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Electrical, Chemical, Learned Behavior, or Cognitive Thought:
A Muskies Reaction to Stimuli
By: Steven James Rusteberg

During my last trip to Northern Wisconsin I witnessed something that fascinated me. It wasn’t the northern lights, or the beautiful trees turning colors, or even the serenity and peace of the great outdoors. No, this experience was like no other I had seen before and it involved a muskie. I have caught over four hundred muskie in my life and had thought I had seen it all, but this experience was like nothing I was ready for.

This trip to Northern Wisconsin was different from my normal vacation. Friends had joined me on my trip. Usually when I go north, I go alone, and all I do is muskie fish. This trip was going to be different. I had to entertain my company, and decided a trip to Jim Peck’s Wildwood Petting Zoo would be a good choice. I saw something here I would never forget. You see, Wildwood has a small pond that they put muskie in for all visitors to observe. Most people who don’t fish, or have never seen one, have the opportunity to observe the fish in this small habitat. This is where I saw it…

I observed a forty-two inch (aprox.) muskie about ten feet away from the cement walkway sitting still in a small coontail weedbed. Several minutes later a gentleman made his way down to this small pond with a five-gallon bucket. In the bucket were live hand size (6 “to 8”) bluegill. It was time to feed the muskie. Nothing unusual, or out of the ordinary had happened yet that day. The man stood next to me, slowly reached down into the bucket and grabbed a healthy looking bluegill. He raised the bluegill above his head and waved it gently in the air. To my amassment the muskie reacted. It immediately made it’s way to the water surface (ten feet from shore) looking right at the gentleman as if to say, “I’m ready for my lunch”. The man gently flipped the muskie the bluegill and the muskie nearly devoured it before it hit the surface of the water. The muskie turned 360 degrees devouring the bluegill as fast as it’s jaws could move and returned to the bottom of its habitat where it had originated from. The man again grabbed another bluegill and repeated the process, and again the muskie reacted to the pen tender in the same way. It rose to the surface above the weedbed when the man raised his hand with the meal, and the fish managed to devour it almost instantly just before it hit the water surface.

I sat there in awe. I had so many questions. Was this a learned behavior? Was the muskie cognitively thinking about the man or the meal? How did the muskie know when the man’s hand was raised… it was feeding time? How could the muskie see so clearly above the water surface (it was murky)? Was there an unseen element that triggered the fish that it was feeding time such as a chemical or electrical response? Why didn’t the muskie let the bluegill hit the surface and then hunt it? Why interact with its only enemy, man?

I had to know some of these answers. After the pond tender left, the muskie remained in the same location. I stood exactly where the man was standing. I raised my hand, as he did, with nothing in it… no response. I waved my hand and could see the muskie looking clearly at me… no response. Could this fish recognize I was not the pond keeper? That’s not possible… or is it? Did it visually see that there was no food in my hand and no food bucket on the shore? Is that possible? Did the man always ware the same yellow rain jacket triggering the muskie by color of his clothing that it was time to feed? Did that fish, with its pea size brain, understand and react to its hunger… or are we giving this muskie far more credit than it is due?

I had to write an article on this! I don’t know what triggered the behavior in this fish. But something obviously made that fish recognize a feeding opportunity. When I attempted to produce the same routine without a bluegill in my hand… I was not getting any response from it. I had a hard time believing that the muskie was “just full”, when he wouldn’t react to me. It was so aggressive before when the pen tender was around. Was this a chemical response to stimuli, or possibly an electrical response? Was it a learned behavior or a cognitive brain functioning response? I needed to look into this further and will explain my findings.

People often give animals, such as fish, human qualities. This seems to help us better understand why they react to stimuli, however, this may not accurately explain why something is happening. There are many things in the animal world that humans don’t yet have answers for. The way this Wildwood muskie reacted is a perfect example.

Electrical Response:
All atoms are made up of electrical charges. You and I may not know it but everyone and everything gives off these electrical stimuli. In theory some animals may have a special sensory response to these charges to varying degrees. Did our Wildwood muskie react to these charges? Does it have a special sensory organ that receives this charge and, in turn, make this fish react to its feeding time? Is it possible that the bluegill gave off an electrical charge that the muskie picked up on? Was the charge magnetic in form (another form electrical charge)?

Does this sound far-fetched? Well, let me give you an example of an animal that may use similar stimuli. Everyone knows the special ability of a carrier pigeon. Some believe this animal has the special ability to determine which direction it is flying. This ability is considered a type of internal compass. The carrier pigeon uses some form of “homing device” to make it back to its original location. This internal compass could be a response to electrical stimuli. Could a muskie have a receptor that does this in different form? Could this receptor be receiving an electrical response form the bluegill triggering the muskie that it is “feeding time”?

Still not convinced? How about the ability of a muskie to find its way back to its original capture point even when it is released on the opposite end of the lake. There is no question in my mind that a muskie knows exactly where it is in his environment regardless if it has been transported or not (similar to a carrier pigeon). Tracking studies show fish released on one side of the lake can return to its original capture location on the other side of the body of water. Some locations are tens of miles apart. Explain that one! I believe that muskie must have some ability to sense this electrical field. Did the Wildwood muskie react to some sort of electrical field given off by the bluegill or perhaps even the pond tender’s electrical field. Everyone and everything is thought to give off this electrical field. Does a muskie have this special organ or receptor tuned to a special frequency? Can it sense where it is in a lake? Can it sense when food is “nervous” and present?

Chemical Response:
Some animals and even insects respond to chemical stimuli. For example, some animals don’t have the ability of sight. In response to the lack of sense of sight, many secrete chemicals that are used as a sort of road map to guide their way in their dark world. Your own body secretes chemicals. Most humans are often unconscious of this. These chemicals can stimulate hunger, pain, fear, and many other emotions.

Have you every heard the expression “a dog can smell fear”? Another example is a deer in a forest that can sense (smell) you from many miles away. It is thought that all of us secrete chemicals into the air through our skin. Some animals are believed to be able to pick up on these stimuli better than others are. Just because we can’t touch the emotion “fear” doesn’t mean that we don’t send out body chemistry that can’t be detected by other animals signaling that emotion. What does this have to do with our Wildwood muskie?

What if a muskie can sense “distress” in it’s prey (or some other chemically stimulated emotion)? What if the bluegill (or other environmental elements) sent out a chemical that the muskie reacted to? This would explain why it ignored me when I attempted the same motions as the pond tender without food in my hand. There would have been chemical reaction to the stimuli (bluegill or otherwise) and this would explain why there was no response to me when I imitated the pondtender.

Learned Behavior:
The least far-fetched explanation for the muskies reaction to the pond tender involves learned behavior. The muskie has “learned” that the pond tender, in his yellow rain jacket, with a white bucket, means a free meal (no strings attached). Let’s think about this a bit… I can “teach” a fish to react to stimuli in the way I want it to. The very definition of learned behavior is “anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimuli and it’s environment”. What if I taught a muskie from birth, that if he reacted to anything purple he would be fed? Would that fish grow up preferring purple bucktails over other colors (“thinking it would be fed”)?

Could we “teach” a lake full of stocked muskie to hit a particular type (and /or color) of lure if we so desired? Taking this even a step further could we “educate” out unwanted behavior to stimuli such as rolling in our line… or swallowing hooks? The behavioral response to stimuli could be endless.

The above example takes into consideration that the fish doesn’t have the ability to think. It may get hooked on something purple, but would hit it again because that is its early response to that particular stimuli. The fish can’t put together that purple sometimes means food and sometimes means capture. It only knows it’s learned response to purple, and that is food. Assuming no cognitive thought, the muskie would hit the color purple over and over again, never tying in the experience of the “capture aspect” with the color purple.

Cognitive Response:

Cognitive response to stimuli is considered one of the few things that separate man form animal. Cognitive thought is the “act of knowing and being aware”. It is the ability to make a judgement that is followed by an act. Is it possible we don’t give credit where credit is due to some animals in the world? I’m not inferring that the muskie is a far more intelligent creature than the rest of the animal (or fish) kingdom. If fact, most fisheries biologists will tell you that they find muskellunge behavior in hatchery ponds, far from intelligent. Most young muskie will make themselves easy meals to prey birds around the edges of these ponds. I have heard fishery biologists refer to the muskie as “the dumbest fish that swims”.

Perhaps as the creature gets older and more experienced it does take on some of these advanced behaviors. Maybe even some of them are cognitive thoughts? Could it think? It follows up a bucktail curiously; knowing something out of the ordinary is in its environment. It makes a choice weather or not to hit your lure at boatside.

Shabbona lake comes to mind when I ponder this possibility. State records have been broken here. How is it possible that a fish gets up to huge proportions, on such a heavily fished lake? Some of these monster fish seem to have never been caught before. How can it be, that a heavily pressured lake such as this, can be our state record holder? Do the fish, as they get larger, get smarter? These giants that lurk in the lake have to see a lure countless times in their life before they reach this size. What are the chances this is not the case?

The bottom line is that, I don’t know what made that Wildwood muskie react to stimuli, but I do think that there is a possibility it is something we don’t yet understand. Doing some research in order to write this article I had a hard time coming across science that would explain the differences among fish behaviors. Most were vague. There are a lot of things we have yet to figure out about our animal kingdom, I am just glad I have the ability to sit and ponder how the Outdoor world might work.