FISH & COLOUR

Fish have eyes that possess a fixed, non-dilating pupil so they cannot adjust to brighter or dimmer light conditions. As a result many fish when feeding will conceal themselves in shaded cover so they can see and pounce on food fishes that are passing in brighter light. A fishes ability to see a lure is determined by two factors, namely the clarity of the water and its visibility.

CLARITY

This is a measure of the cloudiness of the water or it is often said to be the transparency of the water. The clearer the water the further a fish can see a lure.

VISIBILITY

This is a measure of the available light in the water. Available light decreases with depth and darkening light conditions associated with dusk and night, cloud and low light conditions outside. The combination of these two factors will affect how fish will see colour and hence your lure! To understand the balance of the two realise that fish will be most active at a light level affording them optimum cover from being seen, yet themselves being in an optimum position to see prey. Hence fish may be active in cloudy water (low clarity) in the middle of the day and on another day be most active before dawn (low visibility) in clear water. Note too that our choices include rattlers, spinners and vibrators as when clarity and visibility are low it is best to add sound to the equation.

WHAT COLOURS CAN FISH SEE?

As far as fish are concerned there are nine basic colours in nature that usually do the job. These are red, purple, orange, yellow, green, blue, silver, white and black.