I have also followed these posts with interest. I tend towards your side of the equation, ewest. I believe that genetics play a larger role than food or learned behavior. Greg offhandedly mentioned that he bought aggressive bass because that is what his customer base wanted and if that is the case then what he later feeds them might not play as an important a part. ML has done something that I am afraid to do, stop feeding. I am worried that my little ones will be hungry.
All of my adult life was spent around people who were the result of their environment, in the beginning I believed that to be true, later I adopted a combo approach and now I believe that if you carefully examine each situation you can see which one, supplemented by the other, is what you are looking at. I believe that animals are much the same. That said however, I believe that they are more driven by genes than education. Example, a carp pond in England has 70 carp and has had them for years, many members had caught, 35- 40 members, each carp at least once. They were trying to raise money to buy several new carp. They don�t feed them, forage only.
Aggressive behavior is an inherited trait in humans, it can be taught, but not to everyone. Would it be any different with fish?
The quantum leap, ML, each bass you catch on a lure must go into your new pond, only lure caught fish are allowed, forage fish excepted of course. Over time you will have only aggressive fish or at least fish that exhibit aggressive tendencies. Then over a period of time you will either validate or not. I know you pen packin engineer types need to do every thing 100 times but a 100 ponds might be a stretch even for you.
Ewest, eloquently, stated that this is a topic that has more interest than information and we have much to learn. The beauty of this forum is the bringing together of the collective minds of a group offering a vast array of knowledge, oh yeah, and at least as many opinions.
