hello everyone, when you walk into a tackle store and you see all thos colors hangin on the wall, are those colors made to attract the fish or (US). HERES A THOUGHT , WHILE BACK I WAS READN ABOUT HOW BASS CAN SEE MORE COLOR OF (IN THIS ORDER) BLACK-GRAY-RED-GREEN . THE QUESTION IS, WHY THE SPECTRA FAMILY CAME OUT WITH RED. ?????????????????????????

Louie, as you go down the water colum red is the first color in the spectrum to fade out so the idea is that red is invisible past 25-30 feet if memory serves.

That's one of the reasons so many of the deep water fish are red, it makes them hard to see down there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JanZ,

Great post Louie --

Yes, Red is the first color to fade out. But, what color does red fade out to.... Dark Grey/Black. Which is, according to the article read, highly visible to bass. And likely most visible to other game fish as well. Common sense would suggest that one would use light colored lures at night or in the gray but as it turns out expierence and the article confirms the old addage that you use dark lures under dark conditions.

My hottest salt water lure is an old beat up 3 oz. dark grey aluminum jig.

Walt

TROLLING OR JIGGIN LIGHT COLORS DURING THE DAY OR DARKER COLORS AT DARK DOES ATRACT THE FISH, STILL DOING THE REVERSE METHOD WOULD MAKE BETTER SENCE.YOU LOOK AT THE RED/BLACK FEATHERS OR RED/WHITE HARD BAIT , QUESTION WHAT COLORS DO THEY REALLY SEE. THAT BRINGS ME BACK TO ALL THOSE COLORS HANGN ON THE WALL DO ATTRACT US. WALT I ORDERED THE KICKER HEAVY IN THE NEW GRAY AND THE BLUE COLORS ,. TRYING THEM OUT THIS YEAR .

All the fancy colors....For sure its a sales pitch to the fishermen.

What do fish see, no one really knows on a scientific basis but it has been speculated by fish biologist that fish are capable if recognizing a more complex range of light spectrems than we are.

As a suggestion for all reading this thread......
If everyone would post what is their single hottest salt water artifical, the type and color, it would be a great learning tool. As a group we could separate a lot of fiction from fact.

I'll start if off:
AS stated it the post above,
My hottest salt water lure is an old beat up 3 oz. dark grey aluminum jig
Walt

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Walt,

MY FAVORITE COLORS.

IRON MAN #2 BLUE/WHITE ALL AROUND FISHIN
SALAS JR6X BABY SH.T AND BIRD SH.T CEDROS
TADY TLC BLUE/CROME OFFSHORE
TADY 9 BLUE/WHITE W/ GLOWBACK ALIJOS

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DODOMAN,

Good thred but sometimes different fish targeted call for different colors for me. Here is a list of my most commonly used colors for most fish.

Iron (Salas 6x Jr.)in order of use: Blue/White, Scrambled Egg and Bird S#!+. For Blue Fin #1 would be Blue/Chrome.

Trolling Feathers: Over cast and darker skys would be Black/Purple. Sunny skys would be Mexican Flag. Cedar Plug wood color any time.

Now if we talk about certian types of fish my color selection may change.

#1 color East coast for throwing is chrome .#1 trolling East coast green and yellow the brighter the better. West coast trolling blue/white ,for throwing blue/white . plastics for freshwater bass West coast smoke/blue vain 4" East coast Pumpkinseed 4" both straight tails . Crank baits East coast and west coast Trout finish .

JUST CAME BACK FROM THIS MORNIN BASS FISHIN, DOIN AN EXPERMENTAL ON COLORS THIS MORNIN, ALL PONDS, LAKES, CREEKS ARE DIFFRENT. IT TURNS OUT THAT I SPOTTED 2 BIG FEMALES IN THE 6 TO 8 LB CLASS SETTIN TO SPAWN IN THE SHALLOW BEDS, THREW EVERYTHIN AT THEM AT FIRST THEY DIDNT HESITATE TO MOVE , SO I OPENED UP A NEW PACKAGE OF 4INCH BASSTRIXS IN RED BACK WHITE BELLY, SUDDENLY I HAD 2 CHASES AND 1 SPIT. DIDNT HOOK THEM UP , BUT ITS OKAY. IT SEEM LIKE THE RED HAS SOME EFFECTS. LAST YEARS AROUND THIS TIME ,WENT TO THE SAME LAKE AND THREW OUT A 6IN PLASTIC WORM IN THE RED W SPECKLES , CAUGHT LIMITS INSTANTLY.SO BOTTOM LINE RED IS A VISABLE COLOR. THE CHOICE FOR BASS

Louie,
How deep was the water you were fishing in? It takes at least 10' of water to filter out the red spectrum. If you were fishing in under 10' , then yes, red would be visible. Did a short search and found this informative article. We can all learn from this information.

Here is the link ..... http://www.deep-six.com/page77.htm for the whole article. I just cut out the section of interest which is below.

The light spectrum is well known. "ROY G. BIV" is an acronym used to remember the colors from one end to the other. From left to right the letters stand for: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. A mixture of all the colors makes white light. That is, if one were to take 7 flashlights, each of which was giving off one of the listed colors, and shine all the different colors on a white wall, the spot of light would be white! A white light, therefore, gives off all the colors.

Water acts as a selective filter. If one were to suspend a white light above the surface of a tank of water that was 1000' deep, the colors from the white light would be filtered out selectively one-by-one. It is gradual. There is no abrupt interface. For example, MOST of the red is gone from the light after 10 feet. Some of the orange is gone. Less of the yellow is lost, etc. At 25' most of the orange is gone. At 35' most of the yellow is gone. This continues through the spectrum until all that is left is violet light and that fades out after hundreds of feet. So, at the bottom of this 1000' tank of water there would be little or no light!

Selective filtration creates conditions that make diving interesting. If a diver is bleeding at 60', where there is no red light, the diver bleeds a greenish-black blood. Taking a photograph at 30' would result in most objects appearing green, blue, violet, or black. Taking the same photograph with a flash (white light) would reveal startling colors that were not seen by the diver. Remember, the selective filtering by water occurs in any direction. So a camera's flash will lose most of its true color effectiveness after a distance of as little as five feet! That is because the light would leave the camera, hit the object 5 feet away and then return to the camera. In that 10 foot travel distance most of the red would be gone and the orange would be diminished.

Walt

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Walt,

INTRESTING FACTS. EVER WENT ROCKCODDING SOME YEARS AGO BEFORE THE CLOSURES, WE WOULD USE HUMONGUS RED JIGS THAT RESEMBLES A SNAPPER OF SOMTYPE, WE WOULD DROP IT DOWN 4OO-500 FT TO CATCH LINGCODS. SO IT JUST HIT ME (slow learner)THOSE RED SNAPPER OR RED ROCK CODS THE LINGCODS LOVE TO EAT , ARE YOU SAYING AT THAT DEPTH ,THE LING COD DONT SEE THEM RED COLORED.

I hope you don't mind if I jump in. A marine biologist that I talked to one time about color loss a depth used rock fish as a example. He said that most rock fish were mostly red so at depth they will look gray and blend in with their background making it harder for their predators to spot them.

Here's something I have always wondered about: If you are underwater and look up at something on the surface, all you see is a black outline. So why does color matter so much for surface trolling lures? Sometimes it must be black/purple; sometimes it must be Mexican Flag, etc. Trolling lures are supposed to bring fish up from below, but how can the fish see the color of the trolled lure??

"So why does color matter so much for surface trolling lures?"

That's easy... They catch fishermen and thier $$$.

I heard that some years ago YoZuri took one of their hottest lures that everybody was killing fish with and made a clear one and it still killed fish.

When I was a commercial fisherman we used two colors of feathers for our trolling jigs, white or or black/dark blue.

How it was explained to me a long time ago by old-timers, for trolling jigs in darker conditions is to use darker colors and in light sky’s to use lighter colors. Their theory was that fish see darker outlines in a dark sky and lighter outlines in a light sky(match the hatch). What does a fish see anyways? I don’t know but I do this and I am not snake bit on my trolling rotations and I will stick to it. Although just like every rule there are always exceptions.

Edit: P.S. When fishing in private boats I troll different shades and colors to see what the fish are keying in on the the light and dark thing works IMO.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SoCalAngler,