Should You Be Quiet While Fishing?

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After all the time, effort, and research that go into a successful day on the water, the last thing any angler wants is to have it ruined by clunky wading, loud talking, or even heavy boat traffic spooking fish and blowing up your spot. While we have all experienced fish being spooked, we have also seen the guy blasting music and stomping beer cans put on a fishing clinic for all the quiet anglers around him. After seeing countless noisy and careless anglers have seemingly no impact on fish, I was curious about what the science says about how the sounds we make can impact our fishing.


The first question to ask when considering whether you should be quiet while fishing is whether the fish can hear you at all. Although the answer may be obvious, the way in which they hear may surprise you. While fish evidently do not have ears, they do have an inner ear system. This inner ear system, combined with a visible nerve system known as the Lateral Line, allows the fish to detect vibrations and movements in the water; some of which are caused by sounds. In other words, fish do not so much hear sounds, but rather feel them.



















Lateral line on a Bull Trout



This sense of hearing is a lot more powerful than you might think, with many fish having the ability to distinguish distinct sounds over long distances through the sensing of vibrations through the water. This was demonstrated most notably by a Harvard study conducted by researcher Ava Chase. This study used a feeding system to reward Koi with food when they responded to a designated style of music. Although the fish simply being able to perform the task was astounding enough, the fish were also able to distinguish very similar songs from each other, such as the recordings from two different blues musicians and even a classical song played in two different keys.


While this study is very interesting, very few of us are heading out targeting Koi, and even fewer are targeting the blues-loving variety mentioned in this study. Though the study is a bit obscure concerning its practicality to anglers, it does demonstrate just how acute these fishes’ sense of hearing is when it comes to picking up man-made sounds in the water.


Thankfully for those more talkative anglers, sound has difficulty travelling from air to water. This means that noises above the water, such as loud talking will have very little impact on the fish below, explaining why the rowdy cottagers in the pontoon boat are still able to pull up fish despite the noise. Sounds that we make below the water, however, such as dropping pliers in an aluminum boat or clumsily wading a riverbank can be heard by fish over great distances and can significantly impact fish behaviour.


The fishes association with the sounds that you make are not always negative, as we have all experienced a fish biting right after a fresh hole has been drilled in the ice or a fish coming to check out a big intrusive lure that has just hit the water. The behaviour of the fish in these situations is related to the associated outcome of the sound. For example, nothing good has ever happened to a Brown Trout after something clumsily slides down a riverbank, just as nothing good has ever happened to a Bass when a kid stomps around on the dock it is living under. On the other hand, sounds such as splashes in the water and cracking sounds in the ice are often associated with food, drawing the fish's curiosity and allowing you to get away with some of these noises when out on the water.


Since we now know what impact more natural sounds can have on fish, what does this mean for our big motors and electronics that run constantly every day we are on the water? Cecillia Krahforst of East Carolina University addresses this question by first pointing out that modern outboard motors have a sound output of around 1,000-5,000 hertz. While this may sound significant, the auditory system of fish typically focuses on low-frequency sounds below 1,000 hertz, meaning that this sound is potentially much less disruptive than it would seem.


Another factor that goes into the disruptiveness of boat noise is the level of background noise. In order for a noise to be disruptive for a fish, it has to be distinguishable from the background noise that already exists in the lake or river, including both natural and man-made noises. This means that fish in areas with high current or lots of boat traffic will be much less wary of the noise you make and will spook much less easily. Anecdotally, this is something I have experienced first hand with electric trolling motors. When out Bass fishing, constantly starting and stopping a trolling motor in shallow or quiet areas often results in fish darting away from the boat and becoming virtually lock jawed. When approaching similar areas with the motor at a constant level, however, you are often able to sight fish for Bass that would have never let you get that close otherwise. While this is not scientific by any means, it does show how beneficial consistency and blending into the background noise can be when fishing with seemingly intrusive technology.


In summary, although fish are likely to hear the noises you make while out on the water, the intrusiveness and unnaturalness of the sounds you make are largely going to contribute to how the fish react to your presence. This makes blending in with your surroundings much more important than simply being quiet and makes pressured bodies of water much more forgiving to loud anglers and big boats.


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