Color and fishing or shade and fishing?

[PressuredFishing]

So I do believe that color makes a difference, and have seen it play out time and time again in clear water, with that said, bass are partially colorblind, and are not able to see 100% of the color spectrum. How much do you think it has to do with color, and how much do you think it has to do with translucency of color, shade of color (lighter pigments vs darker pigments) and patterns, stripes, dots, eyes, line, silhouette, scale, flash, and flake. Personally I'm starting to think it leans towards the ladder end of the spectrum a little more, but would love to hear your guys fishy thoughts.

[PaulVE64]

I fish for smallies.

 

They will hit almost anything.

[GRiver]

I had one curly tailed work left in a package, I put it with another brand very similar color…..watermelon pearl, trying to keep it neat. I was getting bites on the one, worm got ripped, so I changed. Bites stopped noticed I had put on that lone curly tail worm from the package, different brand. Color was slightly different, just a little bit darker. Switched back and started getting bites.

Was it a fluke? Don’t know, but I think shades of color do matter.

I think it’s hard to experiment with wild creatures on habits when there are so many variables involved. Weather , sunlight, water temperature, time of day, time of year, mating not mating, direction of wind, etc…

I think it’s really difficult to get a baseline, one that is a hard chisel in stone facts. 

A slight change color, action of lure, change weather , in my opinion, can make the world of difference sometimes. 
 

[ATA]

They cant be color blind when they responding to some color at some day and to other color another day when you using same bait, So I think they would see a silhouette or something different from each color.

[OldManLure]

I’m convinced it is more about shape/profile and contrast than color. The challenge, I think, is finding the combination of a color that at a given time provides adequate contrast AND has the shape that appears to be something they want to eat.  

[GaryH]

Bass are Not color blind. They have cones and rods in their eyes. The rods allow them to see black, grey and white. The cones allow for them to see color. Water clarity has a lot to do with just what color they can see at a giving time.

 

 

 

[jimmyjoe]

   FWIW, science tells us that bass see green and red as colors, the same way we see them. Everything else is grey scale. Grey scale shows up like B&W photos; very fine contrast. So bass see red, green and highly refined black-and-white,

   But that's just the appearance of the lure or bait. There's also the consideration of the contrast of the lure compared to its surroundings, and (for a moving lure) reflectivity. Forage creatures don't survive by being standouts. They survive by blending in.

   Couple those considerations with water displacement being more important than visibility (in my opinion), and the game can get complicated.        jj

[the reel ess]

7 hours ago, PressuredFishing said:

So I do believe that color makes a difference, and have seen it play out time and time again in clear water, with that said, bass are partially colorblind, and are not able to see 100% of the color spectrum. How much do you think it has to do with color, and how much do you think it has to do with translucency of color, shade of color (lighter pigments vs darker pigments) and patterns, stripes, dots, eyes, line, silhouette, scale, flash, and flake. Personally I'm starting to think it leans towards the ladder end of the spectrum a little more, but would love to hear your guys fishy thoughts.

Maybe they can't see the entire spectrum, but crappie can differentiate between all the colors. Somethis as simple as green/white vs green or white can be the difference between getting bites.  Then there are times they'll bite them all and times they won't bite any.

[papajoe222]

2 hours ago, OldManLure said:

I’m convinced it is more about shape/profile and contrast than color.

I agree and I don't........Let me explain.  Bass are sight feeders, plain and simple. Do they use their lateral line and hearing to help find prey in dingy, or muddy water? Yes but even then they use sight in combination with them the majority of time. 

The shape and profile don't have to 'match the hatch,' it just needs to appeal to the fish. Contrast becomes more important in off colored water than color, but in clear water the opposite is true. A prime example is chrome vs. gold. One reflects its surroundings perfectly. The other, although it reflects in the same manner, has some contrast. In either case, their profile is what attracts bass to them.  Color becomes critical when those two factors don't get the fish to commit to your offering.

If you try switching out the profile of identically colored baits say from a worm that has been producing to a bulky plastic, I think you'll discover how much more important shape/profile is over color.

[A-Jay]

Always an interesting topic ~

And while I do understand that the science says that bass may not see the entire color spectrum as we do, I rarely ever actually consider that fact when selecting baits;

regardless of type.

So many times one color or pattern will out produce another I'm always looking for that one.

However, the aspect of this that has been covered before (and in previous responses here)

is bait profile & size. 

Along with the color having this dialed in can be just as critical.

And finally, there's the 'vibration' produced.

Whether massive, subtle or something in between, where does that detail come into play & how much.

When I think of presentations such as, cranks, rattle / lipless baits, spinner baits, vibrating jigs and the list goes on, this is a big deal IMO.

Even soft plastics and especially anything with a paddle or boot tail (swimbaits) or action type appendages (Rage Tail Baits for instance) are part of this.

So while I want to believe that ALL these baits (hard & soft) 

have the exact same vibration profile, the reality is, as far as the bass are concerned,

they probably Do Not.

Which may explain why that one Megabass perch colored Jerkbait I have just out produces other versions of the exact same bait and why I guard that one lure like it was Gold Jerry, Gold. 

So Yes, I think color, size / profile AND vibration profile need to combined effectively in order to illicit that strike from Old Mrs Big.

Fish Hard 

A-Jay

 

[Catt]

8 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

So Yes, I think color, size / profile AND vibration profile need to combined effectively in order to illicit that strike from Old Mrs Big.

 

It's like all the rest of bass fishing, we try to single out one part of the equation.

 

Example: The discussion will soon start about pre-spawn/spawn & undoubtedly the emphasis will center on water temperatures or moon phases.

 

Bass DO NOT single out one part of the equation, they are affected by the entire equation.

[Chris Catignani]

To get a little more technical...and I may be out of my league here a little.

Bass are dichromatic and see light from the green and red wavelengths.

Well guess what...there are a lot of other colors between those two wavelengths.

[Bankc]

To be fair, we're a bit color blind too.  We only see a tiny fraction of the spectrum of available colors.  There are other species that can see far more colors than we can, like the famous example of the mantis shrimp.  And not even all humans see color the same way.  We all share the same red and blue receptors, but there are two green receptors we can have.  A few people (superchromats or tetrachromats, who are mostly women) have both green receptors and can see more colors than most.  Bass are likely to be similar to tritanopes, as they only have red and green receptors.

 

Also, it's possible to see UV and near IR light.  UV light can be detected by our eyes, but our lenses block most of it out.  People who have had their lenses replaced (and the replacement lenses don't have UV filters), as well as some people with genetic issues can see UV light pretty well.  It's a appears as a light violet color to use.  The aqueous humor (fluid in our eye balls) filters out near IR light.  However, if you got to a pitch black room, let your eyes adjust to the darkness, and look at a bright IR light, like the light on a remote control, you can see the color.  It comes out as a dark orange to us.  Which brings up another point.  It's possible for our eyes to see these two extra colors, but when we do, our brains don't interpret them as a whole new color.  They interpret them as a familiar color.  

 

Now let's look at magenta.  Magenta doesn't exist in the color spectrum.  There's no wavelength for magenta.  Yet we see it.  How?  Well, our brains don't see light as a spectrum, but rather as a wheel.  And magenta is the color our brains choose to complete the wheel.  So when we see magenta, what we're actually seeing is two colors at once, both on the far ends of the spectrum.  Our brains don't know what to do with that, so they invented the color magenta for us to make sense of it.  

 

We can't even say for sure that two people see colors the same way.  For example, there are cultures that can't even see the color blue (the Himba tribe in Namibia as an example), despite the fact that they have blue receptors in their eyes!  Blue, in nature, is very rare, outside of the clear sky.  And to them, blue is the color of nothingness.  If you show them the color blue on a piece of paper or screen, they'll see it as green.  Though they have the capability to see blue, they never trained their brains to recognize blue independently, so they can't distinguish it from other colors.  Think that's weird?  Well blue and indigo are very distinct colors with distinct lines on the color spectrum (remember ROY G. BIV).  Yet to our eyes, we see them as both shades of blue, not as two separate colors, like we do all of the other colors of the rainbow.  Why?  Because we don't teach kids that there's a difference between indigo and blue.  So we grow up processing the two colors very much the same, even though our eyes don't see them as that similar.  

 

So, the point of all of this is to suggest that there's no way of knowing how bass see color, even if we can know what colors they could theoretically see.  So they might see huge differences in subtle shades of red, and no differences in all of the greens and yellows.  There's behavioral evidence to suggest they see chanteuse as white and blue as black.  But they may just see certain shades of blues as black and others as green, and may just react to chartreuse and all bright colors as white.  So we'll never know if color matters, or just contrast.  Their eyes might see color, but their brains may not. 

 

So all I can suggest for the color question is, if one color ain't working, try something else.  But don't get too caught up in it.  At best, you're just throwing darts in the dark when it comes to color.  

[Catt]

Until someone sits down & interviews a bass we have no idea what they see!

 

We are looking at the science though human eyes & interpreting it with a human brain.

 

Yes I understand they they have rods, cones, & all of that but they are "similar to" ours, not same as.

[PressuredFishing]

5 hours ago, GRiver said:

I had one curly tailed work left in a package, I put it with another brand very similar color…..watermelon pearl, trying to keep it neat. I was getting bites on the one, worm got ripped, so I changed. Bites stopped noticed I had put on that lone curly tail worm from the package, different brand. Color was slightly different, just a little bit darker. Switched back and started getting bites.

Was it a fluke? Don’t know, but I think shades of color do matter.

I think it’s hard to experiment with wild creatures on habits when there are so many variables involved. Weather , sunlight, water temperature, time of day, time of year, mating not mating, direction of wind, etc…

I think it’s really difficult to get a baseline, one that is a hard chisel in stone facts. 

A slight change color, action of lure, change weather , in my opinion, can make the world of difference sometimes. 
 

Yeah it's very hard to get a good understand on this subject with so many uncontrollable variables. I will say I was bed fishing a lmb for about an hour and the thing didn't even look at my worm, I tore the last gp worm up and threw in a fruit punch red with chartreuse tail and he hit the thing first try, I know this is bed fishing but just something interesting

1 hour ago, Bankc said:

To be fair, we're a bit color blind too.  We only see a tiny fraction of the spectrum of available colors.  There are other species that can see far more colors than we can, like the famous example of the mantis shrimp.  And not even all humans see color the same way.  We all share the same red and blue receptors, but there are two green receptors we can have.  A few people (superchromats or tetrachromats, who are mostly women) have both green receptors and can see more colors than most.  Bass are likely to be similar to tritanopes, as they only have red and green receptors.

 

Also, it's possible to see UV and near IR light.  UV light can be detected by our eyes, but our lenses block most of it out.  People who have had their lenses replaced (and the replacement lenses don't have UV filters), as well as some people with genetic issues can see UV light pretty well.  It's a appears as a light violet color to use.  The aqueous humor (fluid in our eye balls) filters out near IR light.  However, if you got to a pitch black room, let your eyes adjust to the darkness, and look at a bright IR light, like the light on a remote control, you can see the color.  It comes out as a dark orange to us.  Which brings up another point.  It's possible for our eyes to see these two extra colors, but when we do, our brains don't interpret them as a whole new color.  They interpret them as a familiar color.  

 

Now let's look at magenta.  Magenta doesn't exist in the color spectrum.  There's no wavelength for magenta.  Yet we see it.  How?  Well, our brains don't see light as a spectrum, but rather as a wheel.  And magenta is the color our brains choose to complete the wheel.  So when we see magenta, what we're actually seeing is two colors at once, both on the far ends of the spectrum.  Our brains don't know what to do with that, so they invented the color magenta for us to make sense of it.  

 

We can't even say for sure that two people see colors the same way.  For example, there are cultures that can't even see the color blue (the Himba tribe in Namibia as an example), despite the fact that they have blue receptors in their eyes!  Blue, in nature, is very rare, outside of the clear sky.  And to them, blue is the color of nothingness.  If you show them the color blue on a piece of paper or screen, they'll see it as green.  Though they have the capability to see blue, they never trained their brains to recognize blue independently, so they can't distinguish it from other colors.  Think that's weird?  Well blue and indigo are very distinct colors with distinct lines on the color spectrum (remember ROY G. BIV).  Yet to our eyes, we see them as both shades of blue, not as two separate colors, like we do all of the other colors of the rainbow.  Why?  Because we don't teach kids that there's a difference between indigo and blue.  So we grow up processing the two colors very much the same, even though our eyes don't see them as that similar.  

 

So, the point of all of this is to suggest that there's no way of knowing how bass see color, even if we can know what colors they could theoretically see.  So they might see huge differences in subtle shades of red, and no differences in all of the greens and yellows.  There's behavioral evidence to suggest they see chanteuse as white and blue as black.  But they may just see certain shades of blues as black and others as green, and may just react to chartreuse and all bright colors as white.  So we'll never know if color matters, or just contrast.  Their eyes might see color, but their brains may not. 

 

So all I can suggest for the color question is, if one color ain't working, try something else.  But don't get too caught up in it.  At best, you're just throwing darts in the dark when it comes to color.  

Wow that's very interesting, never knew that to be honest.

[PressuredFishing]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

Until someone sits down & interviews a bass we have no idea what they see!

 

We are looking at the science though human eyes & interpreting it with a human brain.

 

Yes I understand they they have rods, cones, & all of that but they are "similar to" ours, not same as.

Your right, there was a really interesting psychologist I was listening to though  and he said that there is no reason to not anthropomorphize unless there is reasonable doubt in doing so with said animal. I know most people here usually are against anthropomorphism. The psychologist was comparing neurochemistry between lobsters that took Prozac and they where more likely to fight again after loosing compared to the lobster that lost and wasn't on Prozac. He said saying anthropomorphism doesn't work is from 1950's behaviorism. Again your right when you say we cannot know for sure, but perhaps anthropomorphism is the only way to get a slight understanding on a animals psyche, compared to no understanding at all.

1 hour ago, Chris Catignani said:

To get a little more technical...and I may be out of my league here a little.

Bass are dichromatic and see light from the green and red wavelengths.

Well guess what...there are a lot of other colors between those two wavelengths.

Wow very good visual, so I guess yellow and orange could fall into that wavelength, as well as even pink

[king fisher]

I fished a flat with a drop off last June for two days.  The first day they crushed chartreuse square bills on the flat in the morning and deep diving chartreuse cranks on the drop off in the afternoon.

       The next day started out the same, but slowed to a stop by noon.  I tried a Chartreuse spinnerbait and got a couple more but that bite quite too.  I switched to worms and jigs thinking that something slow would be the answered.

      After no success slowing down, I tried a shad crankbait and got two 5 pounders on the first cast.  Switched to a white spinnerbait and got 5 more, switched back to the shad crank and caught fish until dark.

        I don't think the bass had to have shad colored lures.  I am positive they were tired of chartreuse.  They probably would have hit anything that didn't have Chartreuse.  I should have switched to another color just to see if they would hit it too, but was having to much fun and didn't want to mess up a good thing.    Sometimes I don't think it is important to find the right color, just don't use the wrong one.

[Mobasser]

A good topic here, and one that's been discussed many times. We still don't know the answers to why bass hit certain colors at certain times.                                              I say carry the ones you have the most confidence in, and the ones that have worked best for you in the past.                                    If your throwing a color you've got confidence in, your more apt to be on your toes, and ready for the strike.

[Catt]

1 hour ago, PressuredFishing said:

there was a really interesting psychologist I was listening to though  and he said that there is no reason to not anthropomorphize unless there is reasonable doubt in doing so with said animal

 

To assume we "know" what a bass sees based on similarities in their eyes compared to human eyes would all be reasonable doubt. 

 

The biggest factor for doubt would be the bass's brain compared to the human brain. 

 

[huZZah]

We’ve all had days where you throw what never works in desperation and it suddenly works with no reasoning why. Who knows? 
 

Personally, I still think presentation/lure selection trumps color for me almost every time. 

[PressuredFishing]

51 minutes ago, huZZah said:

We’ve all had days where you throw what never works in desperation and it suddenly works with no reasoning why. Who knows? 
 

Personally, I still think presentation/lure selection trumps color for me almost every time. 

Agreed, in clearer water I've noticed color player a huge role, then again I cannot tell you why a brused banana jerkbait works well in the dead of a hot summer day over natural colors in clear water

1 hour ago, Catt said:

 

To assume we "know" what a bass sees based on similarities in their eyes compared to human eyes would all be reasonable doubt. 

 

The biggest factor for doubt would be the bass's brain compared to the human brain. 

 

That's a fair assessment, I think it's impossible to know what a basses vision is because we aren't bass, but guessing isn't always a bad idea, because what's the worst that can happen, we are wrong yknow. 

[WRB]

4 hours ago, Catt said:

Until someone sits down & interviews a bass we have no idea what they see!

 

We are looking at the science though human eyes & interpreting it with a human brain.

 

Yes I understand they they have rods, cones, & all of that but they are "similar to" ours, not same as.

^^^^This^^^^

Studies that look at the eye construction fail to take into consideration that fish live in water that impacts the light.

Bass have big eyes for a reason to see underwater under all types of water clarity including night.

We don’t don’t have a clue what bass can see or how they interpret what the see.

Where I fish in SoCal color often makes a big difference between catching bass and getting skunked. A color change from AM to PM lighting can often make a big difference using the exact same worm, same brand. Why? Usually wind conditions creating waves that change angles defusing sun rays. 

Very active bass feeding will strike nearly everything that resembles prey. When bass are not active feed then everything matters to trigger a strike including colors and contrast.

Trail and error, when you find what is working use it.

Tom

[jimmyjoe]

5 hours ago, Bankc said:

A few people (superchromats or tetrachromats, who are mostly women) have both green receptors and can see more colors than most. 

 

   That would explain my wife's sweater collection!     ?             jj

[PressuredFishing]

58 minutes ago, WRB said:

^^^^This^^^^

Studies that look at the eye construction fail to take into consideration that fish live in water that impacts the light.

Bass have big eyes for a reason to see underwater under all types of water clarity including night.

We don’t don’t have a clue what bass can see or how they interpret what the see.

Where I fish in SoCal color often makes a big difference between catching bass and getting skunked. A color change from AM to PM lighting can often make a big difference using the exact same worm, same brand. Why? Usually wind conditions creating waves that change angles defusing sun rays. 

Very active bass feeding will strike nearly everything that resembles prey. When bass are not active feed then everything matters to trigger a strike including colors and contrast.

Trail and error, when you find what is working use it.

Tom

This is definitely true, color can be a big player in our lakes

[OldManLure]

2 hours ago, PressuredFishing said:

Agreed, in clearer water I've noticed color player a huge role, then again I cannot tell you why a brused banana jerkbait works well in the dead of a hot summer day over natural colors in clear water

That's a fair assessment, I think it's impossible to know what a basses vision is because we aren't bass, but guessing isn't always a bad idea, because what's the worst that can happen, we are wrong yknow.