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Can Fish See Colours?

Beach

Beach

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The normal rule of thumb is bright day - bright fly, dull day - dull fly which works when fly fishing. Just wondered whether it is the same when fishing lures etc from the shore?
 
Beach said:
The normal rule of thumb is bright day - bright fly, dull day - dull fly which works when fly fishing. Just wondered whether it is the same when fishing lures etc from the shore?
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Good question, don't know the answer, but will be interested to find out what others think.
 
I used to fly fish a largish reservoir and certain colours were best at different locations on it and some colours would not catch, so i would say yes.
 
I was always told it was the same principle for sea lure fishing, bright during the day and dark lures at night or in cloudy/dull conditions.
Can't say I do enough lure fishing to have much input on wether it makes a difference though.
 
When I fish lures for pollack in deep clear water there's definitely a couple of colours that outfish all the others. I haven't noticed any difference caused by the brightness of the weather though.
 
Definitely. There are simply no hard and fast rules in any form of angling, and often the opposite of the old maxims can bring results. You've got to ring the changes to find what works at that particular time. Factors like turbidity and even cloud cover can change the effectiveness of a lure or fly colour. If its bass your targeting then I'd not be without white, blue, chartreuse and silver options
 
With carp fishing, I would say yes, different coloured hookbaits do sometimes make a difference when they are fussy. I suppose it all depends on depth and light penetration too as different colours of the spectrum fail to penetrate to certain depths, although I’m no expert! The water clarity and turbidity - suspension of sand etc will all make a difference I would have thought, I often wonder how much they can see at all when bait fishing over sand, especially over some of my marks which fishes best over low tide.
 
ouchthathurt said:
With carp fishing, I would say yes, different coloured hookbaits do sometimes make a difference when they are fussy. I suppose it all depends on depth and light penetration too as different colours of the spectrum fail to penetrate to certain depths, although I’m no expert! The water clarity and turbidity - suspension of sand etc will all make a difference I would have thought, I often wonder how much they can see at all when bait fishing over sand, especially over some of my marks which fishes best over low tide.
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I thought with bait fishing it was due to the smell that attracts the fish.
 
I have used evolution redgills at one location and caught bass on a certain colour (silver pearl) lost the lure and changed to a white one and nothing.
Used the white one again another day same place and nothing so put a new silver pearl one on and bang straight away, changed it back to white just to see and again nothing.
 
I used to troll with red gills doing about 2-4 knots in my dingy, the most bass/pollock I caught was on the orange one on a bright day. A dark coloured one on a dark day.
 
Beach said:
I thought with bait fishing it was due to the smell that attracts the fish.
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With bait fishing off the shore, I would have to agree, I know that plaice are proven sight feeders, but again, it’s not a species i see much of. Whereas in carp fishing during the spring, it’s almost religion to fish bright hi-attract hookbaits working on the visual attraction angle, carp can also be caught on zigs, small flavourless blocks of foam fished midwater that the carp take out of curiosity, there’s no smell (that we are aware of) and different colour foam will produce bites on different days, so the visual attraction is what’s doing the bites.
 
My cousin in law does a lot of fly fishing for bass, he was talking the other day about a session where he was surrounded by whitebait so fished a silver fly that closely matched the hatch, didn’t get a touch, changed it to a silver fly with a splash of red at its throat and he caught schoolies hand over fist, changed back to the original fly, nothing, not a touch. Changed back to the one with the red, the bites came back. Same fly design, silver streamer type patterns, only one had a red throat and one didn’t.
 
ouchthathurt said:
My cousin in law does a lot of fly fishing for bass, he was talking the other day about a session where he was surrounded by whitebait so fished a silver fly that closely matched the hatch, didn’t get a touch, changed it to a silver fly with a splash of red at its throat and he caught schoolies hand over fist, changed back to the original fly, nothing, not a touch. Changed back to the one with the red, the bites came back. Same fly design, silver streamer type patterns, only one had a red throat and one didn’t.
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I had a similar thing with trout at Hanningford Reservoir, white fly - nothing; changed to an appetiser and caught my limit in a couple of hours.
 
Beach said:
I had a similar thing with trout at Hanningford Reservoir, white fly - nothing; changed to an appetiser and caught my limit in a couple of hours.
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When i started fly fishing a mate i was training got me into it and he would be tying loads of fly's.
In one edition of Fly Fishing mag was the "humungous" and how to tie it, he tied a few and on the weekend we went to a local fly fishery, every cast we hit a trout, no one else were catching, eventually the bloke who owned it came and thought we had dodgy stuff on the end.
 
Warby72 said:
Weirdest one I've had was fishing maggots for mullet one day in really clear water. 2 maggots on a #12 hook.
2 white = no takes
2 Red = no takes
1 white+1red = take after take
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Even weirder one on the Thames yonks back in winter one maggot on hook flick three out bite every cast flick out two or four Nadder!
 
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