Most of us with smaller ponds, maybe 2 acres or less, find that the fish become conditioned to angling pressure. Hunger evidently has, IMO, very little to do with it. We can surmise that a large bass has seen a lot of lures come by and should have fed.
Genetic? I don't know. Smart? I don't know.
Conditioned? I believe so. In a new body of water, whether pond or public lake, fishing for all sizes is pretty easy. Then, things change and fishing gets tougher. The fish still have to be hungry. I consider that a learned behavior. But it could also be that the genetically wired, easy to catch fish, have had their gene pool shrunken.
I've often seen bass feeding on BG in the shallows at my place and others. So I know they are hungry. But they don't always go for my lure. Whether genetic or learned behavior they still don't bite my offerings. This is repeated in a lot of ponds that I visit.
When I feed pellets, the BG and CC's come readily and feed with abandon. However, when I toss a small BG bug, it gets ignored. If I use a red and white float and live bait, it is ignored. When I toss more feed, they hammer it.
I caught a CC from my pond last weekend. It was 8 pounds, 7 ounces and one of the last 6 in my pond. The remaining 5, and most of the BG, stopped feeding on pellets that I threw. That is learned behavior from hungry fish.
Let's agree to disagree.
