I realize that we have respectfully different experiences and that's one of the things that makes this forum great, but I was discussing this situation with a PHD who's a patient of mine.
I've never noticed that when I use pellet flies, that the fish ever go off of the pellets.
The PHD explained classical condition in the following manner.
Classical conditioning is a form of "Associative Learning" whereby creatures continue or discontinue a particular behvior based on positive or negative feedback. He said that a fish like a largemouth bass may learn to avoid a rooster tail spinner because the one time he struck at it, he was delivered a sharp jab and landing experience. He said however, that it makes no sense that a fish would stop eating pellets, because the fish has experienced hundreds, if not thousands of positive experiences in all previous attempts to eat a pellet. He said that typically one negative experience (being caught) won't override 500 positive experiences (satiation).
This matches my experience anecdotally, as all fish sampled at the end of fall seining show fabulous body condition, even though quite a few of them have been caught periodically on pellet imitation.
I guess it's still one person's opinion, but I don't believe that a pellet imitation is going to override hundreds of positive experiences with a particular fish.
