SCIENTISTS REVEAL HOT COLORS FOR TUNA LURES!!!

[Ron Jones]

Regarding "UV" tape: what is your definition of "UV"? 

A sick looking flash that I can actually see as long as it's not bright sunlight-if it is bright conditions I don't bother.

Yep,
Tackle is designed to catch fishermen, not fish!

[oc1]

The topic here is lure color and its relation to vision in fish.  There is a button at the top of every sub-forum for starting a new thread. I suggest giving that a try for other topics.

It is to unwieldy to have a single thread on all aspects of fish behavior that relate to catching fish.

Thanks,

-J

soup nazi

[JasonGotaProblem]

And to think I was getting to branch off (within this thread) to discussing how these lures make fish feel, on the inside.

[Keta]

The topic here is lure color and its relation to vision in fish.  There is a button at the top of every sub-forum for starting a new thread. I suggest giving that a try for other topics.

It is to unwieldy to have a single thread on all aspects of fish behavior that relate to catching fish.

Thanks,

-J

thread nazi

Play nice.

[jurelometer]

I started a new thread for the folk interested on the do's and don'ts of topic veers:

What is our resposibility for staying on topic in a thread?

Please place any comments there

See, that wasn't hard

-J

[Gfish]

Dave started the thread, so...
Great reading so-far. Thanks to Jurelometer(what does that noun mean?)and others for the research and contributions.
Godda find-out about electricity and fish evasion and(or) attraction. Just on my yak there's the fish finder and then there's a 29V, up to 430watt motor used when I troll or move. Can see a disturbance reflected on the finder screen that goes all the way to the bottom when I start the motor after a stop...
Another thread on this would be a good idea.

[jurelometer]

OK, back to business.

On popper colors that someone mentioned earlier: 

Here is the funny thing about poppers. 

Since poppers float on the surface, the fish can't see the paint job above the waterline.  Below the waterline, the fish is looking up into the sun through the Snell's window, which means all they are seeing is a sillouette sourrounded by bright light.

Plus nearly every commerically made popper is white below the waterline anyways. 

Now add in the turbulence from the popper action.

Now add in that tuna are effectively colorblind...

But that hasn't stopped Saltwater Sportsman from doing several aritcles on tuna poppers that feature color schemes-  "Top Captains favorite tuna poppers" blah, blah, blah.  Well they do have to appeal to advertisers that sell lures. 

Using a highly visible color can be useful if you are casting far or if you break off the popper and want to go looking for it. Maybe going for all black, or at least below the waterline would keep the lure more visible at stops between pops, but I am reaching here.  Plus a black popper is going to be a hard sell.  Who wants plain black when you can get Frostbite Cherry (sadly, that is a real color scheme)?

I can't think of a lure style where the paint job could be more irrelevant.  I have been working on a new type of saltwater popper, and I don't bother painting the prototypes at all.  Well, I did paint one Katy Perry colors to get a laugh from the Zoom group, who promptly also requested a Mr Hanky color theme (thanks John...)

-J

[Keta]

How about clear poppers?

[jurelometer]

You never know for 100% certain if the bites occur at rest, but otherwise I would bet that "clear" poppers should look about the same.  It is not like they are invisible.  And then there is the seam, belly weight, wire, hooks.  All visible at rest... 

Not to mention that the point of working a popper is to be extremely conspicuous.

I have noticed that when tuna are on the krill or microbait, it can take a lot of casts to get a popper bite.  And sometimes they will turn on to bigger lures for awhile and then back to ignoring them.  This makes it easy to fool yourself into thinking that a lure change was the reason that you got bit.  You have to exercise discipline and rotate out the lures at very short measured intervals, and do it enough times.  I rarely am willing to put this much time and effort in. But if you are getting bit on every cast, it can be instructive to try to find lures that won't get bit and then switch back.  Not proof, but at least some useful data.

Come to think of it, a chrome popper might flash a bit if it rolls, but most poppers are designed not to roll so that they don't spin when you pull them fast.


-J

[Keta]

In my opinion color is far less a factor as I can action and sound, especially at depth. 

If 50% plus of the fisherman are using a xx colored xxx lure and 50% plus of the fish are caught on them only proves the math.

[Maxed Out]

 I am the guilty party for hijacking your thread when I changed the subject and asked which colors salmon see. The title is about tuna, not salmon, so I removed my posts and hope you accept my sincere apologies. I know zilch about tuna, and will refrain from posting here

[jurelometer]

Oops.  I think I owe you an apology.  I think that I was the one that first got into which colors salmon see.  Your contributions on that topic were useful and informative.  I wasn't complaininng about those posts at all. Not a veer IMHO, and definitely not a hijack.

Anything on lure colors and color vision on fish is plenty on topic as far as I am concerned. We don't need to get too uptighht about this.

I have a couple more things that I have learned on color vision in fish that I would like to share before I wrap up what I have on this topic, and any insight you might have would be aprreciated.

And that goes for the rest of you folk as well!


-J

[Brewcrafter]

When we talk about lures/visual acuity underwater I know something that has been mentioned in the past (that makes sense to my mind) that the more "accurate" a lure looks, to a certain extent you may actual be hurting your chances since these species have evolved with their appearance being part of their defensive strategy to AVOID being eaten.  Then I suddenly had a flashback to something that was all the rage a few years ago - VERY realistic visual stickers of baitfish that guys would paste all over the bottom of their boats - the thinking being that predators just interpret the bottom of your boat as part of a "bait ball".  Again, I think that was probably more marketing to fisherman since a true 3D sardine in water is probably going to look considerably different that a 2D sardine that is glued on a boat hull... - john

[jurelometer]

Hey John, maybe somebody should start a thread on Acuity!    /snark

Acuity does have a relationship to color vision- so let's go there.

There are two basic types of light sensor cells in the eye of fish, (and pretty much all other animals).

Rod cells respond to a wider range of light wave frequencies, centered on the higher energy waves that tend to be visible even in low light situations.  Rods cells are quite sensitive, meaning that it doesn't take too many photons hitting one to make it fire off. 

Cone cells respond to a narrower range of frequencies and are not as sensitive as rod cells.

Now here is the sort of non-intuitive part: Less sensitive receptors actually provide better acuity.  By requiring a stronger steady signal, cone cells are less likely to misfire, or fire off on a stray light wave that was a product of random diffusion  or uneven refraction. It takes a nice steady stream of light reflecting off a surface. 

The primary purpose of cone cells is to provide more accurate images (high acuity) when sufficient light is available.  This explains why colorblind fish like tuna have cone cells for just one color, and not just rods.  Being able to differentiate colors is secondary to acuity and only possible in species with multiple types of cone cells that respond to different frequency ranges.

AND...

Different species have different evolutionary strategies on the layout of cone vs rod cells.  The real estate on the cornea is limited, and every spot that you put a cone cell is a spot that you cannot put a rod cell.  Taking available light (including time of day) into consideration, it makes sense any species have optimized to limit the amount of cone cells, and to cluster them in positions where they will do the most good.  For groupers, this tends to be straight out in front where the field of vision from the eyes on the side of the head overlap a little.  Makes sense for an ambush predator.  Tuna are running down prey out in the open, so the cone cells are concentrated in a position to receive light at an angle from in front and above. 

That leaves the rod cells.  Since the underwater environment is visually compromised, and when the fish are feeding is often not the brightest part of a sunny day, the rod cells play a big roll in finding prey.  The fish that sees the prey first gets to eat first, not the fish that sees the prey most clearly.

This leads to another misapplied truism that cracks me up.  When you hear that tuna have very good vision, it doesn't actually mean that they have high acuity.  Bluefin tuna (especially juveniles) run into the walls of tanks and pens at a rate that makes it an issue for fish farming.  Being good at finding prey that is not right in front of your eyeball is a tradeoff that means giving up some acuity. You gotta give up some of one to get more of the other.

I don't want to get too far off topic after harassing some of you folk for doing the same, but I will note that if a bluefin went to the DMV to get a driver's license, it might need glasses to pass the vision test. 

If I get enthused again, I can start up a thread on visual acuity and a couple other aspects of tuna and other fish vison, but I am getting kind of burned out at the moment. 

Plus the reality is kind of a buzzkill

Still some amazing stuff though - don't get me wrong-  we just tend to think of the tuna visual system as being some sort of superhero version of human vison. The reality is that it is quite different, and tuned to their environment.

-J

[Dominick]

Hey Dave, do you have an explanation for "line shy"?  Dominick