when to use certain colors

[wolfhnd]

How about choosing colors by moon phase :-)

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing...ure-color.html

[Yaker]

Yup,that’s the one,I’m not saying one way or the other if this is how fish see color compared to us,but it does go along with my belief that overall,Browns and blacks with some contrast are my go to colors on a regular basis.

[wolfhnd]

Ok I have developed an interest in this topic. It seems that we take vision for granted to such an extent that the basic processes are not at first well understood. I have been doing a bit of reading :-) Although the following relates to motion not color I feel it is somehow a good starting point to explore fish vision.

In addition, medakas proved to be able to discriminate different kinds of biological motion, preferring the motion pattern of conspecifics to human motion and being particularly sensitive to the smoothness and the speed of the movement. This is particularly relevant since, also in our species, the speed of movement can drastically alter the perception of biological motion, with abnormal speeds giving the impression of unnatural. Moreover, both humans and the fish tested by Nakayasu and Watanabe (2014) seem to be more affected if the movement sequences were slowed down than if velocity was increased.

In this study zebrafish spontaneously chose to associate with a “natural” movie of swimming conspecifics rather than with a backward version of the movie, while they did not react to another violation that also created an unfamiliar visual scene (movie presented upside down). In the backward movie, movement and shape information were both still present and virtually unaltered, but were inconsistent with each other. To recognize the original movie from the backward one fish needed to integrate form and motion

This result was then replicated in the same study (Neri, 2012) with computer generated stimuli that were more controlled, even though less natural: an image representing a side view of a zebrafish was moved along a linear trajectory, which could be either consistent or inconsistent with the orientation of the image of the zebrafish (the direction toward which it was facing). As long as a sufficient number of individuals was depicted in this artificial animation, zebrafish were able to direct their response on the basis of the conjunction of motion direction and shape orientation, even when stimuli were constructed using images of another species (needlefish, Xenentodon) or when only the frontal part of a zebrafish image was visible.

Frontiers | What can fish brains tell us about visual perception? | Frontiers in Neural Circuits

I see two possible ramifications of this research.

First that a naturally moving lure should be more attractive in most cases. By natural we apparently mean smooth and slow. Experience would however tell us that fish will also attack objects in what has become known as triggered strikes. The later feeding pattern would be more typical of aggressive fish such as bass that tend to be less discriminating.

The second take away would be that biological motion may be discriminated by fish more readily by multiple lures "swimming" in unison.

A third interesting observation from the few minutes of reading that I did is that motion can be ambiguous.

The motion direction of a contour is ambiguous, because the motion component parallel to the line cannot be inferred based on the visual input. This means that a variety of contours of different orientations moving at different speeds can cause identical responses in a motion sensitive neuron in the visual system.



The aperture problem. The grating appears to be moving down and to the right, perpendicular to the orientation of the bars. But it could be moving in many other directions, such as only down, or only to the right. It is impossible to determine unless the ends of the bars become visible in the aperture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion...ion_perception

The above would suggest that a lure should have a marked beginning and end. This idea is supported by the fact that only humans have been shown to have what is described as "global" vision. Fish likely see trees not forests. They will only see the trees however if the end points of the "trees" are clearly indicated because of non global neural processing and the aperture effect of objects moving in water. This is of course my own interpretation and would require experimentation to confirm.

[zig zag]

THANKS "superdave336" for the amfish video ----- Usually tie my 4# braid direct to jig.

[wolfhnd]

Here is where color comes in related to my previous post. I purchased a red Sharpie Permanent Marker. To test the above theory I plan on marking the beginning and end of each lure with it. My question is if you think that it will leave and odor or something else may make it interfere with the validity of the experiment?

[CrappiePappy]

Here is where color comes in related to my previous post. I purchased a red Sharpie Permanent Marker. To test the above theory I plan on marking the beginning and end of each lure with it. My question is if you think that it will leave and odor or something else may make it interfere with the validity of the experiment?

I don't know if the Sharpie scent will last any length of time or not, but it may not matter. I use to use Super Glue Gel to hold hollow tubes on my jigheads, and didn't always wait for the gel to dry before casting the jig ... and still got bit, sometimes on the very first cast after applying the gel. And while the scent/smell may be totally different between the Gel & Sharpie, it does go to show that the fish will hit a bait that has an "unnatural" scent. I mean, I really don't know of any baitfish that smell like garlic, or licorice (anise), and yet those scents have been proven to work.

[Eagle 1]

The Todd Huckabee myth buster video shreds everything I thought was factual About crappie fishing .

[wolfhnd]

The Todd Huckabee myth buster video shreds everything I thought was factual About crappie fishing .

People tend to grossly underestimate the complexity of biological systems. Any kind of mechanical analogy is going to prove inadequate. I'm willing to bet that everyone posting in this thread is an accomplished crappie fishermen who consistently out fishes the average but there is no agreement on something as simple as color.

It's fun to talk about technique and that is the point, it's all about having a good time.

[arkie55]

All I know for sure is color does make a difference for what ever reason. Sometimes they will hit anything (jig color) you pitch out there and sometimes they want only one color. Sometimes they won't hit anything. That's why we fish. We look for them and try to establish a pattern to put them in the boat. We call upon our experiences in where we think they should be and usually pitch the jig we have the most confidence in. If they won't take that one we start changing colors until we find what they will hit or we run out of time trying to catch them. Frustration or elation. It's all about having fun and trying to put fish in the well.

[wolfhnd]

All I know for sure is color does make a difference for what ever reason. Sometimes they will hit anything (jig color) you pitch out there and sometimes they want only one color. Sometimes they won't hit anything. That's why we fish. We look for them and try to establish a pattern to put them in the boat. We call upon our experiences in where we think they should be and usually pitch the jig we have the most confidence in. If they won't take that one we start changing colors until we find what they will hit or we run out of time trying to catch them. Frustration or elation. It's all about having fun and trying to put fish in the well.

That seems to be the general consensus but people want to take advantage of the collective "wisdom". We all maintain relationships that create normative networks of cumulative evidence based on at least somewhat empirical evidence. The internet makes this possible in ways preceding generations never dreamed of. In other words we natural wish to have our experience validated by the experience of as many other people as possible.

Sports seem to be competitive exercises but they are only possible because of a great deal of cooperation and adherence to rules. We enjoy the social aspect as well as the practical aspect of exchanging experience. The rules that we think of as establishing peaceful interaction must have their origin in expediency or natural logic. We imitate people that are successful without even thinking about it. That said the more we reason about that success the more likely we are to be successful ourselves.

If we compile all the information available in the forum to come up with the best color information the problem is complexity. You can weigh the information according to reputation, personal experience, demonstrated competency, etc. etc. but you still have to compare different conditions such as all the normal things fishing requires. Time of day, temperature, water clarity, different habitats, time of year etc. etc. That is why it is a good idea to listen to as many people as possible and try and get them to be as elaborate as possible. We will never run out of "fish stories" that are interesting and informative. The only limitation is that most of us would rather be fishing than talking about fishing with the time available.

With that in mind I think we should be thankful that so many people are willing to share their experience here, that is what makes a great community.