our natural instincts. ALL those creatures are unimaginable better than us in those respects. Because they don't have our brain power, they need to be better in other ways to survive...swings and roundabouts Joe. It is absolutely pointless to try and draw a comparison...we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. We are good at some things, they are a zillion percent better than us at surviving by using basic instincts.

You say that "As human beings with the knowledge available to us, we can make an informed choice as to what we eat and don't eat" Very true Joe. I am not 100% sure what point you were trying to make there, but what I will say is that despite the brain power humanity now has, we are still destroying ourselves at an ever increasing rate...so the 'informed choice' bit has become irrelevant for many of us. Apart from direct deaths due to warfare, crime etc., we are poisoning our bodies and environment to an alarming extent. Morbid obesity due to over indulgence is at this moment in the process of overtaking smoking as the greatest cause of early death in our country, and in that process is crippling the NHS.

Can you really imagine that a life form capable of voluntarily doing that to themselves would be capable of judging, by using their instincts (or in any other way) which of a selection of foods on a table is good for them :eek:

Lastly, you question the reason for fish preferring one flavour over another Joe. Do you not think that perhaps that may be because that flavour signals the presence of food? Whether that be because it mimics a natural food label, or purely because they connect it with a source of food they enjoyed previously (whilst blissfully unaware that an angler had kindly provided it for them)...is open to conjecture. Personally, I don't give a damn, providing it's my bait they prefer :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
 
bait preference by particular species of fish,
a definate yes certain species in certain areas do show a preference for certain baits especially above average weights, years ago if you didnt fish large lobs below the weir just on the pads edge you held a limited chance of success,
same applied with barbel at laleham green but then it was bet chilean hemp,
along the desborough it was a lump of sausage or sausage meat, in the new river at walthamstow ressies barbel preferred the striped worms that stunk of puss,
really theres 3 ways of using bait no matter what and thats by preoccupying the barbel with small items as in a pyramid type baiting program, spreading a decent quality bait along a section for using as bait the season after once the baiting program was reduced to only a few swims, or using the opportunist way of fishing like roving or a moving bait and gradually moving along a sector, once introduced and encouraged to feed on a decent quality bait its hard to deter them into taking other stuff but, remember during close season they will all be feeding and living off natural baits, the rest can be worked out by yourselves, th best bait additive is good watercraft;)
 
I wonder if in considering this point we shouldn't also go back to basics in terms of the way that barbel generally feed. In that sense, it can be more about what they reject rather than what they somehow consciously choose to munch. I know there will be numerous accounts of how barbel will feed off the bottom, show predatory behaviour and even consume whole tins of spam (in one mouthful and without a knife and fork- no manners), but mostly, aren't they burying their snouts in the gravel and weed engulfing various items of riverbed matter and then efficiently rejecting anything that doesn't feel/ taste like food? What process is taking place I wonder that enables them to decide what stays and what goes. It's quite likely that they don't effect a perfect split meaning they sometimes, often even, consume items with no nutritional value (stones?) or reject items that do (typically the ones attached to my hook). Presumably their digestive system deals with the non nutritional items.

It's no surprise then that some of the most successful baits- pellets, casters, maggots, hemp, particles etc. are so because they play precisely to that natural feeding behaviour. I'm guessing that scent can be a primary factor in attracting barbel to feed in an certain area as can disturbance of some description which could be man-made. Pellets plopping into the water, a bait dropper etc. Perhaps these represent part of a range of feeding signals (disturbance signalling other fish feeding) until of course some danger association becomes a more dominant response signal.

Boilies might just be something else that when placed in a feeding area will not get rejected because they carry some basic and necessary ingredients that trigger a positive and instinctive "accept" response. This could, I suppose, include something as fundamental as texture- soft versus hard. Some other recognisable factors might also be key- a crunch factor plus a taste? I do wonder though if it even gets to that level of sophistication given how fast that whole feeding process unfolds.

Barbel will deploy different feeding behaviours from tine to time presumably- when being predatorial for example and may even mouth food items before consumption. Some behaviours must surely have been developed over time in response to angling pressure and the build up of danger signals. In addition, I would assume that all of this plays out differently on different rivers and different times of the year. The competition factor being one such dynamic.

But equally, this could all be total bollo*ks.
 
Do we not catch fish that pick up the bait to "test" it rather that automatically eat it?
If every fish took the bait straight down we'd all be taking 2 foot disgorgers with us.
Mind you, what attracts a fish into an area near the hookbait is another story.
 
I don't want to get deeply involved in this discussion but several mentions have been made about fish having a liking for certain tastes which I very much doubt.Carp are said to favour sweet tasting baits yet many years ago while trying to discourage birds from eating my bait without harming them I tried a number of things without success and in the end I tried Bitrex the most bitter substance known.I added some to a Floater and took it to a local lake where there were a pair of Canada Geese and threw some out near them and failed again as they took it readily,interestingly the Carp also found it to their liking and believe me there is nothing sweet about BITREX.
 
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