Super User WRB Posted January 22, 2017 Super User Posted January 22, 2017 On January 19, 2017 at 1:49 PM, fissure_man said: That may be true, who knows? Be careful, making claims about bass color perception is a sure way to get scolded around here We know one thing: bass can't see light that is not present. Figuring out what types of light are and are not present underwater is a step toward decoding your 60 years of anecdotal evidence. What's unscientific about that? Nobody is claiming they have all the answers. 1 Quote
Super User WRB Posted January 22, 2017 Super User Posted January 22, 2017 What got me started thinking about lure colors and how fish see them was Jason Lucas back in the early 60's. Jay wrote a chapter in his book and related a story about Eppinger lures a Daredevil spoons and have repeated this a few times on this site. Eppinger changed paint supplier and their lures sale went down hill fast. The complaints came from everywhere across the country and Canada. The problem was the red paint, they changed back to the original red paint supplier and solved the problem. The original red apparently looked very different under ultraviolet light. Apparently game fish of all types could see the difference. How bass see colors is unknown, all we can do is speculate. Greens including green pumpkin has been poor choice in most clear SoCal lakes, however can be good at times like post spawn. Green Weenie was a color combo that got started in SoCal hand pours 20 years ago, forgotten color today. To the best of my knowledge junebug dark purple with green flakes got started in Florida over 20 years ago and still is popular. Bass anglers maybe more fickle about colors than bass are judging from the hundreds of colors we try to feed them. Tom 4 Quote
Super User king fisher Posted January 22, 2017 Super User Posted January 22, 2017 I'm a firm believer in match the hatch. If the bass are eating dark craw dads with bright orange claws, any lure I fish will have some bright orange on it. Fish are no different than people. If someone wants you to count the number of small brown birds in brown bushes, you will not use color as a key in finding the birds. You will be looking for movement and shape. If you art told to count the number of birds with a yellow head in the same bushes, you will key in on the color yellow more than movement or shape. Figure out what they are eating and try to match color of the prey. If they are eating a variety of prey then a more visible color, with lots of action may help. 1 Quote
fissure_man Posted January 22, 2017 Posted January 22, 2017 2 hours ago, WRB said: What got me started thinking about lure colors and how fish see them was Jason Lucas back in the early 60's. Jay wrote a chapter in his book and related a story about Eppinger lures a Daredevil spoons and have repeated this a few times on this site. Eppinger changed paint supplier and their lures sale went down hill fast. The complaints came from everywhere across the country and Canada. The problem was the red paint, they changed back to the original red paint supplier and solved the problem. The original red apparently looked very different under ultraviolet light. Apparently game fish of all types could see the difference. How bass see colors is unknown, all we can do is speculate. Greens including green pumpkin has been poor choice in most clear SoCal lakes, however can be good at times like post spawn. Green Weenie was a color combo that got started in SoCal hand pours 20 years ago, forgotten color today. To the best of my knowledge junebug dark purple with green flakes got started in Florida over 20 years ago and still is popular. Bass anglers maybe more fickle about colors than bass are judging from the hundreds of colors we try to feed them. Tom This is a very interesting story, but I can’t help being skeptical. Based on my experience with fish color preference, I can’t imagine a difference in fish attraction so distinct and consistent that it could be independently identified by everyday anglers all over NA, for all kinds of species, in all kinds of waterways, lighting conditions, etc. Much more likely (IMO) would be a scenario where “word got out” that Eppinger changed their paint, leading to rumours that the effectiveness was compromised, leading to lost confidence and decreased sales. I wonder how many people that sent in those complaints had heard that the paint was changed, then had a couple lousy days fishing, then concluded it must have been because of the paint. I have no idea if that’s how it actually played out, just food for thought. I think the ebbs and flows of lure sales (especially color-specific sales) depend much more on marketing and hype than any actual objective measure of “fish catching-ness.” That’s not to say that the paint job couldn’t have had some real effect. It’s a really interesting point to consider how lures that look identical to us might look very different to other creatures. Quite a few posts talk about ‘matching the hatch’ with lure colors. A shad-colored crankbait might look like a very close match to the real thing in our eyes, but subtle or invisible differences (to us) might stand out like a sore thumb to a fish that ‘sees’ in a different spectral range, or is able to visually differentiate certain wavelengths more precisely than us. The same kind of logic is what has deer hunters fully decked out in camo, only to put on a blaze orange hat and vest. The orange is highly visible to humans (worn for safety), but apparently not so for deer. The Eppinger story feeds right into the hands of those promoting UV-reflective lures and lure coatings. Have you tried any of those? If I’m interpreting your school of thought correctly from your posts, it seems like those products should be up your alley when it comes to fine-tuning color selection. Quote
lo n slo Posted January 22, 2017 Posted January 22, 2017 good reading, even during the football game. but i'm still dipping my tails in chartreuse. carry on smart people! 3 Quote
Super User RoLo Posted January 22, 2017 Super User Posted January 22, 2017 I read "Jason Lucas On Bass Fishing" hot off the press, just a young kid at the time. It was the era of the "redhead", a white wooden plug with a red head (Jason's favorite water was Minnetonka, MN). Remarkably, much of what Jason wrote about lure color during the late 50s is still applicable today. Quote Bass anglers maybe more fickle about colors than bass judging from the hundreds of colors we try to feed them That's for sure, and this is reminiscent of the Seinfield series when George Constanza said: "Jerry just remember, if you believe it...then it's not a lie" (Modern Version = "If it's on the internet, it must be true") Roger 1 Quote
fissure_man Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 9 hours ago, RoLo said: Granted, blue light is scattered by dust, ions and solid particles. But when traveling thru liquid matter alone, light penetration hinges on the wavelength of the color. Be all that as it may, biologists have yet to learn how colors, especially those in the ultraviolet spectrum, might appear in the eye of a bass. The two references below deal with 'water penetration' as it applies to different colors in the light spectrum. ==================================================================== NASA Government Education (Scroll down about a foot) https://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/education-and-outreach/additional/science-focus/ocean-color/oceanblue.shtml NOAA (Another Interesting read from another reliable source) http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/red-color.html Roger This is all good info. If this is a response to me, I don’t think it conflicts with anything I’ve posted; am I missing it? Your first link hints at the same turbidity and water composition effects already mentioned: “Clearer water means bluer water, because if there is anything else in the water to absorb or reflect or scatter the incoming light, the apparent color of the water will be altered.” I agree we don’t know what bass see. But their vision is based on light, and so it must depend on the lighting conditions of their environment (they’re not carrying flashlights!). We don’t have to know everything about their eyes to conclude that they can’t ‘see’ red light where no red light is present, for example. That doesn’t mean you can’t catch a bass on a red lure where there’s no red light, it just means the bass won’t see the lure’s “redness” (or whatever “redness” would mean to a bass). 1 Quote
Super User RoLo Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 7 minutes ago, fissure_man said: This is all good info. If this is a response to me, I don’t think it conflicts with anything I’ve posted; am I missing it? WHO is right is not important, WHAT is right is all that matters Roger Quote
Super User Catt Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 On 1/21/2017 at 0:23 PM, fissure_man said: It would be really cool for a top pro to go all in on the 'color doesn't matter' stance - fish nothing but merthiolate colored baits for a tournament season. Maybe they’d do just as well as ever? It would be a cool experiment. For most people you might think there’d be a confidence handicap, but if they are truly convinced it makes no difference… I suspect sponsors wouldn’t be thrilled about an experiment to convince anglers they don't need to buy 10 colors of each bait. Then again, as in the Hackney quote, maybe that experiment would just have the masses running out to stock up on more merthiolate Catt, this debate will go nowhere until you open your mind lol. If scaleface's light penetration chart (or any other research on light transmission/absorption) was presented in a forum on physics, marine ecology, tuna fishing, etc., would you dispute it on the basis that we don’t understand bass eyes/brains? It has nothing to do with bass. Your stance is akin to disputing the theory of gravity, because a 200 lb angler feels more gravitational force than a 5 lb bass. Even if we had a perfect understanding of bass vision, translating that into situation-specific lure color preferences (that may or may not exist) would take another huge leap of understanding. We know that. Explanations of bass color preference are conjecture (still interesting, but we should take them with a few grains of salt). Measurements of light underwater are not. Measuring and understanding light underwater is a step toward piecing together what bass “see.” Scolding? I aint scolded anyone... Yet! Oh I agree with the science of the colors of the spectrum but that is only one part of the science. The next part is the eye & the next is the brain; when the two are added we get empirical evidence where Catt says I see blue & fissure_man says I see green. This difference between individual perception is more pronounced as colors blend or over lap. Deer & blaze orange fissue_man says I see blaze orange; the deer says where? Two different eyes, two different brains But yet the eyes & brain are not required? Lake XYZ has a dense population of shad & the bass are feeding on shad, & we match the hatch is this not "situational-specific lure color preference"? Quote
fissure_man Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 2 hours ago, Catt said: Scolding? I aint scolded anyone... Yet! Oh I agree with the science of the colors of the spectrum but that is only one part of the science. The next part is the eye & the next is the brain; when the two are added we get empirical evidence where Catt says I see blue & fissure_man says I see green. This difference between individual perception is more pronounced as colors blend or over lap. Deer & blaze orange fissue_man says I see blaze orange; the deer says where? Two different eyes, two different brains But yet the eyes & brain are not required? Lake XYZ has a dense population of shad & the bass are feeding on shad, & we match the hatch is this not "situational-specific lure color preference"? We don’t need to use words like “blue, orange, ultraviolet” to describe light frequencies. The differences between colors are measurable and can be defined mathematically, objectively. If a deer can’t see the orange color of my hat, does it mean my hat isn’t orange? If a color blind person can’t differentiate between green and red, does that mean there’s no difference between green and red? Individual perceptions don’t change the underlying physics of light and color. Based on what we do know, we can draw basic conclusions. If my orange hat is in an environment devoid of orange light, nobody (human or otherwise) can see its orange-ness. Your last point is a good one; mimicking forage is a way to side-step the whole debate. But many (including yourself?) would claim that ‘matching the hatch’ isn’t always the best color strategy. Why else would a 'color believer' carry 10” junebug worms, or bubblegum senkos, etc? Many successful lures look nothing like 'the hatch' My point was that a robust “theory of color preference” based on actually understanding bass vision/preferences/triggers is what would take much greater understanding than we currently possess (assuming such preferences even exist). For the sake of argument, I’d say you’re violating your own premise if you assume you can effectively match your lure color to a forage fish, using your own eyes. When you hold up a shad next to your shad crankbait and conclude that they look the same, how do you know that they would look the same to a bass? (I’d say that short of analyzing the full-spectrum reflectivity of both, a ‘visual match’ is the best you can do, but it’s an interesting idea to think about. Similar idea as WRB’s Eppinger story) Quote
Super User the reel ess Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 I "feel" that color matters to bass sometimes, maybe often. But I know it matters a lot to crappie. If you've ever trolled jigs and set your rods up for different colors, one color will almost always dominate. And usually some colors get completely ignored. It can change during the day or day to day, with no noticeable reason or pattern. If it matters greatly to crappie, I see no reason it doesn't matter just a little to bass. 1 Quote
Super User J Francho Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 17 minutes ago, fissure_man said: If a color blind person can’t differentiate between green and red, does that mean there’s no difference between green and red? No, but I think I know what Catt might be getting at. I'm color blind to blue and blue greens. I can't really tell turquoise from a teal, or blue green. They all look like various "blue" to me. Are they different? Yes. Measurable? Yes. Different to my pea brain? Not really. 3 Quote
fissure_man Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 25 minutes ago, J Francho said: No, but I think I know what Catt might be getting at. I'm color blind to blue and blue greens. I can't really tell turquoise from a teal, or blue green. They all look like various "blue" to me. Are they different? Yes. Measurable? Yes. Different to my pea brain? Not really. So if someone’s fishing for a J Francho, it won’t matter if their lure is turquoise or teal. J Francho won’t have a preference. But the only reason we know that is because we know a bit about your vision – you told us. On the other hand, in a hypothetical environment devoid of all turquoise/teal light, nobody would have a preference between the turquoise/teal lures, because there’s no turquoise or teal light to be seen. In this case, we don’t need to know about the vision of our quarry to draw the conclusion, other than the assumption that their vision is based on light. (I’m assuming here that the turquoise/teal lures reflect only the visible colors that they are named for, and there is not a difference the reflectivity outside our visible range) Sorry this got weird. 40 minutes ago, the reel ess said: I "feel" that color matters to bass sometimes, maybe often. But I know it matters a lot to crappie. If you've ever trolled jigs and set your rods up for different colors, one color will almost always dominate. And usually some colors get completely ignored. It can change during the day or day to day, with no noticeable reason or pattern. If it matters greatly to crappie, I see no reason it doesn't matter just a little to bass. Thanks for bringing this back to reality I've also had some very compelling occasions where color preference seemed pretty hard to deny, mostly while vertical jigging walleyes with live bait. If there’s a few of us jigging, we always start with different color heads because of this. 1 Quote
Super User J Francho Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 12 minutes ago, fissure_man said: But the only reason we know that is because we know a bit about your vision – you told us. That's the mystery, and why color is usually pretty low on my list of what to pick. I do think larger, slower presentations call for better realism. You can define realism however you want - profile, action, color, etc. Quote
mllrtm79 Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 I was watching this while my gf was screaming at the packers on tv yesterday afternoon, after enjoying the day down at a couple of my fishing holes: I don't know about ya'll, but this man has caught more fish in the last 12 months than I have the past 12 years... Quote
Super User J Francho Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 17 minutes ago, fissure_man said: I've also had some very compelling occasions where color preference seemed pretty hard to deny, mostly while vertical jigging walleyes with live bait. If there’s a few of us jigging, we always start with different color heads because of this. Sometimes I do the "change-up," where I feel just changing the color trigger a strike. It wasn't the that fish are on a specific color bite, but the new color was just something different. Quote
mllrtm79 Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 I've noticed with several lure styles, crankbaits mainly and not as much with senkos, that a distinct color change on the side (laminate soft or chart stripe on crank) seems to trigger a reaction more than a specific color did at times. Quote
Super User Catt Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 1 hour ago, fissure_man said: For the sake of argument, I’d say you’re violating your own premise if you assume you can effectively match your lure color to a forage fish, using your own eyes. When you hold up a shad next to your shad crankbait and conclude that they look the same, how do you know that they would look the same to a bass? You have never heard me say anything ever about matching the hatch! The things nonbelievers have to believe in order remain nonbelievers! The falsifiable part of science is the human factor! Quote
fissure_man Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 47 minutes ago, Catt said: You have never heard me say anything ever about matching the hatch! 5 hours ago, Catt said: Lake XYZ has a dense population of shad & the bass are feeding on shad, & we match the hatch is this not "situational-specific lure color preference"? ??? 47 minutes ago, Catt said: The things nonbelievers have to believe in order remain nonbelievers! No idea what you mean by this... nonbelievers in what? lol 47 minutes ago, Catt said: The falsifiable part of science is the human factor! Not sure what you mean by this either... All of the points I've tried to explain are falsifiable. Provide some evidence that disproves them. I've been wrong many times before. (edited for jerk tone). I'm struggling to say "I'm genuinely interested to see your evidence" without coming across like a jerk lol Before you hit 'save' on a one line response, please indicate which specific statement you're providing evidence against. Quote
Super User Catt Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 11 minutes ago, fissure_man said: All of the points I've tried to explain are falsifiable. Provide some evidence that disproves them. I've been wrong many times before. Done did! 4 hours ago, Catt said: Lake XYZ has a dense population of shad & the bass are feeding on shad, & we match the hatch is this not "situational-specific lure color preference"? That's in response to your nonbelieve of situational specific lure color preference because it's anecdotal evidence. 1 hour ago, J Francho said: No, but I think I know what Catt might be getting at. I'm color blind to blue and blue greens. I can't really tell turquoise from a teal, or blue green. They all look like various "blue" to me. Are they different? Yes. Measurable? Yes. Different to my pea brain? Not really. Ya even rejected this Dude ya sinking rapidly Quote
RichF Posted January 23, 2017 Posted January 23, 2017 "Matching the hatch" for bass seems kinda silly to me. So what if my 6XD is painted to look very similar to a threadfin shad...its fat profile, huge plastic lip, and weird wobble don't really match the bait it's attempting to mimic and these attributes would likely be more "noticeable" to the fish. I think it's more of a confidence thing than a color thing. I choose very few colors when I fish. Those colors are chosen because I like the way they look in the water, not because I think the fish can see them better. If I have confidence in a bait, I use it more, which means I catch more with it. I've seen way too many bass eat way too many dumb things to think they care that much about color, but there's also no harm in thinking they do. Whatever gives you the most confidence will ultimately get you the most bites! 1 Quote
Super User RoLo Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 I firmly believe that once your lure has been noticed by a game fish, the importance of color falls thru the cracks. No color is going to enhance her appetite, and no color is going to take it away. To obtain valid confirmation that one color is superior to another color would require a team of studious, unbiased technicians. The individual fisherman is the last person on earth you want on that assignment The individual angler has only 'one' choice. In the midst of a scorching bite he must forget about hitting home-runs and diligently change the color of the 'same' lure. If color is indeed a compelling factor then the fishing action will immediately drop off. Okay, let’s pretend that the action does in fact drop off, no problem, now we simply return to the original color and the action should be magically restored (ahem ahem). The more times we're able to switch back-&-forth between colors and the more times we're able to curtail and restore the fishing action with color alone, the greater the credibility of our argument. I’m not just whistling Dixie here, because I've conducted this exact exercise on numerous occasions. So the next time you hear me berating the importance of color, you'll know that it wasn’t something I heard and it wasn't something I read. Roger 3 Quote
Super User king fisher Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 I saw a video of two guys chumming the water with three very large bags of bright red, orange crayfish. Thousands of these bright colored crayfish were dumped in a matter of seconds. They then took red rattle traps and caught bass on every cast. The only similarity the rattletrap had to the crayfish was color. I would bet almost any bright orange lure would have worked during the height of the feeding frenzy. I would assume once the frenzy stopped and the crayfish were hiding on the bottom, a jig or other lure that imitated the same shape and movement of the crayfish would work better than a lure that had the wrong action but was the right color. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have some orange craws on the jig. I always try to match size, action, and color of the forage the bass on feeding on. If that doesn't work I will change to a lure with a different size and action first, then different colors until the fish tell me what they like. 1 Quote
Super User king fisher Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 I have never caught bass fast enough to run any experiment that was very scientific. I have tested color on silver salmon in Alaska many times where I'm sure color was the only factor that made a difference in the fishing. Silver salmon will come into rivers and stage in pools by the thousands. There are many times, when they will only hit a pink lure. At first I would catch them on anything pink. After catching a few dozen the bite would slow down on certain lures, and retrieve styles, eventually I would find the one that worked best. Taking the same best lure, and changing to another color the bite would stop. Going back to pink I could catch them every cast again. I have done this over and over again for 20 years. I don't know why they like pink but they do. I have had the same experience fly fishing for trout during a hatch on a river. Most of the time size and drift are the most important factor in matching flies, but I have seen color be more important, than anything else. Like I said I never have bass fishing so good that I can experiment this way, but I would assume there are times, when color is the biggest factor for bass. I guess it never hurts to try a different color. Quote
Super User Catt Posted January 23, 2017 Super User Posted January 23, 2017 48 minutes ago, RoLo said: I firmly believe that once your lure has been noticed by a game fish, the importance of color falls thru the cracks. No color is going to enhance her appetite, and no color is going to take it away. To obtain valid confirmation that one color is superior to another color would require a team of studious, unbiased technicians. The individual fisherman is the last person on earth you want on that assignment The individual angler has only 'one' choice. In the midst of a scorching bite he must forget about hitting home-runs and diligently change the color of the 'same' lure. If color is indeed a compelling factor then the fishing action will immediately drop off. Okay, let’s pretend that the action does in fact drop off, no problem, now we simply return to the original color and the action should be magically restored (ahem ahem). The more times we're able to switch back-&-forth between colors and the more times we're able to curtail and restore the fishing action with color alone, the greater the credibility of our argument. I’m not just whistling Dixie here, because I've conducted this exact exercise on numerous occasions. So the next time you hear me berating the importance of color, you'll know that it wasn’t something I heard and it wasn't something I read. Roger But Roger that's Anecdotal Evidence Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.