A nice quiet day fishing, there is more to that statement than it seems. Does making too much noise affect the fishing?  The very simple answer is yes. The big can of worms that this question opens is how much does it affect the fish.

As a tournament fisherman I often fish with people I've never met so I'll bring up the subject of making too much noise before we take off in the morning.  I politely mention that “when we are up shallow fishing if you get something out of a compartment please don't slam the lid.” This not only makes noise but also vibrations that travel through the water. That’s right - fish cannot only hear noise but also feel the vibration.

The specifics for each specie of fish are slightly different but the basics are the same; fish have ears to hear but also have a lateral line with which they feel vibrations.  This lateral line runs the entire length of their body on both sides and is extremely sensitive. It is much more prominent in some fish such as largemouth bass but all fish have it.

I've had the discussion of how much noise is too much noise with my buddies and surprisingly many say that the noise makes very little difference in the fishing. I strongly disagree!

There are times when the fishing is fantastic and regardless of how much noise you make those fish are going to eat, but more times than not making noise will spook the fish. Maybe not all of them - but definitely the trophies.

Last fall a friend and I were out fishing and motored into a shallow bay. I picked up a rod and on my third cast I caught a bass. About the same time a friend of mine pulled into the same small bay, we were close enough to not need to yell back and forth, but we had to speak loudly.  Each time we spoke all of the baitfish in this bay would jump.

 I know there were bass in this bay because I caught one when we first went in and there certainly was plenty of bait fish to hold more than one bass. One bass was all that was caught. Would we have caught more if we were quiet? I believe so.

This was a huge lesson to me. I knew that slamming lids and stomping around in the boat was too much noise but I would have never guessed that talking would spook fish.

A few years back a professional fisherman and a couple of fishery biologists did a study.  They went to a heavily pressured lake and used electricity to shock a bass and capture it unharmed. The biologist implanted a radio transmitter into the bass and released it. They let some time pass so the fish would get back to its regular routine then used the radio device to locate the fish. They asked the pro to approach it and try to catch it as he normally would. The pro fisherman used his electric trolling motor to approach the fish and attempted to catch it, which he could not do.

Then the team decided to try something. Since this was a heavily pressured lake they figured the fish would be used to hearing boats go by. They shut the depth finders off and used the gas engine instead of the electric trolling motor to approach the fish and to their surprise the pro-fisherman caught that bass immediately.

What this told the team and what we can learn from this is that fish can learn to associate certain noises with dangers like getting caught and that they can also get use to noises and not be bothered by them. I'm not saying that we need to abandon our electric trolling motors but we should be more aware of the noises that we are making and try and limit them as much as possible. Until next time keep your lure wet!