The role that colour plays in catching fish.

[gazza2006au]

For me it has to be a good branded lure there is only 1 brand i'll ever use that im confident in and thats a Rapala usually Xrap

Anything with a silver or white body with a red or orange head, red gills etc..

They go off

That is for trolling

I love spinning Halco slugs for tailor

[Ronje1]

I don't go outside anymore. So my 2 bob's worth is that a red colour is ok in ocean water if shallow. Rapalas generally are shallow divers so the red wouldn't have faded much at a shallow depth.

The white colour is probably the most under rated. I've caught most of my barra on white lures in the earlier days.

You'll see in that US Navy article that their divers found white to be the best all-round colour tested for visibility under all conditions.

My go-to lure for dirty water for barra is a red/green fluro shallow diver BUT the second choice is simply a white shallow diver or plastic (at a reasonable retrieve speed to keep it shallow).

You got any info on eyesight of mulloway or flathead etc?

[gazza2006au]

I use bait for jewiesand flatties i have never caught on to the whole throwing a plastic just yoss it out and 30 seconds later the boats on top of the plastic before it sinks to the bottom and u have 30 meters of line out

[stevej]

colour matters squat for many species

all about mimicking bait or a threat and getting their attention by stirring up mud sand weed or using vibrations or contrasts against the sky, bottom, banks .
an example i use black lures at night for bass bream flathead in the shallows weather the moons out or not and for me they outperformed anything else.
fishing for yellowbelly last week i had a fluro green and black lure on and my mate a clear lure both got fish, plenty of times anything or nothing works no matter the theories.

my fishing plans normally go
day time shallow clear water = clear natural lures
night time/ deep day time/ dirty water = darker lures more vibrations.

[stevej]

I use bait for jewiesand flatties i have never caught on to the whole throwing a plastic just yoss it out and 30 seconds later the boats on top of the plastic before it sinks to the bottom and u have 30 meters of line out

when your fishing botany or port hacking even the hawksbury, drag a 5-7 inch jerkshad around just siting in a rod holder will pick up everything from kings bonito flathead salmon , snapper and big bream
the bouncing of the boat to the wave action is almost perfect for this type of plastic

[gazza2006au]

I do recall trying plastics on 3 occassions, first time was in a dirty polluted river far up stream with a huge amount of fish from memory i used a small worm type ofplastic and i went ghru almost a whole pack in 25mins something kept bitting the tailsoff but i could not hook the things from memory the colour was a orange or bright yellow with white or silver

One of the other times i was using a jerk shad in yellow think they use to call it neuclear chicken or something very long time ago, only thing i caugh was a very tiny gunnard the size of the soft plastic

I recall trying again in botany bay but that was the day mentioned in my last post

[gazza2006au]

Just had a thought.. it may be possible the fish think the red head orange gills on a lure are a injured fish bleeding head etc..

[Volvo]

Just had a thought.. it may be possible the fish think the red head orange gills on a lure are a injured fish bleeding head etc..

Arent Fish supposed ta be Colour Blind ??..

[gazza2006au]

Arent Fish supposed ta be Colour Blind ??..

First time i've heard fish are colour blind, but if that is the case why do fish come in all sorts of colours?

[Ronje1]

Arent Fish supposed ta be Colour Blind ??..

the fish think the red head orange gills on a lure are a injured fish bleeding head etc..

day time shallow clear water = clear natural lures....natural colours is one of those terms the gurus and writers revert to when they've run out of ideas, Steve. I don't know what that means in english as ALL colours are natural. I don't think they do either.
night time/ deep day time/ dirty water = darker lures more vibrations.

Above is an array of different thoughts that leads to the same end. Confusion.

Most of that confusion (over years) has been driven by fishing experts, gurus and confidently-wrong writers.

Those people based their utterings, writings and opinions on research carried out by scientists into colour penetration into water.

However, they didn't realize (and nobody pulled them up on it until now) that what they were quoting only applied to 1 particular type of water. Clear ocean water.

I invite you to google this stuff yourself where you'll find some pretty well known and familiar names promoting incorrect info about the subject.

Once we moved away from clear ocean water and into estuarine, dams, rivers and creeks, different rules on colour penetration applied and neither they nor the scientists saw the significance of that difference. Frankly, I believe that they didn't know that

there WAS a difference or they would not have kept continually publishing what they did. Not ONE of these experts picked up on it.

I refer to that difference as the "missing link" and what lies at the heart of the fishing fraternity's confusion over colour in the waters.

That was one of the reasons that I put so much research into the subject of the colour penetration vs water turbidity/murkiness as the prime focus.

That relationship exists with EVERY type of water and sets the colour environment of the species that live in that particular environment.

Once establishing the facts around that subject which applied irrespective of the species, , I turned my attention to particular species that abounds in my area and is the focus of my fishing attention. Barramundi.

I had a good starting point firstly because there's been a lot of scientific research carried out on barra ESPECIALLY their eyesight.

Secondly, I've caught sufficient barramundi under different circumstances to know that what the experts have been saying for years simply didn't add up. To start me wondering why those things didn't add up. That surely, the reason couldn't be as

simple as these guys ALL making the same huge mistake. What I eventually found was that they were indeed.

That's the stuff I put into the thread " A Technical approach to barramundi fishing". Go to that thread and look at those attachments. They're still there. I didn't delete them as they are useful to members.

Another species in this area that I'd like to look at is threadfin and I'm having trouble finding research into their eyesight.

I put this thread up to invite input about species that might be of interest to people in other areas (but still occur here). eg mulloway, flathead, bream, murray cod, yellowbelly and particularly grunter.

Most of us know how to catch 'em but very few (including me) know why something works. I don't use bait much these these. Just about all lures now for flathead, bream and grunter.

No, Volvo. Fish aren't colour blind. Fish species are like people. Some species are colour blind and some aren't.

Barramundi certainly are NOT colourblind. Neither is a whole range of other species in Aus.

Largemouth bass in the US are not colourblind either and there is a huge industry over there based on bass fishing. US people have now started to pick up on the results that I've showed you guys about the colour penetration of light into differing water

types and have been quick to pick up on the significance of the "missing link".

I guarantee (probably a tad unkindly) that some of them will claim to be the originator of the info and probably make some gain/promotion from it within the industry. Good luck to them.

What I do know is that the knowledge has made me into a person with a better understanding of my leisure activity. Simply because I wanted to know "WHY" about something.

An australian scientist called JT Kirk first picked up on the light colour/ water penetration relationship in 1976. He missed the significance on fishing. He followed that up in 1994 with another research paper in 1994 about how the light colour vs water

penetration affects photosynthesis on underwater plants. Once again he missed the significance on fishing.

Successive research by others based on his model of that colour/depth penetration missed the connection with fishing as well. ALL of them.

My testing (not scientific) led me to the conclusions that I reached and gave to some fishermen in Australia (you guys aren't the first but you will be the last). As there's such US interest, the focus will go over there, I guess. (some already has moved).

Anyway, make what you want to of the stuff I've given you. One tip I WILL give you though is to keep asking yourself WHY something works or WHY something doesn't work.

Once you nut that out, you start to introduce some degree of predictability into your fishing activities.

The journey in researching and gathering this basic stuff together was interesting. I started the journey with a known starting point (the incorrect assumptions) but didn't know the destination until I arrived there.

To be honest, I've often felt like Ferdinand Magellan setting out on his circumnavigation of the world to show the flat-earth believers of that time what the facts actually were. He died en-route and his crew completed the journey to prove his theory.

I hope that's not an omen.

I'll put on this thread info that I get about those Aussie species that I've mentioned before but meanwhile leave you guys to your own thoughts.

[Fed]

Whew! What was that? Some sort of alien mind control?
I feel violated like I've been probed.

[stevej]

I thought I’d take this post serious but I have no idea what your reply is about.

there is no confusion on my behalf and I’d say everyone here knows what a natural colour lure is
The information I shared comes from fishing 2-3 times a week sometimes more round the Sydney area all with lures
actual fishing not reading scientific papers

if you have a big enough group of fishing mates you learn what’s working when and where to get a feel for what lures are worth tying on

anyway im out of this thread.

[Ronje1]

Bit different to usual topics that you find on these sites, Fed?

Its about confusion in recreational fishing activities, how that confusion has spread so much over the years because its never been challenged. Now it is.

You guys can go along for the ride if you want to. If you don't want to that's fine.

Steve, if there's no confusion in your mind, then that's good. If you're happy doing what you're doing, then keep doing it.

actual fishing not reading scientific papers

I'm retired Steve and do both. I also like to know WHY about things (hence the work I put into this particular subject).

I'd still like to hear what a "natural" colour is.

[chris69]

How were you lucky enough to get special one on one tuition??

Im not getting one on one tuition he just whinging about me replying to his thread, he's been boot off another site for harassment of member by sending them personal messages when he doesn't like the feed back he gets there something wrong with him my be Lucky Phill should boot him off ausfish for harassing ausfish members here as ive said before its not the Ronje1 forum and anyone can reply to threads .
Theres been experts in the past that have forgot more than Ron knows anyone that thinks he's better than fishing legend's like Rod Harrison are kidding them selves.

[Lovey80]

Ronje, I’m 100% you know exactly what they mean when they say “natural” colours. I’m pretty sure most fish aren’t regularly seeing fluro bright green and red nuclear chicken colours on their daily feeds.