Understanding Bass Hearing – It's about the Allure

Understand Bass Hearing

Bass hearing, as a secondary sense, enables bass to detect sound waves, potential forage, threats like predators, and unknown commotions.

Why is Understanding Bass Hearing Important?

It is important to understand bass hearing to:

Select the Best Lure: Some lures are designed to make noise for example they include a rattle. Some are considered silent, as they make little noise.
Avoid Spooking Bass: Some suggest a loud lure splash, potential boat noises and some believe electronic pinging can deter bass from investigating a lure.

Understand Bass Hearing

Bass’ Inner Ear: Some say bass hearing starts at 100 Hz with little sound detection above 600 Hz. [Humans hear sounds ranging from 20 to 20,000 Hz.] Bass’ Inner ears are made up of tiny bones that can pick up subtle sounds such as the click of a crayfish.
Direction: Bass cannot locate and capture forage with sound alone. Some suggest hearing complements the lateral line to identify forage.
Distance: Some suggest bass can only hear close, a few feet, to distinguish from background noises.
Usage – Low Lure Visibility: Some believe when in low lure visibility scenarios bass rely more on sound to identify forage. Some would say vibrations [lateral line] is more important.
Identifiable Sounds: How lures make noise:
- Hooks: Hooks on hard body baits can rattle in some cases bang against the body of the lure.
- Rattles: Some lures have built-in rattles or have them added where the rattle is triggered by the lure vibrations.
- Blades: Blades create sound generally referred to as a “thump” or “thumping”. Blades also produce vibrations.
- Contacting Cover: A lure coming into contact with cover will create a noise and that is generally considered attracting a bass attention.
- Bottom Contact Lures: Lures make noise when they come into contact with the bottom. Some suggest the noises can be natural sounds like a crawfish or potentially a dying forage.
- Small Splash: Landing a lure on the water successfully without spooking a bass can trigger reaction bites. Or, some say to target a small splash above cover to create a sound to get the bass’ attention to that area to which they will investigate.
- Electronic Forage Sound – Hydrowave: Manufactures create electronic devices which create underwater sound that mimic the sound of baitfish.
Spook Noises:
- Loud Noises: Some suggest sudden loud noises, such as banging on the boat and shouting will spook bass and make them swim away.
- Large Splash: Large splash creates too much sound to be forage and thus spooks the bass.
- Trolling Motor Sound: Some suggest a constant trolling motor sound becomes background noise not spooking a bass where turning the trolling motor on and off can spook a bass. Some suggest a hydrowave can mask trolling motor sound.