Every angler should read this

[Volitan]

On 24/02/2017 at 6:00 PM, Mr Mullit said:

l think you guys are bang on. Colours mainly catch fishermen

. But i think contrasts catch fish. Stripes, spots,bleeding gills and contrasting tails. Flouro seems to make a difference in dirty water but as for pink or yellow flouro I'm not sure.  Gold and silver are an exception as thats flash not colour. Any thoughts or am i way off?

Matt

I think you would have to choose your spots and stripes carefully. Usually fish have these patterns as a kind of camouflage.

That stripey ‘mackeral’ pattern is such a good visual disrupter that it’s evolved independently in several different families of fish. I don’t think it’s a good way to paint a lure unless you want to hide it.

A lot of fish have vivid patterns and colours to advertise the fact that they are poisonous too.

[Volitan]

On 01/12/2016 at 8:24 PM, big Neil said:

What I got from the article was what I believe to be the case...colour of lures is only relevant /effective at the appropriate depth and conditions for that colour to appear as that particular colour. In other words a red lure is ok in say 5 m of water whereas if you were using it at 25m, it would only appear grey (and not red) anyway

Actually, for most fish I think the red lure would appear just as vivid red at 25m as it does at the surface. 

There are two problems with this video which are mentioned but not really taken to conclusion. 

The first is that we humans are able to see only a very narrow range of light intensity, as befits a diurnal terrestrial creature. Most fish are able to see in a very broad range - to pick up tiny amounts of light that we can’t. At 25m there is still light at the red end of the spectrum, not enough for us but plenty for a fish. Presumably the fish has evolved to see red at very low light levels where it has an evolutionary advantage to do so.

we humans see colour when light intensity is between certain upper and lower levels. Fish, presumably have evolved with quite different levels, or multiple levels, or who knows what. 

The second thing is what is colour. Light doesn’t have a colour. Colour is something our brains assign to wavelengths of reflected light to help us make visual sense of the world. As a diurnal creature, we split the spectrum up in ways that have helped us survive. Does a fish split the spectrum up the same way? Does it even see colour as distinct intervals. Can it see wavelengths we cannot? All too confusing for me.

i suspect the situation is different for each fish species too. Think about fish with tapetum and you get the idea how different their vision is.

[big Neil]

14 hours ago, Volitan said:

Actually, for most fish I think the red lure would appear just as vivid red at 25m as it does at the surface. 

There are two problems with this video which are mentioned but not really taken to conclusion. 

The first is that we humans are able to see only a very narrow range of light intensity, as befits a diurnal terrestrial creature. Most fish are able to see in a very broad range - to pick up tiny amounts of light that we can’t. At 25m there is still light at the red end of the spectrum, not enough for us but plenty for a fish. Presumably the fish has evolved to see red at very low light levels where it has an evolutionary advantage to do so.

we humans see colour when light intensity is between certain upper and lower levels. Fish, presumably have evolved with quite different levels, or multiple levels, or who knows what. 

The second thing is what is colour. Light doesn’t have a colour. Colour is something our brains assign to wavelengths of reflected light to help us make visual sense of the world. As a diurnal creature, we split the spectrum up in ways that have helped us survive. Does a fish split the spectrum up the same way? Does it even see colour as distinct intervals. Can it see wavelengths we cannot? All too confusing for me.

i suspect the situation is different for each fish species too. Think about fish with tapetum and you get the idea how different their vision is.

Very interesting reply Volitan. Pretty sure I've never been termed a "diurnal terrestrial creature" before, but you seem to know what you're talking about...so I'll take your word for it. It's a very good point that you have picked up (the assumption that humans and fish species "see" things like colour in the same way). Every possibility that they don't!

My own (limited) experiences of using coloured things to attract the attention of fish has led me to believe that (most likely) fish respond MORE to movement and vibration, picked up by their lateral line, than to whether a particular colour is better than another.

Many thanks for your insightful reply. What do you do for a job, by the way? Cheers, Neil.

[rickmarlin62]

not exactly sure how fishes eyes work..but red all but disappears at 5mtrs..its the first colour in 'our' colour scheme to fade to grey under water..when you spear a fish the red blood coming out looks green or grey...I have plucked many lures off the bottom and off pylons over the years whilst snorkeling and you wait till you get to the surface sometimes so you know what colour the lure is...rick

[big Neil]

7 hours ago, rickmarlin62 said:

not exactly sure how fishes eyes work..but red all but disappears at 5mtrs..its the first colour in 'our' colour scheme to fade to grey under water..when you spear a fish the red blood coming out looks green or grey...I have plucked many lures off the bottom and off pylons over the years whilst snorkeling and you wait till you get to the surface sometimes so you know what colour the lure is...rick

Hi Rick, how you doing buddy? I think the point that Volitan is making is substantiated by your observations from snorkelling. We see red turn to grey when it's not very deep...but fish don't. Something that occurred to me was that marine life that live in the depths can still see. We couldn't, it would be pitch dark. What I take from that is that there must be a significant difference between our eyesight, which operates in air, and species that live in water. I'm still of the opinion that movement and vibration are more important than colour when it comes to using lures to catch fish. Not sure we'll ever know for sure. Cheers, Neil

[rickmarlin62]

another point is...how many deeper water bottom fish are red ???? obviously disappear into background when red disappears from spectrum....rick

[Volitan]

Im also of the opinion that contrast, movement and presentation are what is important with lure fishing. Colour isn’t very important, it’s just that us humans are easily distracted by colour and tend to read too much into it. 

I think BN has already explained my viewpoint well enough, but just to reiterate, what the video should have said was:

at 5metres, light at the 700nm end of the spectrum (ie what we see as red) has fallen to such a low level that we humans have trouble seeing it. However that’s fairly irrelevant as we are a terrestrial creature evolved to function at very high light levels. Most fish are evolved to function at a wide range of light levels, starting at very low light levels at which we would be completely blind. We can therefore assume fish can see the 700nm end of the spectrum at very much deeper levels the we can.

[Volitan]

On 17/03/2018 at 9:07 AM, rickmarlin62 said:

another point is...how many deeper water bottom fish are red ???? obviously disappear into background when red disappears from spectrum....rick

I’m not sure I agree about this. Yes, many deeper water fish are red (orange roughy, nanygai, red snapper etc). However it seems to me unlikely that a fish would evolve red pigment to have the red pigment fade out and appear grey. It seems more likely they would just be grey to start with. 

I understand (could be wrong) that fish colouration is a trade off, with strong colours requiring a trade off in terms of growth rate and immune system health.

i think its more likely the red pigment is serving some other function, perhaps serving as disruptive colouration.