So, one of the biologists at work gave me a book he read some time ago about understanding bass behavior, I thought, due to this conversation, that i might read it looking for an answer to conditioned behavior due to available prey species.
Instead of an empty clay slate that experience impresses, perhaps it is more accurate to think of the learning process for bass feeding behavior as a lump of clay that instinct has already molded into a crude figurine. Since bass are primarily piscivores, this figure first takes the shape of a small, featureless fish. As a bass goes through life, its feeding experiences gradually fashion the clay figurine. Instead of attacking every minnow it meets, the bass may come to have favorites. It may learn that during the minnow spawning periods the ripe females with the swollen stomachs make the more appealing meal. [...] Likewise, it may find that another species of prey fish, with a deeper body and longer fins, is more readily captured because the broader profiles provide a more definitive center of mass for striking
Considering this example, i think that were both a shiner and a bg available, and both just as likely to be caught, it is completely possible for the bass to have created a preference, conditioned to understand that the fusiform shape is easier to swallow. however, i dont think that this evidence points definitively to one answer or the other, since there may be reasons why any bass would prefer the larger and more abundant meal of a BG. I think it is all down to the training caused by previous feeding behavior.
Likely not news to anybody, but i thought the quote was interesting, given the discussion.
