A better topic might what's the dumbest fisherman you ever encountered. Ha!
IMO trout as a species have to be the dumbest fish. Largemouth bass probably the smartest. People think of trout as being cagy and wily and they talk about "outsmarting" them, but the truth is that trout in streams are just very easy to spook, and people mistake that for intelligence. Trout in lakes are not as spooky and so you get to see how dumb they really are.
The dumbest individual fish I ever met, however, was a pike. One night in deep twilight I was standing on a dock at German Lake, MN casting a spoon over and over again just so I could enjoy the night and the stars, and I caught the same pike 4 times. I could tell because of the hook wounds, but he just would not go away and stop biting.
IMO trout as a species have to be the dumbest fish. Largemouth bass probably the smartest. People think of trout as being cagy and wily and they talk about "outsmarting" them, but the truth is that trout in streams are just very easy to spook, and people mistake that for intelligence. Trout in lakes are not as spooky and so you get to see how dumb they really are.
The dumbest individual fish I ever met, however, was a pike. One night in deep twilight I was standing on a dock at German Lake, MN casting a spoon over and over again just so I could enjoy the night and the stars, and I caught the same pike 4 times. I could tell because of the hook wounds, but he just would not go away and stop biting.