Ultra Violet Light and lures

[Micanopy]

So I have been reading about Ultra Violet light. It is a series of colors that are of a wave length that is said to be invisible to us. However, animals and fish ( crappie are fish ) can in fact see this spectrum of colors. We see visible blue but not UV blue, they see UV blue and maybe not our visible blue. The first I learned about all of this was decades ago reading about washing camo clothing. Tide detergent adds UV brighteners to make clothes appear cleaner than they actually are. Your white shirt is actually dingy white, but with the enhancement the shirt looks really white. Adding Tide detergent to the machine when washing camo adds these brighteners to the camo, rendering it quite visible to deer and birds and fish of course. The deer cannot see blue but the hunter wearing a Tide washed camo jacket will glow like a light bulb.

One of our wedding gifts was a collection of uranium plates and glasses. They belonged to her great grandmother and they are green, but when a UV light source hits them they glow like, well like they are radioactive green. We don’t eat off them, they are just for looking through. Anyways I am shining this light around the house and start seeing other things that glow. All manner of things have these UV brighteners added. They get added to make the things catch our eye so we will buy them.

Anyways, I was practicing jig tying and was using plain unpainted jigs no collar and powder painting them with a bright orange that contains UV brighteners. The idea is that visible light sources, such as the Sun can only penetrate water so far. Murky water limits that depth even further. UV light penetrates much deeper. So in theory, something coated with UV enhancements could still be visible to fish even when it is deeper than the visible light can reach.

I was wondering what you guys know about crappie and UV enhancements. They seem to shun the light of day. Small creatures emit UV coloration which can be seen using a UV light source. Tomato caterpillars ( horn worms - the larva of Hawk moths ) glow as do scorpions. I am thinking crappie might be tuned in to this UV spectrum, and that is why they move away from visible light. Remaining in sunlight might reduce their UV advantage, if they have one. Plankton and such emit UV colors as well.

I bought some things to test UV out. A UV oil from ProCure. I selected one that contains no scents so I could mix it with my Slab Sauce. I have this mixture in a tightly sealed jar that I can dip jigs down into. They claim it works by making the lure more easily seen by the fish. Some swear by it, but I am not so sure.[ I tried the squirt bottle but missed and made a mess.]

After I tied up a jig I hit it with the UV light to see how well the powder paint glowed. Well I was surprised to see this.




The powder paint glowed, but look at the chenile. It really glowed.



This is chenile ( balled up in package) next to some yarn that I bought at Walmart instead of buying chenile, which is kind of pricy. Big spool for a few bucks and all sorts of neon colors and they glow. The yarn glows even brighter and I have enough to last forever.

So all of this made me curious and I just had to ask you guys about all of this UV light stuff. Does it make a difference or is it much to do about nothing much ?

[Micanopy]

Oh and I like that the yarn sucks up the slab sauce real well. I need all the help I can get.

[shadboy]

following

["G"]

This has been discussed many times on here thru the years...I just used the search function here on the site and found you several pages of threads to look at about it. Here is a link to them...click on this... https://www.crappie.com/crappie/sear...rchid=33500600

[BobC]

That is really interesting. I never thought of that before. Actually, I can’t get past the uranium dinnerware! What could the manufacturer have been thinking? Long before folks knew how dangerous that stuff can be. Is it safe in your house, although I realize it has sentimental value.
Bob

[Ketchn]

got no clue on if it works better and can be seen better or not ,but I have had baits that were UV enhanced and some seemed to work really well .
we used a black light at night before anyone even thought about using jigs at night back in the 70eez on lake Fork when it first opened ,with a black and chart tube jig and MAN did the skirt glow and the fish hit it .....
uranium plates ? that is for sure something I never heard of .......

[Ketchn]

got no clue on if it works better and can be seen better or not ,but I have had baits that were UV enhanced and some seemed to work really well .
we used a black light at night before anyone even thought about using jigs at night back in the 70eez on lake Fork when it first opened ,with a black and chart tube jig and MAN did the skirt glow and the fish hit it .....
uranium plates ? that is for sure something I never heard of .......

[Micanopy]

This has been discussed many times on here thru the years...I just used the search function here on the site and found you several pages of threads to look at about it. Here is a link to them...click on this... https://www.crappie.com/crappie/sear...rchid=33500600

Glad to see you are feeling better. I apologize if my eagerness to learn has run afoul of normal operations, but the search feature does not really assist me much. I end up with tons of threads that have nothing to do with what interests me. The system finds posts that only contain one of the words, as you know. I thank you for attempting to assist but even that did not work, the link doesn’t work. So off I went searching the web for details into what crappie might actually see.




First off we know that light is made up of waves. From left to right on an imaginary chart we have:

Gamma Rays- X Rays- Ultra Violet - the visible light spectrum- InfraRed- Microwaves- Radar

There are some others but of all of these we are only able to see the visual spectrum. It is further broken down into, from left to right:

Violet - Blue - Green - Yellow - Orange - Red

As visible light penetrates water the waves get absorbed, and at about 300 feet none of the can reach any longer and total blackness occurs. The depths at which each color stop relates to the wave length, with red and it’s longer wave lengths fading first. Now that doesn’t mean that an object painted red becomes invisible, it means that the object no longer looks red. Might appear grey. Then next to fade away is orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then lastly violet. Violet light can penetrate further than all the others because it has the shortest wave length of the visible colors.

Now Ultra Violet has an even shorter wave length and can penetrate downwards even further. This is what interests me. If I am fishing in murky waters and light is being limited by sediment and such, I am looking to use lures that have colors the fish can still see. So in muddy/ silty waters I would do best with black lures. In water stained by tanic acid from pine trees, the darker colors are also a better bet. In green algae waters lures that are two toned would be most easily seen. This is all because of contrast though. The dark colors stand out. The lure completely lacks detail but the overall shape can still be seen and the fish can swim over and grab it. Same thing with UV lures, they offer that contrast when normal colors can no longer do that. Pretty sure anyways.

All of this is completely affected by conditions of course, such as sunny days vs cloudy, the angle of the light, and water clarity, etc. On bright sun shiny days shiny lures can get noticed more easily because they produce flash. Minnows flash as a school swims by so that is the attractant there. However on cloudy days the blades really don’t flash all that much, so a better choice would be something that vibrated and has an ultra violet flash to it. Ultra violet light can better penetrate AND is more prominent when visible light lessens. You may have noticed what I call the magical moment. It happens when the Sun first sets. As soon as the Sun’s rays stop reaching our eyes directly, just before it starts getting dark, the ultra violet light becomes more prominent and everything kind of glows. Your skin color changes for example. It only lasts for a few minutes at most, but you have seen it your entire life. Colors change because the ultra violet light is affecting the colors. So during cloudy days, early morning, early evening, UV colors are still available to be seen by fish.

There are also other issues and factors of course, such as distance from the object. In the beautiful springs surrounding my area I can snorkle down underwater and still see someone at a great distance because of the crystal clarity. Obviously dirty water would inhibit that, and lessen the distance, as there would be suspended particles blocking my view. A fish has to deal with this limitation as well, and uses his other senses to assist. He might smell something to eat, like we smell bacon on the stove, and knowing the baitfish is there, swim over to get a closer look. He might feel vibrations from the creature he wants to eat and can locate it using that sense. Either way though those just get him closer to the object so he can see it. Maybe he will have to get right up on the object before he can see it, and if he does, he does.

So according to what I have found on the web, there are some clues as to what colors of lures I might begin my search with. I am certain that many of you already know all of this and have expounded on it many times, but this is all new stuff to me, so bear with me here. Surf fishing meant I was chucking bait, not lures, well other than surface lures. I would set up in a likely spot, and the fish found my offerings, I did not have to chase them down and show it to them. I did use colored beads and such as enhancements, but I cannot say that any particular color worked best. Black was a favorite and now I am understanding why. The surf is full of suspended sand and sometimes mud, and dark colors show better under those conditions. I applied UV to my painted sinkers, but never attempted any sort of study about them. I even made glow in the dark sinkers. LOL

I intend to keep reading about what fish see and trying to discern what a crappie might see, or not see. So far if I was fishing in clear water on a sunny day I would want a shiny spinning blade to sparkle as I went along. Perhaps a bright color or a light color such as white or silver or chrome. In muddy water or on heavily clouded days I would want something that is dark, for contrast. It might be nice if it had an odor to it. Might be nice if it created some sort of vibration or sound. Might be nice if it had a UV color that could be seen by the stupid fish.

I was amazed at how many objects in my home have a UV component to them. Even the dumb dog toy glowed when hit with the flashlight. People use them to see dog urine and catch the little guy, and thankfully neither of my dogs has a sneaky habit. Caribou can see wolf urine as it puts off a UV glow. There are all sorts of instances where fish are using UV light to recognize food items, and mates. Butterflies use UV light to better see flowers. Black Eyed Susans give off a UV flash from their flowers to better lure in insects to pollinate them. Cops use UV lights to spot body fluids on homicide victims, and even to collect fibers and such as many contain a UV enhancement. I shined it on the floor under my fly tying desk and saw all manner of small fibers and such.

There is a reason crappie like to hide from bright sunlit areas. It may be that the bright light hurts their eyes, but it might also be because they loose their big advantage in visible light. That the prey items get a little quicker jump when they make their approach, because they can see the crappie earlier. That once the visible light goes away there only remains UV light, and that makes for good hunting. We all know predator fish bite our lures best in first light and last light. Scientists tell us that is because all the baitfish have issues with their eyesight adjusting to the change in light. That predators can adjust quickly, and they have figured out that it is easier to capture baitfish during these times. Get the little devils while they still cannot see what is coming.

Let me write that again- It is easier for bass and crappie to capture minnows during the periods when the light is changing, early morning and early evening, because their eyes adapt faster and that offers and advantage. Who knew that bass and crappie had figured all that out ? I thought it was easier to catch bass and crappie first thing in the morning because we could hook them when they yawned. There is a whole world out there to be discovered and I intend to learn as much as I can. If you have something of interest, please share it with me. There is nothing that I would consider too dumb, and this is a very friendly site, so....... let’s have it.

[Micanopy]

The plates.....you are interested in the plates.

Apparently back in the roaring 20’s these plates were high fashion. Her great grandfather bought his lovely wife a set so she could show off. They really were a luxury item. Anyways they are not dangerous to eat off of, but could be should I happen to break one of them. So for my health we leave them in her antique ( I bought ) currio cabinet thingie. They are not for eating- just for looking through.

Here they are lit up by the UV light.



We see them in antique stores all the time, but almost all of them are fakes. I don’t know much about them, only that she is always looking to add to her collection, and refuses all but the ones that I refuse due to expense.

I appreciated the story from the 70’s fishing at night. I always wondered how fish could see at night to eat like they do.

[JUNGLEJIMJIGS]

About 15 years ago while walking through my son's room I spied a blacklight and borrowed it to see what some of my favorite jigs looked like. I was amazed at how bright the jigs were. I figure that since I see it better than fish in muddy water or low light conditions could see it better as well. When Pro Tec came out with their UV Blast I started mixing that into some of my powder paints and the difference was huge, much brighter heads. Fish need to see the bait before they eat it and I feel they do see it better and I've caught more fish since I started doing this. For crappie my best colors have at least two uv colors in one jig. Dirty water is when these baits shine. I'm a true believer that these baits will catch more fish in the murky, muddy lakes I fish than jigs without the color enhancements.