Latest Color Research (Bass Vision)

[J Francho]

22 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

Smallmouth tend to be more active sight feeders, which poses the question if their eyesight is better and/or they see more color variations?

They typically occupy clearer waters, so it's a fair point.

[FryDog62]

37 minutes ago, J Francho said:

They typically occupy clearer waters, so it's a fair point.

It may be mostly marketing, but I sure see a lot more bright colors in the lures/plastics designed for smallmouth fishing.  You wonder if its for semi-scientific reasons or just to catch fishermen and sell more product...

[J Francho]

I look at it this way: if you don't have a color, and someone else does, then you are missing sales.  Some angler is going to buy another brand, even though they might like your bait, because you don't have "their color."  GYCB seems to fall in this category.  They have a billion colors.  I only carry 2-3 colors of senkos, and I might buy another brand if they had smoke purple flake, and GYCB did not.

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, FryDog62 said:

It may be mostly marketing, but I sure see a lot more bright colors in the lures/plastics designed for smallmouth fishing.  You wonder if its for semi-scientific reasons or just to catch fishermen and sell more product...

I think some of it is marketing. I have about 15 years of data from a dirty water river I fish for smallmouth and the color selection is all over the place. There really isn't a color that stands above all as outproducing others. Used a lot of watermelon based colors especially water red, pearls, some chartreuse based baits, and some green pumpkin baits with various flake colors.

 

A few baits have stood out though, Yum small Crawbug, Rage Menace family, and Bandit 100. While there are times color can be huge, most times it doesn't seem to matter all that much.

 

I also have 9 years of clear water largie fishing data, and there plastics run the water red/water candy to smoke based colors. Some outliers though like rage Hard Candy which is an amazing color. This lake color does matter depending on how the light is hitting the fish, but as long as I have those colors with me I am covered depending on the situation.

 

Probably an OCD thing on my part, but these lists help me to combat the bait monkey and not buy every color in the book;)

[J Francho]

Out of curiosity, how many consider sun angle before color when fishing clear lakes?

[Cgolf]

55 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Out of curiosity, how many consider sun angle before color when fishing clear lakes?

I do a lot. On a lake where bluegill is the main forage, I have found that water red works best on overcast days and when the water is choppy which breaks up the light getting to the fish. During these times it is very difficult to get bit with smoke colored baits.

 

When the water is relatively flat and the sun is up the opposite is true and smoke colored baits rule the day and water red is tough to get a bit on. 

 

This makes some sense if you look at a gill on an overcast day, it looks mostly green. When the sun is shining down on it you see the metallic colors of the fish and a smoke red or smoke purple tube would match it pretty closely. Not sure if this is why, but after years of this happening, this was the best explanation I could come up with.

 

I have found a couple of colors Ron's Craw and Motor Red that seem universal so there is some wiggle room. I have been having good luck with the menace in Hard Candy the last couple of years, but haven't gotten to try it on flat water with sun, because it has been windy on those trips, so not sure if that will be a universal color.

 

 

[J Francho]

I was fishing for thoughts on casting angles, but your observation is interesting.

[Basswhippa]

This is one of the more interesting and informative posts I have seen on BR, or any bass forum.   Where classroom science meets real world practices and experiences.

[NittyGrittyBoy]

So why cant I buy a GY senko in Methiolate?

[billmac]

This is really interesting.  I was just about to post a question about narrowing your choices to 2 basic colors (or color ranges).  I know everyone raves about green pumpkin and I have several lures in that color, but I've never really used red colors, especially in plastics.  I've always been a big fan of yellow / chartreuse.

 

Just so I'm interpreting the thread correctly:  Bass most easily see green and red?

[Mobasser]

On 1/17/2020 at 6:42 AM, J Francho said:

Out of curiosity, how many consider sun angle before color when fishing clear lakes?

Good point J Francho. You may have your boat sitting in the sun, but casting into shaded areas. It makes a difference in how colors look to us. To the bass we still don't know

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, Mobasser said:

Good point J Francho. You may have your boat sitting in the sun, but casting into shaded areas. It makes a difference in how colors look to us. To the bass we still don't know

Not even colors, just shadows.  I'd consider this first before color.  Presentation before color, always.  Maybe though, the right color trumps presentation?  I wouldn't know how to tell.

[Mobasser]

Day in and day out, I still seem to catch the most fish by fishing lighter colors on sunny days, and darker colors on overcast days.

1 minute ago, J Francho said:

Not even colors, just shadows.  I'd consider this first before color.  Presentation before color, always.  Maybe though, the right color trumps presentation?  I wouldn't know how to tell.

Me niether, but I'd bet most guys would say presentation over color.

[J Francho]

There's another thread about DS baits, and black was mentioned as a "stained water bait."  Black works in gin clear water, quite well.  Especially if the bait is leech shaped.

[Mobasser]

Just now, J Francho said:

There's another thread about DS baits, and black was mentioned as a "stained water bait."  Black works in gin clear water, quite well.  Especially if the bait is leech shaped.

Agree. Solid black seems to be the forgotten color now days. The craws around my area are brown, sometimes almost black, and at times with blue craws and blue streaks in the body. I used to try and match this as best I could. But, I know a guy who fishes a lighter green craw bait almost all the time, and catches lots of bass here too. It's a weird thing. I think it pays to carry a few different colors in jigs/plastics from light to dark, but I don't think you need 40 colors of each. A grape worm is still my all around favorite here. If I fished in another area, it may change? Some colors seem kind of universal, others not so much

[Mobasser]

Years ago, I could catch lots of bass here on a chartreuse 4" grub. Now, it never works. The same with worms with bright green tails. They seem to scare more fish away than catch them. Grape, Blue, browns and darker subdued colors work the best here for me. Green pumpkin is very popular with lots of guys, but is probably my least favorite. I've given up on it

[fin]

44 minutes ago, billmac said:

 

Just so I'm interpreting the thread correctly:  Bass most easily see green and red?

I think it’s saying they can tell the difference between those two colors better, not that they can see those two colors better than other colors. To a bass, red may look like black and green may look like white. (I’m making that part up myself just to make a point) The two colors look very different to them.

 

The info in the report is really interesting, but I think it’s hard to take the results and apply them to fishing. How a color appears in certain water and light conditions is just as important as how it appears to the fish in perfect conditions.

 

The report also says bass see white and chartreuse as being basically the same color. I don’t think you’ll find many fishermen that think those two colors are the same.

[Ghostshad]

I listen to Major League Fishing. They catch 100 of bass .

[Caliyak]

On 1/24/2020 at 6:32 AM, Ghostshad said:

I listen to Major League Fishing. They catch 100 of bass .

For 2020 MFL, I am doing a journal of baits and colors used to win the events. I was shocked to see what they were using last year. We, at times, are overdoing it. These guys keep it simple. Try it, it's interesting to see. 

[jimmyjoe]

On 1/17/2020 at 6:42 AM, J Francho said:

Out of curiosity, how many consider sun angle before color when fishing clear lakes?

   The time I really pay attention to sun angle is when I'm using in-line spinners, and even then when the sun is lower in the sky.  Whether I'm using a Mepps Aglia (wide swing), an Aglia Long (narrower swing) or a Roostertail (narrowest swing), I try to retrieve the spinner at an angle so that the sun is reflected (in my mind's eye) off the blade and into the target area I think holds fish. It has worked for me for several years, but only when the spinner is shallower than the fish.

   The most obvious place that this works is a place in the river near me that has a cutoff (ledge). The spine of the cutoff runs ESE on the northern part, curving around to SSE on the southern part. Water depth is 3-4 feet on the east side, forming a flat. Deep side of the cutoff is 8-12 feet deep.

    At 4:00-6:00PM, an Aglia Long retrieved directly over the southern leg of the cutoff produces fish. They rise up from the deeper water. If I move the spinner to a parallel track 4 feet east, I get nothing. Why? Because the flash or glint off the blade is being blocked by the lip of the cutoff. If I move my retrieval track too far to the west, out over open water, I get nothing, because the glint off the blade is aimed at open water, but the bass are holding just under the lip of that cutoff.

   If I move to the west and retrieve the Aglia Long from ESE to WNW on the upper leg, I get nothing.  If I switch to an Aglia, I get fish. The higher reflection angle "bounces" down to where the fish are. If I move back east and try the southern leg again using the Aglia, I get nothing. The reflected angle is "coned" too far ahead.

   At this time of day, retrieving the spinners lower in the water column on the deep side produces nothing, or next to nothing. At noon, however, it can be productive. Higher sun angle.

   Another fisherman showed this to me several years ago. He always caught bass off this ledge when other fishermen didn't. So I did what he taught me, and I caught fish. I then taught two friends of mine, showing them what I was doing, and now they catch fish there the same way I do.

 

   When the river is really muddy, this system doesn't work. I use other lure types.

 

   This last year, I tried this in a lake I frequent. It seems to work, but I use spinners in this particular lake much less frequently than other lures. I guess I'll have to fish it another year and see.  ?      jj

  

  

[Soulfisher]

Hope I am not hijacking this thread in another direction, but I came across this great conversation while trying to find a head lamp that will not spook bass near the boat when trying to get them in the net at night.  I fish a lot at night and just when I think the fish has given up and laid over to net them, i turn on my light to see and it almost always makes them burst for another run no matter how beat I thought I had them. That last burst near the boat is where I have lost so many very big fish and it's killing me.  Being in a jon boat, with not great eyesight to begin with, anchor ropes in close proximity, in a treble hook situation, and the added problem of not having much line out to mitigate a violent run at such close quarters has been disastrous more times than I would like to admit.

 

I'm curious with all the different RGB headlamp options available these days if one of them would be better than the white light I have been using? I have even bought a giant walleye net to try to shrink that margin, but was wondering if anyone uses any other lights in a different spectrum and notices if it helps keeping them from making that last run?

 

Thank you

[Hammer 4]

Use a red lamp..?

[frogflogger]

Used to be black, white and yellow - all caught fish - then a guy showed up with blue worms and we slayed them - then came purple and then the rainbow of choices we now have. Great fun and maybe sometimes needed but black, white and yellow are still effective.

[jimmyjoe]

13 hours ago, Soulfisher said:

Hope I am not hijacking this thread in another direction, but I came across this great conversation while trying to find a head lamp that will not spook bass near the boat when trying to get them in the net at night.  I fish a lot at night and just when I think the fish has given up and laid over to net them, i turn on my light to see and it almost always makes them burst for another run no matter how beat I thought I had them. That last burst near the boat is where I have lost so many very big fish and it's killing me.  Being in a jon boat, with not great eyesight to begin with, anchor ropes in close proximity, in a treble hook situation, and the added problem of not having much line out to mitigate a violent run at such close quarters has been disastrous more times than I would like to admit.

 

I'm curious with all the different RGB headlamp options available these days if one of them would be better than the white light I have been using? I have even bought a giant walleye net to try to shrink that margin, but was wondering if anyone uses any other lights in a different spectrum and notices if it helps keeping them from making that last run?

 

Thank you

 

   Keep a bow or bow and stern light on all the time. Not bright .... just there. The turn-on and turn-off of the head light are what scare them, not the presence of light by itself. In fact, a light at night will actually attract fish, although I have no idea whether it attracts one specie more than another.      jj

[CrankFate]

What they see is tough to know. I have never seen a color become a different color when it goes underwater, even in murky water. But I know in stained or murky, not clear water, gold flash can be more visible than silver flash or vice versa. Sometimes blue flash, green flash, pink flash or purple flash is more visible. At least to my eyes. But there’s also quite a few eye teaser illusions floating around the internet that prove that human eyes dont always see the color as what it really is in regular air. But I am sure (I think) that in under water situations where we are blind, the fish can still see to some degree. What they see is anyone’s guess.