Are Bass Color Blind?

[gunsinger]

Pardon me if this has been asked before but, just how relevant is color?  Or perhaps more specifically, variations of color.  Let me explain why I ask.  My buddy told me during the pre-spawn and spawn that Watermelon Seed/Red Flake rigged wacky style was the only thing working.  He explained that when the sun came out, those red flakes were calling the bass.  I started fishing them and was catching medium sized bass.  But, horror of horrors, the unthinkable happened.  I was on the lake and ran out of red flake.  All I had was blue or black flake.  I just knew I was doomed to failure....but I was wrong.  Dem' basses kept right on eatin like dey jus' didn't care!

 

So, that begs the question, how much do we over think color?  I mean, yeah, you have to consider water clarity but, after that, does it really matter?  Or is it more about presentation.

[Tennessee Boy]

A lot of research done in this area.  I've posted this chart several times.  Researchers trained bass to identify different colors.  This chart shows how good they were at identifying the different colors.  

 

[Choporoz]

50 minutes ago, gunsinger said:

Are Bass Color Blind?

I don't know.  But I would be immensely amused if you could prove it 

[Deleted account]

No.

[gim]

Water clarify and specific conditions at any given time could also play a role on how well they see color.  From purely a biological perspective, no, they are not color blind.

[WRB]

We know by the physiology of the eye it has both components that color vision requires; cones and rods.

What we don’t know is how the bass brain interprets various colors or being underwater how light affects the color spectrum. 

The only way we can ask a bass what it prefers under all the ecosystem variables is by trail and error, give them what they want not what you think looks good.

Color matters when it matters.

Tom

[jimmyjoe]

  This was told to me a few years ago:

 

   "If you want a good idea of what a bass sees, take a batch of lures in different colors WITHOUT including red or green. Lay them down on grey concrete and take a black-and-white picture. That's what bass see. Mark your colors, because you probably won't be able to recognize which is which."

 

   I have no proof that this is true, but FWIW, my experience seems to go along with it, and I'll believe it until something better comes along.   ?          jj

[WRB]

18 minutes ago, jimmyjoe said:

  This was told to me a few years ago:

 

   "If you want a good idea of what a bass sees, take a batch of lures in different colors WITHOUT including red or green. Lay them down on grey concrete and take a black-and-white picture. That's what bass see. Mark your colors, because you probably won't be able to recognize which is which."

 

   I have no proof that this is true, but FWIW, my experience seems to go along with it, and I'll believe it until something better comes along.   ?          jj

That is what animals without color vision see.

Tom

[blckshirt98]

Once you reach a certain depth there's not enough light penetration for color to matter.  Size/movement that hit the lateral line of the fish are much more important.

[jimmyjoe]

51 minutes ago, WRB said:

That is what animals without color vision see.

Tom

 

  Correct. I wasn't very clear on what I wanted to say.

  What you end up with is essentially grey scale; then you need to add back in the red and green to make up the total spectrum of what a bass sees.

   Sorry about that. ???

 

  Like I said ...... supposedly.  I'm sure not an expert.  ?                     jj

[schplurg]

The chart posted above appears in this article. It's a long article full of research, experiments and sciency stuff. No need to wonder, science has you covered.

 

https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/65/1/43/4924236

[txchaser]

I see flake or no flake make a difference for me more often than I expected.