How Bass See Color?

[Aiden James Lures]

One of my fishing buddies, who is a biologist, told me that red and black look the same to a fish, because of the cones and rods in their eyes, whatever those are. What do you guys think?

[Pitbull Baits]

I think they can see blue real well also. I can see them not being able to see red and black kind of like what some people have that are color blind.

[bassrecord]

I think they can see blue real well also. I can see them not being able to see red and black kind of like what some people have that are color blind.

It is my understanding that right after WWII a professor at University of Oklahoma conducted at study with different sized, fed and hungry LM bass in a tank and his grad students cast the same lure daily with different colors. During the week, each student swapped colors and repeated the casts recording which, if any bass, got caught. The next week they cast a different lure with the same colors. The following week they all changed to the same lure model again and still used different colors. They did this for about 10-12 weeks using topwater and underwater lures of the time which was before plastic worms. The prof had a lot of students on GI Bill with time to do a good study and they eliminated a lot a variables. As I recall red came out at the top color triggering a LM bass strike. I do not recall how much better the color red was. However I have never found the study published and sadly cannot verify his findings.

John

[Aiden James Lures]

It is my understanding that right after WWII a professor at University of Oklahoma conducted at study with different sized, fed and hungry LM bass in a tank and his grad students cast the same lure daily with different colors. During the week, each student swapped colors and repeated the casts recording which, if any bass, got caught. The next week they cast a different lure with the same colors. The following week they all changed to the same lure model again and still used different colors. They did this for about 10-12 weeks using topwater and underwater lures of the time which was before plastic worms. The prof had a lot of students on GI Bill with time to do a good study and they eliminated a lot a variables. As I recall red came out at the top color triggering a LM bass strike. I do not recall how much better the color red was. However I have never found the study published and sadly cannot verify his findings.

John

I wonder if the black lure and the red lure had the same results? Anytime a red senko is working, I can use a black one with similar results. I've also noticed that with trout spinners. I think black and red both look like blood to them?

John

[bassrecord]

I wonder if the black lure and the red lure had the same results? Anytime a red senko is working, I can use a black one with similar results. I've also noticed that with trout spinners. I think black and red both look like blood to them?

John

Experimental design for LM bass is extremely difficult because we cannot control all the parameters. As I recall the prof had a stock tank (with cattle access removed) about 5-6 feet deep and 40-50 feet long and had the grad students always cast from the same end of the tank. Back then they only had external tags and did not have any internal chip technique for identifying and measuring catches for specific fish over wider water bodies. For example is red or black color attraction equally distributed across all fish in the tank (or water body) or do some grouping of fish prefer red over some other grouping of fish. Since lure color is one of the few variables anglers have available, it is a shame there has not been any definitive study done and published on the subject.

John

[JDWilson]

Have any of you ever seen this article? http://bustinbassbaits.com/Color_Tips.html See about half way down the page under the heading of "Choosing colors that catch fish".

I've seen this same thing other places too and it's the only thing I've found so far relating to what colors a Bass can and cannot see. The way I read this, it's blue that a bass can't see, not red. They can see red and black distinctly, but it's the color blue that appears the same as black to them.

I'm not suggesting that I agree with this. I am still struggling with the fact that if this is true and a bass really can't see blue, then why the heck does it work so well on so many different baits??? Like others have stated here, I'd really like to see a good study done on this as well. Which is it really, red or blue??

JW.

[Aiden James Lures]

Have any of you ever seen this article? http://bustinbassbai...Color_Tips.html See about half way down the page under the heading of "Choosing colors that catch fish".

I've seen this same thing other places too and it's the only thing I've found so far relating to what colors a Bass can and cannot see. The way I read this, it's blue that a bass can't see, not red. They can see red and black distinctly, but it's the color blue that appears the same as black to them.

I'm not suggesting that I agree with this. I am still struggling with the fact that if this is true and a bass really can't see blue, then why the heck does it work so well on so many different baits??? Like others have stated here, I'd really like to see a good study done on this as well. Which is it really, red or blue??

JW.

Very cool article! Thanks for that. I think the color combinations are more important than the colors themselves. I like his analysis of that with the wheel. Also, blue or red may look like black, but it may penetrate furthur or not as far under water. So it 'acts' different than black, on your lure. Colors make a lure 'come alive' to a fish in the way that they reflect light differently similar to the manner that irredescent paints look like they are moving to us.

John

[bassrecord]

Have any of you ever seen this article? http://bustinbassbai...Color_Tips.html See about half way down the page under the heading of "Choosing colors that catch fish". ..................................Like others have stated here, I'd really like to see a good study done on this as well.

I had read his write up earlier and found it interesting and helpful from a color derivation perspective, but he did not cite any studies to back up his opinion of "what a fish sees." I agree with JD, I'd like to see a good study. But at my age, any study at all would help - it doesn't have to be a "good" one. <g>

John

[Vodkaman]

That was a good read JD. In fact, there is a lot of good reading on the subject if you Google FISH COLOR VISION or BASS COLOR VISION. Scientific studies have been done, but you have to generally pay to view those.

Dave

[Marks Lures]

Hello All

Tightline UV has a really good article about bass having one UV cone.

Did not believe this until I took soft plastic lures from 30 years ago (I really stocked up) and stacked the best ones on the table and another pile of soft plastic lures I bought that looked just like them, but did not work so well

The lures were UV under a black light flashlight I bought from eBay (cheap)

The study does confirm that red is the last part of the sunlight spectrum of light to diminish in water.

Black will block light and be just as good a shadow target for fish.

I always used light color on sunny days and dark for cloudy days. My favorite is a clear with silver for 0-8 feet depth and after that red or brown that is UV.

Over 30 years of fishing I have fished bass boils about 15 times and trout boils about 3 times, the bit any color I threw in the water, their stomachs were full of silver minnows, shad or the like.

Well Audubon killed all the birds he drew, so he could get it right, at least I eat the fish I catch.

I used a Color C-Lector (think it was called) when they came out, and every color in my tackle box, ended up with the best results using light lures on bright sunny days and darker lures for everything else.

Regards

Mark

[thundercat]

Very interesting topic. I have been looking for a study on this for a while. My favorite worm that I throw with great succes is a 7inch Red ringworm with black core by Phantom Tackle.

[atijigs]

Rods and cones. Cones=color. Rods=black and white. Humans have their cones toward the center of the eye. Peripheral vision is rods. Animals that have good night vision have a much greater density of rods in their eyes than cones. Thus blaze orange for deer. The interesting thing is rods pick up movement better than cones. Thus the "I saw movement out of the corner of my eye". The problem with fish is any light they get is reflected off the water surface. Thus the longer wavelengths (red) will only penetrate to a shallow depth and then turn to dark (or black and shades of grey) . The depth and clarity of the water will determine how far the different colors will be visible. Once that critical depth has been reached everything is black to grey or shadows. Take a prism and watch it separate colors. Thats what the water surface does. It acts as a prism. We can only guess what they see. My personal opinion is that the UV receptors in they eyes of fish are like us with night vision goggles.

[sammy01007]

We can only guess what they see.

Atijigs, I agree with you on this. Light behaves differently when it passes through the surface of the water as it does in air. Water temperature, clarity, and depth will all affect the resulting "color" of an object. This I think we can all agree on. Trying to apply a controlled study in a 6 foot crystal clear pool just doesn't seem adequate for predicting how bass will react in a natural environment filled with variables. Wild animals tend to be seasonal, responding to predictable changes in their environment and feeding accordingly. Therefore, I've stopped this color bonanza that seems to re-surface every couple years. Remember when everyone was jumping on the red hook ban-wagon. I think we are about due for a new revolutionary color/ pattern/ or sound that will certainly catch more fishermen than fish.

[count draculure]

You may want to read the book "Through the fish's eye" by Mark Sosin and John Clark. It deals with not only a fish's sight, but all the others senses too. Really interesting reading, although I did find a couple of contradictory statements concerning a bass' response to color. I have a lot of highlighted paragraphs in my copy.

The book was copyrighted in 1973, but unless fish have evolved quite a bit since then, you should find it helpful or at the very least interesting.

I see used copies can be found really cheap on Amazon.