What colors do bass see?

[KP Duty]

I'm sure many of you have read something before about how bass see color, but this is a particularly good article that has some info that was new to me.

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/what-colors-do-bass-see/372341#:~:text=The cellular composition of the,selectivity based on these colors.&text=Likewise%2C bass cannot readily distinguish,colors like chartreuse and white.

[Bubba 460]

Yep ~ I read that before, thought it was interesting. Red and green are the primary colors bass see.... Everything else is on the white to black, gray scale.

[Deleted account]

26 minutes ago, KP Duty said:

I'm sure many of you have read something before about how bass see color, but this is a particularly good article that has some info that was new to me.

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/what-colors-do-bass-see/372341#:~:text=The cellular composition of the,selectivity based on these colors.&text=Likewise%2C bass cannot readily distinguish,colors like chartreuse and white.

The information is good, the article is awful, not to mention condescending. "surprised they could do science in 1937" really? 

[WRB]

Nobody knows how the bass brain interprets the color spectrum underwater. All speculation that isn’t supported by wild bass in it’s ecosystem or by experience.

Tom  

[Cigarguy]

I don't know but as far as I'm concern Isaac Newton did pretty good science.  He certainly was the cause of sleepless nights for us in university.  Einstein was OK too. 

 

The article is interesting but the author had a caveat at the end.   Reading this forum and other fishing forum and based on personal experience it seams that fishing is not that simple.  Some days they'll bite anything other days a certain lure would work great the next day the exact same setup....nada.

 

I'm with @WRB, seeing is one thing but interpreting, comprehending, and acting is another.  This goes for animal of the 4 leg, fins, no legs and 2 legged types.

[MickD]

If the question is really about what colors are most effective for bass, then I have an opinion.  For LMB, I've found nothing as effective as black and black and blue combinations, like junebug.

 

For SMB, I've found nothing that is as often as effective as combinations of red and green, mostly green with a little red.  Watermelon + red flake.  Or candy, which has it all.  But has to have some green to be in the top tier of colors.

[fin]

This video demonstrates how dichromatic vision can affect what is seen. This is about deer and tigers, and different color receptors than bass, but it can give you an idea of how to apply this info. It almost makes things look black & white. It helps to prove that color is not as important as motion.

 

 

[Choporoz]

The article is ok.  The study report, I found fascinating.   It appears the study was well done and could go a ways towards answering the interpreting,  comprehending,  acting part.  It acknowledges that the different natural ecosystem variables couldn't all be accounted for.  But they seem to have done a pretty good job of removing variables for scientific analysis. 

[CrankFate]

It’s not just colors. We can look at 5 fish and barely know which is which. They look at each other and all recognize who is who. They can see happy, sad, ticked off, hungry, tired and ready to make babies just by looking at each other. It’s easy to tell a persons mood from their face. Way harder with a fish. But they can tell when we can’t. 

[jimmyjoe]

   Color is red/green, plus contrast, or lack thereof. Sound and water displacement complete the triad. 

 

   People have been catching fish, commercially or recreationally, for centuries.  New knowledge that reinforces those experiences can be great. New knowledge that goes against those experiences is suspect until it proves itself ...... if it ever does. I'm so old and set in my ways that I doubt I'll ever change.

   But ....... I can still catch fish.   ??       jj

[txchaser]

I was reading an article the other day similar to this one, thinking about bass vision. 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/another-brain-frying-optical-illusion-what-color-are-these-spheres

 

 

Each of these balls is the same color. No telling what those flakes and stripes in our baits are doing to what the bass interpret.

 

[scaleface]

It might be true but I catch so many bass with blue worms that I'm still going to buy and throw them whether they see that hue or not .

[DanielG]

Well according to 'marling baits'. a lure maker online, bass see a 4"x1"x1' brown block of wood with treble hooks on it as a delicious meal. So... go figure right? He actually made one and show him catching bass with it. It seems bass like light sabers too.

12 hours ago, txchaser said:

I was reading an article the other day similar to this one, thinking about bass vision. 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/another-brain-frying-optical-illusion-what-color-are-these-spheres

 

 

Each of these balls is the same color. No telling what those flakes and stripes in our baits are doing to what the bass interpret.

 

Wow, It's true. If you put your face close and look at each ball individually the orange ones and the green ones are actually all brownish.

[garroyo130]

The biggest issue IMO is that we can only test our own color spectrum ... all we can determine is that of the colors WE know they see red and green best.

 

For all we know, the slime on a bait which is invisible to us gives off some sort of color to bass.

 

 

[scaleface]

Color is very complicated .  It doesnt even exist except for in our brains . Our rods or cones "I cant remember which one " gets activated by different light waves and our brain assigns a color to them . For all I know we  humans dont even see color the same .

[Deleted account]

1 minute ago, scaleface said:

For all I know we  humans dont even see color the same .

I don't even see color the same with either eye.

[Catt]

18 hours ago, WRB said:

Nobody knows how the bass brain interprets the color spectrum underwater. All speculation that isn’t supported by wild bass in it’s ecosystem or by experience.

Tom  

 

17 hours ago, Cigarguy said:

I'm with @WRB, seeing is one thing but interpreting, comprehending, and acting is another.  This goes for animal of the 4 leg, fins, no legs and 2 legged types.

 

Kinda like if bass are "line shy", until someone sits down and interviews a bass there's a lot of assuming going on.

 

Yes a bass's eyes have similarities to ours but similarities doesn't mean same as.

[CM-fisher]

On 5/7/2021 at 8:53 PM, txchaser said:

I was reading an article the other day similar to this one, thinking about bass vision. 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/another-brain-frying-optical-illusion-what-color-are-these-spheres

 

 

Each of these balls is the same color. No telling what those flakes and stripes in our baits are doing to what the bass interpret.

 

this scares me lol