Eye opener for sure

[Mitch f]

My information regarding how a fish sees color was apparently wrong. I got this app for my phone and downloaded it to help me create new baits with correct colors. Chartreuse was the most mind blowing…it looks nothing like I imagined. 
maybe @Al Agnew could chime in.

So download this app on your phone and click the eyeball at the bottom of the screen. Then choose “Tritanopia” setting. Then chose “Done”. The camera should now be set to how a fish sees your lure. This was all information given to me and haven’t had time to fully verify but it really opened my eyes. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

37 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

My information regarding how a fish sees color was apparently wrong. I got this app for my phone and downloaded it to help me create new baits with correct colors.

I watched a youtube video on bass color vision.  They don't blue I think.   They did a before and after lens that blocked the blue spectrum then showed baits dry and at depth.  Pretty cool!

 

[Mitch f]

This app works great for looking at each one of your lure colors

[Al Agnew]

There is already a lot going on underwater that we anglers seldom realize.  For instance, the color red very quickly turns to dark gray in the water, because the water most quickly absorbs the red wavelength.  In water that's clear, like 4-5 feet visibility, red pretty much disappears at 2-3 feet.  If the water is very clear, like 10 feet or more, red wavelength isn't completely absorbed until about 5-6 feet in depth.  But what this should tell anybody is that no matter how much anglers swear by red lures during certain times of the year, the fish aren't seeing that red but just dark gray at the depth a crankbait normally runs.

Yellow is the next wavelength (or combination of wavelengths) to be absorbed.  So whether or not bass can actually see yellow (or fluorescent yellow), they are not seeing it deeper than 5 or 6 feet, or less, under most conditions.  Blue and green are the wavelengths that travel farthest through the water, but the water itself tends to be blueish or greenish at normal levels of clarity, so blue and green tend to blend into the background.

Which brings us to the background behind the object the FISH is viewing, not what we are viewing.  The fish is viewing any object either against the color of the water itself (if viewing it from the side), or the color of the bottom (if viewing it from above) or the colors of what is above the water surface (if viewing from below).  What is the lightest, brightest part of the fish's viewscape?  The surface and what is above it.  So while we anglers view our white or chartreuse or yellow or fluorescent yellow lures against a background of the water depths, where those colors really contrast with the background, to a fish viewing them against the water surface, they blend in very well.  Fluorescent yellow is always a great color in surface and near surface lures in very clear water for this very reason.

What this means to the angler...well, I really don't think it means much as far as how bass perceive colors.  If they find it difficult to distinguish between white and chartreuse, that doesn't mean that either color is interchangeable, though in many cases they might be.  If you think chartreuse is a better choice than white under some circumstances, there certainly isn't any reason for you to chuck all your chartreuse spinnerbaits and start throwing white ones.  And no matter what colors bass are seeing, they are seeing the same colors in the background as in your lure.  If they can't see a certain color in your lure, they can't see it in the background as well, or in the food they are eating.

[fishinwrench]

Every time I hear someone say "color doesn't matter", or "Chartuese is the same as White", I go back to a trip to Florida when a Lime Green buzz bait was hands down the best bait to throw.  The size, weight, and even the speed of the retrieve was less important than that certain shade of LIME GREEN.   Chartreuse, yellow, white, or slightly darker green would not work. One of my classmates spray painted a Smithwick Devils Horse the right shade of lime green.....and literally clobbered them.

Luck E Strike had a ringworm color they called "Grasshopper" that was lime green, and the fish down there loved them too.   

 

Chartreuse and white according to this information should look ALL White......but you'll never convince me that there isn't a difference to the fish.  

 

[tjm]

Think of color in shades of gray. Fish are ~5 times more light sensitive than we are and detect slight differences in contrast much better than we do. Also think about the changes in background "color" or shading as the available light hits it at different angles and depths. At any given water depth, as the sun angle changes, so does the distance light has to travel through the water to reach that depth. At a 45* angle the light travels ~1.4 times farther than when the sun is overhead, so that 10' deep becomes 14' on the light angle and the colors disappear sooner. Portions of the light are also reflected away from the water. Cloud cover affects how much of a certain wavelength of light even gets to the surface and how much light is at the surface affects how much of any color can penetrate at any depth, so apparent color even to us is affected in low light conditions. Look at your favorite chartreuse bucktail under UV light, LED, florescent,  sunlight, and in a dark closet and you may perceive it differently s the light changes. 

Because some fish species have both cones and rods in their eyes, we theorize that they can see some colors and that they do not perceive color the same as the average human. It is believed that bass eyes change so that they see mostly color during periods of light and mostly black and white during periods of darkness and that at dawn and dusk their eyes transition so that there is an overlap time period. Such a change in light perception would surely affect how any color is perceived at any given time. But as colors in the background appear to change about the same as those in the lure, contrast  should remain somewhat the same. Contrast must be more important then than actual hue.

Truth though is that we don't really know how the fish's brain processes the colors that we think they might see. They might tell you that every thing is shades of blue.

 

[snagged in outlet 3]

I've heard color doesn't matter but you'll never convince me of that.  

[tjm]

If you think color matters, then it does. Because you  use your preferred color more it will catch more. And you'll also fish it in places where it has the right degree of contrast rather than in places where it is too bright or too dark, so that in those places it will perform better than other colors. 

And objectively color matters to a  degree, although probably not as much as size and silhouette and surely not as much as presentation. All colors vary on a scale of gray and the precise tint or tone of gray that best contrasts with the background would be color dependent. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

2 minutes ago, tjm said:

If you think color matters, then it does.

Oh it matters.  I've stood side by side with guys in trout streams and clearly they preferred one color over the other.  Same in bass boats casting the same lure in different colors to the same cover.   I'm lure/color switcher.   If I'm an area I think should have fish I switch constantly until I strike gold or move on.   I don't know what they see or that anyone really knows how fish "see" color but it matters.

[dblades]

The trip when I found color was definitely important was a dark and stormy night tournament on Table Rock. My partner was absolutely kicking my tail on tomato red salt craws. I couldn't get a bite on any other of the normal colors fished at night and he only had 6 of them. Finally he tossed a torn up one in the bottom of the boat, I rigged it up, bam first cast landed the only fish I caught all night.