Cecil is also on the right track. In animal behavior studies, hunger can be a big motivator and can overpower conditioning and or "good judgement".
howard,
Maybe your question should be: Which species of fish is least or most likely to become hook shy? When discussing this, one also has to take into account the amount of variability of individuals in a population to have the ability to learn or become conditioned. Some learn faster then others, similar to humans; some learn with one negative experience, some learn by observation, some never learn and keep doing the same negative enforcement things over and over again. The quirky thing, in at least humans, is some people actually find the negative experience pleasurable! Maybe some fish may find getting jerked around by the jaw pleasurable. Or the touch of an angler's hands feels good. I wonder how PETA would respond to that?
