how do you tell the water clarity?

[fishingrulz]

how do you tell the water clarity? i look at it and i can see through it does that make it clear? how do you tell?

Also instead of starting a new thread i figured i'd post it here

i recently bought the bass proshops stik-o. i have an albino three inch and a silver flake three inch. what other colors should i get to even it out so i can have the best variaty so i can cover the most situations any help on both topic would truley be apreciated thankyou.

[ajjr]

There is clear, stained, and muddy.

[fishingrulz]

i know but what method do you use to tell if it is clear stained or muddy cause its really difficult for me to tell

[ajjr]

Clear is clear not necessarily so you can see to the bottom but not looking cloudy or brownish at all.

Stained is looking a tad brownish or a little cloudy.

Muddy is just downright brown and cloudy.

[fishingrulz]

ok thanks  

[fishingrulz]

any thoughts on the Stik-O's?

[ajjr]

any thoughts on the Stik-O's?

Post a link to exactly what sort of Stik-O you are using.  There are jerkbaits, lizards, paddle-stick, etc.

[fishingrulz]

its just a regular straight tail worm 3 inch i have them in albino color and silver flake i need to know what colors would best improve my abilty to cover the widest variaty of situations if possible thanks again

[ajjr]

Get some natural/earth-tone colors for clear water.  Variations of browns and greens.  In clear water bass get a real good look at your lure so it needs to look as natural as possible.

For stained and muddy waters it is good to have real brite or real dark colors.  I have real good success with black and blue combo.

[Raul]

With a SECCHI disk, that 's how you measure water clarity.

[Guest avid]

Absolutely! the ubiquitous secchi disk.

You mean there is someone out there who doesn't know what a sushi disk is?????????????????

[Raul]

You can lower your bait, when you no loger see it then measure the distance between the surface to the point you were no longer able to see the bait, there 's your Secci disk.  

[roadwarrior]

Raul had a more detailed post a couple of weeks ago, there is a scientific model that he described in some detail. If you're just looking for what's a general answer, try this:

If you can see individual rocks in 10' of water, that's "clear". If you're in the water and your feet look fuzzy, that's stained. You might be able to see a white jig in 2-4' of water, but it's blurred or not well defined. And muddy? Muddy's muddy, your lure hits the water and disappears, you can't see anything below the surface.

[Nick]

Raul, I'm glad you got here first.  All too often these clarity words are tossed around: stained, muddy, and clear.  I have never read of anyone ascribing an actual depth of a Secchi disc reading to denote these three generalizations.  Help me if you have a standard.  Boy, do we need one!

My measuring way is in reference to how many guides up my rod I can see white (like a spinnerbait skirt) helps me determine what bait, depth, and speed to fish.  Of course the big co-variable here is the water temperature.

At low light, dusk, dawn, cloudy weather, the visibility diminishes as well.  So many considerations is what makes bassin so much fun!

At Okeechobee last winter I was poking my spinnerbait in the water regularly and without doing my measurement of clarity, we would not have caught bass.  By eyeing the surface, the water looked pretty much the same color, but poking that skirt underwater told me that some water had as much as 20 inches of clarity while some other "stained" water had just 6 inches. You had to be in the clearest water to catch Big Sally!

[Raul]

Actually there 's no standard, the less turbidity ( or "clarity" ) the clearer the water is, the Secchi disk is nothing but a metallic circle painted in opposing black and white quadrants with a marked rope attached to it.

To measure you drop the gadget and watch it, when you no longer see the 4 quadrants but all blend in a gray shadow you mark with your hand when the event happened, pull out the gadeget and measure the ammount of rope, that tells you the turbidity in inches. "Clear" as a term doesn 't exist, "clear" is less turbid. Terms like Ajj mentioned: clear, stained and muddy do not exist; "muddy" means that the nature ( origin ) of turbidity is formed by suspended particles of soil; "stained" has nothing to do with turbidity, "stained" means that there 's a chemical leach in the water ( like the "black" waters so common in the swamps of the south ) that can be organical or inorganical in origin. '

So there 's a lot of fine print that nobody reads when categorizing turbidity or color, and both along with water temperature and curren, have a deep effect on how bass see your bait and react to it.

You can have "clear" ( less turbidity or low turbidity ) water with a brown "stain" to it. Decaying vegetation leach organic acids ( tannins ) that color and "stain" the water turning it brown, and that brown can be anywhere from a mild yellow to a dark brown. Coffe is a good example to describe stain because you can see it in the flesh, just add water  to a cup of coffe and the stain begins to dissapear progessively as you add more water or it can get darker as you remove water from the infusion. Add milk and the tubidity of the coffe cup rises because you are adding particles ( proteins and fat ). It works pretty much the same way in fishing.

That 's why in "clear" water hot or very dark colors, large profile, high noise, strong vibration are not needed, fish can see your bait. Opposed to what happens when the water is "murky" or "muddy".

[basser89]

I bought a KVD video last weekend. Van Dam defines each (clear, stained and muddy) like this.

"Clear water is being able to see the lure down 18 inches or deeper (all the way to the bottom), stained is seeing your lure down 6 to 18 inches and muddy is seeing your less than 6 inches down". He picks what color lures he uses from that scale. What Raul posted about the amount of turbidity makes a lot of sense to me. I'll be adjusting my color selections from now on by going off both inputs. If its a body of water I'm not familar with I'll lean more to what Van Dam was saying but if its a lake I've been on a ton I'll go more by what Raul had stated. Thanks Raul!