Barra and colors.

[DEANO68]

what are your thoughts on this one....

are barra color blind..?.:-/

do they only see shades of colors.?:-/

does the old saying "colors are for fisherman not fish" ring true.?:-/

in my limited experience , my findings are that when using plastics (mainly hollowbellies)..that most of the intrest has come on white / pearl..
being close to the color of many bait fish so i have confidence in using them..

do barra acctually see the chaurtouse tail and think theres one of them bloody chartouse bonys ,that suckers mine and nail it....??::) ::)

when using hardbodies, i like a very shinny silver or gold, you see the flash of a boney or fleeting gar,and these very reflective lures have the same bright flash... is it this flash that the fish looks for..?? or notices better than say an elton john or other multi colored lure that looks nothin like anything that is swimmin round the dam..?..

i know vibration plays a big part, but what are your thoughs on colors..??
over to you...:)

deano...8-)

[darylive]

I think the contrast maybe more the issue than the colour. i.e. the lighter colour easier to see sometimes or the darker for the silhouette value. Perhaps the slight variation catches the eye i.e. chartreuse tail? Be mindful the chartreuse dip also has a garlic sent so maybe smells good once they are attracted to it ?

[NAGG]

From my understanding -many fish can see colour ( they pick up the same 7 colour spectrum as us - + in addition are able to see the ultraviolet wavelength) This is why many tropical fish are brightly coloured. either to attract or as a defencive mechanism
......... fluorescent colours appear differently under blue (UV) light ( we see them as bright yellow , orange etc normally ....... put chartreuse under UV & it intensifies dramatically ... Maybe this is what attracts the attention of barra who would see that intensification naturally . But this would only happen in daytime :-/

There was a great documentary on this subject which showed a fishes changing mood when the UV light was filtered.

Chris

[robersl]

we picked a few fish up on the weekend and dropped a few but most were on the dark colours like the colour of the lake water(green shade) but with hint of bright colour (ie;red) on the nose or tail of the plastic

shane

[Jeremy87]

As Chris suggested it would be unlikely that barra are colour blind. Most fish that have had there spectoral sensitivity studied have been found to have colour vision. For barra not to would be an exception. I just did a scan through the scientific literature and couldn't find anything written about barra vision. However it is unlikely that they can see UV wavelengths. Most fish that can see UV are normally short lived and vividly coloured. The theory is that long lived predatory fish do not see UV wavelengths because it is damaging to their eyesight over the long term. Small fish however are normally short lived and it is thought that the evolution of UV patterning and vision is so they can possess vivid signals without increasing their visibility to predators.

My attitude towards colour is that yes it can make a difference, but vision is only one sense that fish use to find and capture prey. Therefore it is foolish to think that lure colour alone will dictate whether a fish will or will not hit a lure. Once you have taken all other influencing factors into consideration then you can start worrying about whether the colour is right or not. Especially when considering that in the vast majority of circumstances the fish probably never sees what is is eating, instead relying on olfaction and mechanoreception (touch and lateral line) to detect and attack its prey. When you account for loss of light of different wavelengths depending on turbidity and depth most of the time what the fish actually sees is a greyish brown. Unless you are fishing during the daytime, in clear water at shallow depths (relative to water clarity) i find it unlikely that lure colour has a noticable effect on strike/capture rate. Coincidently if you look through my tackle collection you will probably find that most of my lures are relativley close in appearance to a specific critter that the target species is likely to be eating. My mentality being if colour is important then the fish are most likley to be eating something that appears natural to them.

[Tropicaltrout]

I think a barra is a reactor they either feel the vibration of the lure or a flash of the lure or shadow, and the bite it wether they are testing it or are plain hungry... So in saying that colours are more contrast may be the green in more of a grey and yet they see it as a shadow as most of the bait fish tails do have darker tails.... The gold or silver falshy lures send of just that a flash like any bait fish as its flanks hit light... IMHO I got no idea what they see but interesting what ever the case

Nath

[dirkpittau]

An interesting point for all on colour. A few years back there was a study done in the Mary River system (NT). Of all the fish (barra) caught 7% were blind, all were in perfect condition. This in Croc infested water. When I asked the professor about colour he suggested that colour still played a part but more on the reflection / reaction basis. So sensing vibration and action are extremely important.

[rc@hinze]

Rod Harrisons book, Barra, has some good info on this. To quote' "Barra have an adaptive eye that has superb photomechanical qualities" ...'Barra vision has a colour capability in clear water"...." where to much suspended matter exists,it reverts to a highly developed monochromatic capability" ......" It would appear odd in deed that an eye as complex.....as the barramundi would be merely monochromatic - only grey scale capable"....." it would appear that barramundi can see some reds, greens, blue yellows and purples". (pages31-32).

I personally am always amazed at how certain colours seem to attract attention. We all have "our lucky colour ". My most successful hardbody is a purple and pink combination. I cant imagine that they see any colour at night and I am sure that its more the sonic signal that is the stimulant over the colour. There is not much bait that looks like the colours of the lures on the walls of a tackle shops! If you asked the question of what is each of our favorite colour lure, there would be many varied responses. - Richard

[Obi _ Wan]

I'm not sure here so i will have to do some research and come back with more input.

One thing for sure is that the barra have red eyes, something that has some people affectionately calling them Pink Eyed Leaping Bass.
This of course leads me to the fact that they are in facy nocturnal, now i don't know what that does to colour as i can't see colour in the dark with out a light, i know that the barra would sense any movement in the water plus also any noise and perhaps on a moonlite night some flashes from the shiny lures, but colour? or maybe a scent?

Over the years i have caught barra on many many different lure colours and i could not say one colour was better than another.

From my days of chasing bass on the surface late afternoon and into the night i always had a far better result with dark coloured lures. The full answer to this was bought to me about 12 years ago, i had bought my wife a ticket for a ride in a hot air balloon. Before they took off from headquarters they would release a black hellium filled balloon, in the darkness, it was truely unbelieveable just how long you could see that balloon, it only disappeared when it reached our horizon which was 1/2 a klm away. This then showed the pilot where to go to launch and get the ballooon drifting in the right direction.
So, the silhouette, vibrations, rattles, scent? and action i'm guessing would be the main attractant.

I have had barra fishermen, icons in the barra world, who have been fishing for them for years, some of them have forgotten more about barra than we will ever know say that colour is not an issue others say, stick to the gold colours, others say the bleeding mullet is the go.

So what does this tell you?? all colours will work at times, possibilly depending on the fishes mood, the conditions at the time.

There you go, my humble opinion, i don't think there is one colour better than another.

Cheers,
John.

[Whitto]

It's an unknown quantity for me.......Articles have been written about it and studies on the Physiology of the eye suggest they can see color.......I guess if that is not the case they would see various levels of Grey.

Personally I believe their senses come into play such as detecting Vibration and Movement.

I have caught Barra on all colors.....One lure that has been consistent has been the Gold B52. Interesting topic Deano Im very impressed.

[NAGG]

I think they call it a reflective eye John - Jewies have the same.

so ...... where does the whole colour thing fit into the greater scheme of things :-/ .

How i see it - Vibration would be way and over all else - just watch a fishes reaction when something lands on the water - there is a almost reflex reaction ( much too fast for it to be eyesight) ....... As mentioned in JMs first DVD barra have a highly developed lateral line.

A barras reflective eye ...... while I dont think could see any great distance , specially in sediment laden water - It is probably sensitive to pick up flash / reflection .

Colour ...... Maybe / maybe not - certainly can be the catalyst for some passionate discussion - -- I dont discount it because I've seen several examples of when a lure is used - with no reaction ....... till a change in colour . Other examples are two anglers fishing side by side (same lure).... one is getting interest & fish while the other is not - once the colour is changed results were improved considerably.

As for actual colours - Gold is a personal favourite (confidence colour) ..... I certainly carry more gold barra lures/ plastics than any other ....... hell I even put gold pigment into transparent plastics :P .

Cheers

Chris

[Dicko]

All the theories on colour tend to go out the window when you keep getting fish on a ratty, tatty, beat up old favourite lure with most of the paint flaked off. :-/


I still tend to follow the olympic dream and "Go for Gold" on most occasions.

[DEANO68]

WOW...some fantastic replys there guys, and some great info on how / what a barra can and cant see, yes vibration is a big factor , and its great to find different fishoes preferances /go to colors ..thanks for your input...feel free to add anything else, , as my go to hard body, i like the very reflective flash of the ecogear barra special..and so do the fish..prob is they keep throwin back at me..:( :P .

deano...8-)

[landbasedtossa]

I borrowed a fairly old book about lures many years ago from the library, which detailed tests done on lure visibility at depth and in murky conditions. The last colour able to be seen was purple.
Lou Teitzel of Lucinda Lure fame swears by his purple lures.
I did a half day charter on the Norman River a few years ago in filthy water. Our guide told us we should use gold bombers ( which I happen to love btw ) because of the dirty water. I instead went for a timber lure ( made by Pipeline George in Townsville ) in purple of course. Trolled up a barra within 50 metres of the ramp and outfished two bombers 5 to 1 by charters end.
Hope that helps.

[vet]

Let's not kid ourselves, everyone who fishes for barra believes that colour plays a role otherwise our tackle boxes would all be full of plain white lures unpainted. I'm yet to open someone's tackle box and see just one colour of lure represented, so that proves that everyone deep down, even if they won't admit it, believes that colour makes a difference.
Barra have evolved and flourished in dirty,muddy turbid tidal rivers for thousands of years, they like to hunt at night so they have adapted to hunt in very poor visibility. For this they have developed lateral line sensors, smell etc to very high levels otherwise they would starve, so what makes you think they wouldn't have developed eyesight to the same extent. ie if one barra can see better than his brothers than he gets food easier and avoids being killed easier and so he breeds more barra with the same characteristics and so on and so on. A barras vision may be 100 times better than our own, just go and see if you can outspot an eagle.

I have spent thousands of hours trolling multiple lures at a time and there aren't many nights where 1 particular colour doesn't do better than all other colours. Gold and silver lures are what I call fall back colours ie they will always catch some fish but rarely are they the best colour of the night. so if you are casting a gold or silver lure is a good choice because you can only cast 1 lure at a time and it is likely to draw a response whereas if you cast a purple lure with pink spots you might draw a blank. specific colours seem to work for a certain time before barra wise up to them and stop eating that colour and then a new colour will work best. also how bright the light is at night will determine which colour will perform the best.

my best advise is; ignore colour and your catch rate will be average.
cheers scott.

[BR65]

Something I scratch me head about Deano.
I, like most I reckon, have got my go to colors when its tuff on the water.

Question is, do the colors attract the fish, does the fact that I have that color in the water more than others attract the fish, does the confidence I have in that colour translate into a differant retrieve, more concentration and more fish?

Im really interested in vibration and sonic signatures. So many lures come with rattles, we stick rattles up the bum of soft placs, but some brands of timber lures sans rattles are extremly effective.
Why?
A bait fish doesnt rattle as it swims along, but does a rattle raise the initial interest, and brings in a fish that is out of the casting line?

[Dick Pasfield]

otherwise our tackle boxes would all be full of plain white lures unpainted

Some are, well nearly;)

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr4/dickpasfield/Fish/1-44.jpg

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr4/dickpasfield/Fish/2-23.jpg


I put colour behind most other facets in the selection criteria. Contrast on the other hand sits much higher, especially for night fishing. Hence having a few white painted lures with a black contrast stripe. They catch fish, not every time bout often enough to have a few different types up my sleeve.

Poor old battered scorp in the top pic was a bleeding mullet colour, not much blood left in it now 'cept for a few texta stripes. It's creaming fish of a night at the moment.

[NAGG]

Something I scratch me head about Deano.
I, like most I reckon, have got my go to colors when its tuff on the water.

Question is, do the colors attract the fish, does the fact that I have that color in the water more than others attract the fish, does the confidence I have in that colour translate into a differant retrieve, more concentration and more fish?

Im really interested in vibration and sonic signatures. So many lures come with rattles, we stick rattles up the bum of soft placs, but some brands of timber lures sans rattles are extremly effective.
Why?
A bait fish doesnt rattle as it swims along, but does a rattle raise the initial interest, and brings in a fish that is out of the casting line?

And then we have the times / situation where the last thing that we want is a big rattle ( fishing shallows in winter) - or is sheltered & undisturbed with fish sunning themselves. or those early mornings predawn around the weed edges :P ...... subtle presentations

Chris

[Big_Ren]

Dick, I believe the Scorps actually come in that white/black striped arrangement these days. You may have been the pre-cursor to this occurring. Yours looks better in any case....but then again, I am not a barra;)

Cheers
Paul

[Jeremy87]

From a statistical stand point it is very difficult to conclude in impoundment barra fishing whether one colour will outfish another. A question i draw to frequently to customers when discussing colour is that on a cast that produces a fish if they think that if they put the same cast in with a different colour there would have been a different result, the only fair test of choice. Unforetunately due to the constraints of the space time continuum you can't actually do that. The next best thing would be to have two fishermen fishing side by side making parallel casts using the same gear and possessing the same fishing competency with the only difference being lure colour and then repeat on a large scale. Considering the fluididy to retrieves and casts this would be hard to simulate. Even if this could be achieved you still need to take into consideration clustering, clustering is where an event is repeated disproportionately to the expect outcome over a short time or space. For example when tossing a coin you can either draw heads or tails. but you would not expect to flip heads and then tails and then heads again in continuous sequence. instead you might flip 4 or 5 heads before you draw a tail and this would be completely normal. Clustering can occur anywhere there is a chance event (which is pretty much anywhere). So in fishing which has a high aspect of chance ie to which cast is going to encounter a fish, clustering should be relatively common.

So the reason i am harping on about statistics, because how many impoundment barra do you normally catch a day? Probably not enough to counter for clustering. Since lure colour is relevant to more than just barra i will draw examples from other fish species. Species like bass and bream can be caught in high quantities, and yet in these species it is extremely infrequent that i encounter a situation (where anglers where of even skill and fish where being caught in numbers high enough to counter for clustering) where i can honestly say colour was the determining factor. I can only truely think of two examples. The first was recently at borumba we encountered a large number of small bass. They were being caught by everyone but the stand out lure was a fluoro green manns +5. In this situation i would conclude that the fish were hitting any hard body with equal tenacity, but the additional visibility giving by the fluoro green lure was enough to increase the strike rate. Interestingly no large bass where caught on this lure while other lures producing fewer small fish did the damage. The other example is when fishing for squire in the bay i have encountered stand out lure colours, usually the ones that closely simulate the bait they are feeding on. The likes of nuke chook etc are effective colours but i cannot think of a situation while catching on nuke chooks that fish weren't also hitting other colours with equal tenacity.

So anyway I am not disputing that colour plays some role in making a fish hit a lure. But it is something i only worry about once I've sorted out the 100 other variables that might be influencing my catch rate.

[vet]

Hi Jeremy, the next best thing to do isn't having 2 people cast parallel as each angler imparts differing actions on lure and this may have effect on catch rate. The best way to compare is undoubtly trolling different coloured lures in the rod holder at the same distance back on the same outfits, troll up the bank 1 way and then back again the opposite way so that each lure has it's chance closest to the weed beds or whatever feature you are trolling.

I went trolling last night for the first time in ages and amazingly enough 1 coloured lure got the majority of attention. 1 coloured xrap 12cm landed 6 fish and a soft plastic boney bream got the only other bite for the night. This 1 lure colour had all the bites and outfished 2 other rods 6 to 1 with me using every other coloured xrap 12cm on the other 2 rods for no bites. Also cycled through scorpions, classics, jointed xraps all to no avail. Maybe 6 to 1 isn't enough for statistics and clustering but I know which outcome I prefer better. This was obviously a quiet night but my statistics show that normally 1 colour on a particular night will usually outfish all other colours by a factor of 5-6 to 1, even when you get 30 fish in a night. You are definitely right about needing a reasonable number of fish to be caught every night to work out a pattern. That seems to be the hard part and why most people don't believe colour doesn't work.

cheers, scott.

[vet]

Hi Dick, I probably should have picked black as my random colour choice, since black is the absence of colour it is probably a better choice for people that don't believe colour makes a difference. I also don't rate colour as my number 1 priority with lure selection, but I don't disregard it either.
cheer, Scott.

Ps My tackle box has the occasional white lure thrown in as well. In fact a certain white scorpion of mine pulled 120 barra in a month compared to 10 caught on other colours in the same month. Once again trolling with 1 colour Ie white, dominating the catch for a month over whatever was put on the other 2 rods.

[birko]

I fish three outfits with the same line, leader and plastic brand, size,shape and weight . Same reel and rod. The only difference is colour of the plastic used. Have hit a few bites recently where plastic one is a hit a cast, plastic two does not get a touch, plastic 3 is a hit a cast.

Yeh, I used to rubish colour favorites but now I think it plays a part.


Please dont blackmail me anyone. I was never at a Mondy M&G.


Birko

[Dick Pasfield]

Ps My tackle box has the occasional white lure thrown in as well. In fact a certain white scorpion of mine pulled 120 barra in a month compared to 10 caught on other colours in the same month. Once again trolling with 1 colour Ie white, dominating the catch for a month over whatever was put on the other 2 rods.

Ah yes, flavours of the month, sometimes you can pick them sometimes not. Funny how far over a waterway their influence extends when they hit their straps.

Tie them on, let them swim around a bit and they bring you back a fish.

[Jeremy87]

I went trolling last night for the first time in ages and amazingly enough 1 coloured lure got the majority of attention. 1 coloured xrap 12cm landed 6 fish and a soft plastic boney bream got the only other bite for the night. This 1 lure colour had all the bites and outfished 2 other rods 6 to 1 with me using every other coloured xrap 12cm on the other 2 rods for no bites.

6 to 1 is pretty good numbers. I'm more referring to the guys who catch 2 or 3 fish and then claim that is was all to do with the colour. But even with a 6:1 ratio there are still factors to be taken into consideration. For example do you find the same patterns hold from trip to trip or are they fluid, if they change do the relate to other factors (weather, bait etc). How frequently do you catch good numbers of fish and no colour pattern emerges. Another consideration is fishing effort. Assumably the lure catching fish spent most of the night swimming suggesting it was given considerably more fishing effort than other lures. Finally is there actually enough light for the fish to differentiate between colours. If from your experience you can say that yes colour patterns are repeatable, yes colour patterns always emerge when catching large numbers of fish, yes i give unbiased fishing effort and yes it is physically possible for the fish to identify colour then with a 6 to 1 ratio it is almost a certainty that colour has a profound influence. I have never caught 30 impoundment barra in one session on the troll. I have however caught those numbers (and more) of bass in one session on the troll and have never found a colour pattern to emerge, only depth, speed and rod work. I can't draw myself to believe that bass and barra are so different in their habits that patterns would emerge in one but not the other.



That seems to be the hard part and why most people don't believe colour doesn't work.

Double negative, i'm assuming you mean most people think colour doesn't work?

It is exactly my arguement, that if you are not going to catch enough fish to establish a colour pattern then focus on other basics that will probably have a more profound influence, ie factors that actually get the lure infront of the fish so it can choose to eat it or not. Once you have picked up a few fish then start to worry about the finer variables.

[vet]

Hello Jeremy, Yes most people think colour doesn't matter because they don't catch large enough numbers consistently to notice patterns emerge. Also most people cast so they will never know what could have been if they used another colour because they can't have 3 different colours going simultaneously. As I've said before you have to get everything else right before colour matters because if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time it won't matter what lure you throw.
Cheers scott.

[A_DIFF_PERSPECTIVE]

The test is too tough to prove. Any time I ever thought colour may have been the helping I factor, I found new fundamentals that mattered. Ie, lure tuning, lure choice, lure size, and most importantly- technique bla bla bla. I try to accept it may help at times, but I still fail to see any examples in my fishing, strongly alive and kicking. No two same make/model lures can ever be compared, some I discard, others I treat like gold.
And yes, there are documents out that say they can see colour.
The day I can't catch barra amongst others that are- might be a day that I look deeper within, but we basically do it everyday, and colour choice is not even on the list of criteria.
If colour gives you confidence, fish with it.
ABT barra gurus ranked 1 and 2 don't rate colour in their hit list either.
Plenty do rate colour high on the agenda, yet these guys aren't on the top of that list either.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers.

[A_DIFF_PERSPECTIVE]

ABT barra gurus ranked 1 and 2 don't rate colour in their hit list either.
Plenty do rate colour high on the agenda, yet these guys aren't on the top of that list either.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers.

The above lines were to highlight that 'other principles' are more beneficial than colour choice.

[Dicko]

Some are, well nearly;)

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr4/dickpasfield/Fish/1-44.jpg





Looks like most of my lures lol.

I found a few scorpions in a patch of trees down at faust a few years ago when the water was low. They had a dried layer of crusty mud on them. So being the bright lad that I am, I decided that scrubbing them with a brush was too much effort so I put them in the cutlery tray of the dishwasher when I did the next load after I got home.

They all ended up stripped naked. :o

So here's a tip: If you like pretty coloured lures, don't put them in the dishwasher, well not on a steaming hot cycle anyway.

They still got regular use along with a bunch of other naked lures in the tackle box.

[darylive]

The test is too tough to prove. Any time I ever thought colour may have been the helping I factor, I found new fundamentals that mattered. Ie, lure tuning, lure choice, lure size, and most importantly- technique bla bla bla. I try to accept it may help at times, but I still fail to see any examples in my fishing, strongly alive and kicking. No two same make/model lures can ever be compared, some I discard, others I treat like gold.
And yes, there are documents out that say they can see colour.
The day I can't catch barra amongst others that are- might be a day that I look deeper within, but we basically do it everyday, and colour choice is not even on the list of criteria.
If colour gives you confidence, fish with it.
ABT barra gurus ranked 1 and 2 don't rate colour in their hit list either.
Plenty do rate colour high on the agenda, yet these guys aren't on the top of that list either.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers.

Johnny, I think regardless of specific colour contrast is an issue.

i.e. the old saying dark day dark lure? etc. Regardless of colour the fish (those that can see) see a shape whether attracted by the sight or action initially. Logically a higher contrast shape in the water is a more likely target than one difficult to see. (obviously there is more to it at night but again contrast for visibility?)

So although perhaps slightly off the colour issue how do you rate contrast and another issue solid or camo pattern?

As always your contribution based on your experience is appreciated and respected.

Thanks