This has been addressed before, but this morning I witnessed it and it was striking. I have a knot tying station on the corner of my workbench/desk in my office garage that i use for practice/stress relief. And sometimes the cutoffs miss the trash can. This morning when I went into the garage it literally looked like lava oozing under the door - the photo does not do it justice - the garage is much darker and the garage door is getting the rising sun. Poor Man's fiber optics! And in the photo you can even see light is transmitting to where it is reflected in the aluminum trim of the garage door. For the tech minded this is good old reliable Ande 50# monofilament. Thanks to Web Guru Shibley for helping post photos that I was too stupid to attach. Next step, I am going to toss some flouro out there next to it and see what happens...I do realize there were a lot of factors at play here and probably tomorrow morning will be a disappointment but the photo this morning was really cool! - john
Aliens trying to look inside you garage and scan for old Penns?
Ha! I have some 80# Seguar next to it, we will see what happens in the AM. Thanks for uploading that photo for me! - john
if I saw that, my 1st thought: SWAT about to breach & confiscate all the best tackle :o
actually, I may be the one who brought up the whole fiber optic thang in older post, which I only read about
never imagined it was so drastic/blatant -- THANKS FOR THE EVIDENCE!!!
I could certainly imagine a shallow sight predator like cuda, ignoring realistic lure & striking the striking leader ;D
We did talk about this awhile back.
Some of the light that enters the line bounces off the walls instead of just passing through. so you end up with with some photons ricocheting along the line and eventually squirting out the end. The angle that the light enters the line should be a factor.
Since this is an unclad fiber optic strand, the lower the refractive index of the outer shell and/or the surrounding environment, the more light gets rerouted. Mebbe the garage door/floor acted as cladding for part of the line, but the rest is affected by the refractive index of the air in contact with the line.
I suspect that when fishing with an unclad strand (mono fishing line)- there will be limited circumstances where this sort of concentration will occur, probably for short stretches very near the surface, mebbe more likely when the line is straight and aligned with the angle of sunlight after it enters the water?
This is a long winded way of saying that you should probably re-execute this experiment with your garage flooded with water ;D
-J
Wow amazing, cool photo
Kim
Very interesting, thanks John Toby, cheers Don.
light saber technology!
It's all gray after 20' of water.
Quote from: jurelometer on January 08, 2022, 08:46:34 AM
We did talk about this awhile back.
Some of the light that enters the line bounces off the walls instead of just passing through. so you end up with with some photons ricocheting along the line and eventually squirting out the end. The angle that the light enters the line should be a factor.
Since this is an unclad fiber optic strand, the lower the refractive index of the outer shell and/or the surrounding environment, the more light gets rerouted. Mebbe the garage door/floor acted as cladding for part of the line, but the rest is affected by the refractive index of the air in contact with the line.
I suspect that when fishing with an unclad strand (mono fishing line)- there will be limited circumstances where this sort of concentration will occur, probably for short stretches very near the surface, mebbe more likely when the line is straight and aligned with the angle of sunlight after it enters the water?
This is a long winded way of saying that you should probably re-execute this experiment with your garage flooded with water ;D
-J
I possibly could have accommodated this request for a more "in depth" ;D test a few weeks prior when the PRV on my water heated failed in the middle of the night and did actually flood the garage. Yesterday was very overcast, and the morning light was very diffused. This morning is clear and bright and the two samples I have are equally "glowy" both the 50# Ande nylon and the 80# Seaquar Flouro. The main conclusion to all this is I need to do a better job sweeping the garage floor and not leaving scraps of line littering the floor! = john
Not sure a dry test is valid, ya gotta consider that the advantage of Flouro is revealed under water. It's supposed to match the refraction of light of the water around it, thus camoflaging it I suppose. Hopefully nylon's not as bad as your sample under the water too.
Nelz = I totally agree, this was just a happy accident that I found fascinating; as Jurelometer also pointed out, the relevance of all of this is probably nil, at best. - john
Science fanboy alert: I am an enthusiast. Not trained in this stuff.
Like most of the "scientific" information provided to us by the tackle companies, there is a lot of BS to digest before finding anything nutritious.
I think it works something like this:
First of all a definition: refractive index is a number that provides the ratio of speed of light through a medium (air, water, beer, fishing line) relative to a perfect vacuum. Light travels slightly slower through air than in space, even slower in water, not sure about beer.
When a light wave encounters a transition between mediums at a clean 180 degrees, it just slows down, but continues along its path.
But if it hits at an angle, the light wave will change direction based on the angle and the relative refractive indexes of the two mediums. This is because one side of the wave will reach the transition plane before the other and will slow down (or speed up) sooner. This cause the bent pencil in the glass of water phenomenon that we have all seen.
Now if that medium is in the shape of a cylinder (like a section of fishing line) weird things start happening. Some light will get into the cylinder traveling at an angle. If the combination of angle and refractive index is just right, it will not leave the cylinder. It will just keep bouncing off the walls and travel along the length of the cylinder, along with other similarly trapped light waves. This circular cross-section is ideal for keeping the light inside.
With a perfectly straight cylinder, that trapped light is going to squirt out the end. But if the cylinder is bent, or the refractive index changes, some or all of that trapped light is going to escape, which is the pulsing light flashing through clear fishing line in shallow clear water phenomenon that has been reported. I saw a report from an underwater videographer seeing this when filming trout flies tied to fluorocarbon underwater in a stream.
I personally would not lose to much sleep over this for most situations. I doubt that fishing line makes an efficient enough fiber optic cable that it would carry bright light from the surface several yards underwater. Dunno if a lower refractive index material like fluoro (vs. nylon) might increase the odds of light pulsing in a more perfect scenario.
Regarding visibility, I am skeptical (along with Nelz and others). While it is true that fluorocarbon lines may have a refractive index closer to water, this does not take into account that cylindrical boundary, the potential for the line surface to have a different refractive index, the varying refractive index of the surrounding water based on suspended particles, salinity, etc. The truth is if you stick your head underwater with a dive mask, both nylon and fluoro are very visible to the human eye. A human with a dive mask will tend to have better visual acuity than a fish.
And luckily for us humans, it is unlikely that fish even understand the concept of fishing line :).
My guess is that any fluoro benefit is more specific, useful in limited circumstances, and may not be related to visibility. I tend not to fish with the stuff unless others are catching with fluoro, and I am not with nylon. I will also break down and use fluoro if I am going to only get a few shots, and guides/local experts are convinced that fluoro makes a big difference. Sometimes it is hard to stay the scientific method course :)
The advent of fluoro has made it more difficult to find that high quality hard/abrasion resistant nylon leader, especially in lighter test sizes. Seems to be mostly a market for fluoro in premium hard leaders nowadays.
-J
Quote from: jurelometer on January 09, 2022, 10:36:07 PMRegarding visibility, I am skeptical (along with Nelz and others).
Actually, I'm firmly convinced that fluoro works as claimed because I catch more fish when I use it, and consistently out-catch those around me not using it.
Quote from: jurelometer on January 09, 2022, 10:36:07 PMThe truth is if you stick your head underwater with a dive mask, both nylon and fluoro are very visible to the human eye.
Have you tried this yourself?
I'm guessing water clarity has a lot to do with grey scale. Here in the NW we have green water that maybe has 10' of "naked eye" visibility. Blue water would allow more sunlight to deeper water, thus altering the grey scale, but at some point everything loses it's color and is seen as a shade of grey. Some colors disappear at shallower depth than other colors Red is the first color to blend in with gray scale. It supposedly happens around 30-40' in our brackish green water. Fish have a broader spectrum of ultra violet light that goes well beyond where it turns pitch black to the human eye. There is lot of discussions about the subject on the www
.....edit: it's a deep subject ;)
-Ted
Quote from: nelz on January 10, 2022, 12:52:23 AM
Quote from: jurelometer on January 09, 2022, 10:36:07 PMRegarding visibility, I am skeptical (along with Nelz and others).
Actually, I'm firmly convinced that fluoro works as claimed because I catch more fish when I use it, and consistently out-catch those around me not using it.
Quote from: jurelometer on January 09, 2022, 10:36:07 PMThe truth is if you stick your head underwater with a dive mask, both nylon and fluoro are very visible to the human eye.
Have you tried this yourself?
Yes. Took video too. I'll see if I can dig it up. But you can also verify for your situation when you see the leader when you are winding it in in the waters that you fish. Tie a section of nylon to a section of fluoro. One other thing that I just thought of is to see if there is a difference in the shadow cast by the leader on the bottom in shallow water. I know that the shadow of a fly line freaks outs some shallow water species.
Sorry for assuming that you were one of us skeptics.
Quote from: Maxed Out on January 10, 2022, 02:56:32 AM
I'm guessing water clarity has a lot to do with grey scale. Here in the NW we have green water that maybe has 10' of "naked eye" visibility. Blue water would allow more sunlight to deeper water, thus altering the grey scale, but at some point everything loses it's color and is seen as a shade of grey. Some colors disappear at shallower depth than other colors Red is the first color to blend in with gray scale. It supposedly happens around 30-40' in our brackish green water. Fish have a broader spectrum of ultra violet light that goes well beyond where it turns pitch black to the human eye. There is lot of discussions about the subject on the www
.....edit: it's a deep subject ;)
-Ted
It does get sorta complicated.
[Another science fanboy warning- I have been reading papers on this stuff. I am not a trained expertI. If somebody out there is actually formally educated in this stuff, feel free to correct]
FWIIW, Some of the stuff that I see in the fishing publications about light, water and fish vision does not line up with the scientific literature. From what I have read on the science side:
Water clarity is determined by the solid objects mixed in with it (particulates, algae, etc.). Pure water will allow a limited range of electromagnetic wave frequencies from the sun to to partially pass through. What we call visible light are these water compatible frequencies. Sort of makes sense, since our eyes are filled with mostly water.
An object appears to be blue because its surface contains just the right type of atoms that reflect light waves of blue frequency. No blue light wave, no blue color. White objects are reflecting the full range of visible light waves. An object that is not reflecting any available light waves will appear as black (the absence of light).
Blue light has a higher frequency (more waves per second) than green light, so it carries more energy at a given amplitude. This means it usually has to pass through more water to get all that energy absorbed. Usually...
When light waves hit the water, some are reflected back at the surface, some are reflected back from water at various depths. Green water is green because it is less clear/pure, containing substances (algae?) that absorb blue light. There is not as much blue light left to reflect back. This also means that blue light waves will not make it as deep as green light waves will in green water. This is why fish that live in inshore green waters have only/mostly cones (a type of light receptor in the eye) that respond only to green light waves. These fish have little or no ability to see blues and reds. Conversely, open ocean blue water species often have mostly/ only blue cones and few/no cones for green and reds. There are exceptions, including species that spend enough time near the surface or in the shallows.
That 30 foot depth for red light waves is only for perfect conditions at the equator in very clear water. As light hits the water at greater angles and as particulates in the water increase, depth penetration of light waves decrease. Also the amount and intensity of light waves will be steadily decreasing with depth, meaning that even in perfect conditions, nearly all of that red light is gone at 30 feet (a red object is going to appear gray with a slight red tint).
Most fish species that we target in saltwater do not have the ability to see UV light. This is because a) UV light is at the borderline of frequencies that can pass through water, so it needs perfect conditions to penetrate (no reason to waste eye real estate on UV receptors that won't be used ) and b) UV light is damaging to cells, so species that could be exposed to UV light frequently have a pigment in the eye (fluid?) to filter out UV. In the Pacific NW green inshore waters, UV light probably only makes it down a couple feet..
But UV vision does play a role more frequently with shallow clear water species.
As light waves of the various frequencies are being filtered out, objects with pigments that would reflect these colors appear grayer and eventually black, assuming that the eye had the ability to see that color in the first place, otherwise just grey to black (see the following on rod cells).
In addition to cone cells, the eyes also have rod cells that are much more sensitive, and fire off over a wider range of light frequencies (colors) somewhere within the green through violet range. The more compromised the visual environment, the greater the total number of rods and the ratio of rods to cones. These fish are more likely to see something than a human at depth, but the tradeoff is in visual acuity. Fish species that have cones for only one color are using the cones for sharpening the image when there is enough light, as opposed to trichromatic creatures with big brains (like humans) that are using three different types cones spread out in a wider matrix to obtain a richer and more complex image.
But getting back on topic:
With some exceptions, most of the species that we tend to target in saltwater don't see much in a range of colors, and don't have much in the way of visual acuity, but excel at making out profiles at distance when working with limited visibility. So a bit of difference in visibility of a nearly invisible thin straight line attached to some potential food is not such a big deal IMHO.
Or something like that... :). I am sure a proper physicist or marine biologist would cringe a bit at these descriptions, but hopefully I have captured the gist of it.
-J
Red igloo coolers counteract whatever impact any other coloration may have. The pruf is in the butting. ;D
I know I can see the fluoro when I'm reeling in a lure, just assumed it got less visible when deeper. But whatever the reason, like I said, it seems to work, as in, I catch more fish with it when in clear water conditions.
Thanks Dave for your explanation, Now I have to throw out my superstitious lucky 🍀 lure and get reel.🎣
I've already changed some of my thinking for the new year.
Butt the. Red cooler stays 🤦♀️
And to further obfuscate the discussion: Jurelometer was important to specify saltwater, I'm sure that light reacts totally differently with a different refractive index in fresh water. I do remember many nights on lakes in SW Missouri fishing for largemouth, where the de-rigueur routine for bass fishing the shallows at night was a black light mounted on the side of the boat (UV-A) and brightly colored yellow line that would literally glow in the light. The process being that as you were working a lure (usually a dark colored plastic) the key indicator was not what you felt, but to see the line "tick" when gently picked up by a largemouth (very few smashing hits in this type of fishing) and as it slowly moved to set the hook. totally different set of circumstances but all relevant to "how fish see vs. how we see". Thanks for all the good discussion. - john
Ooh, good point. When you reflood the garage, better to use saltwater. :)
-J
We only fish in saltwater here. Fluoro is more effective in getting the bite than regular mono, all other things being equal. It's easily demonstrated in side by side comparisons: Two guys fishing next to each other using same outfits, baits, hooks, and the exception being fluoro vs regular. The fluoro will get the strikes and the regular will not, consistently. Guess who was using the regular mono and got skunked. I even used much smaller line (60 regular vs 150 fluoro) and didn't get any strikes while the guy next to me got 4 strikes within the hour.
Thinking this experience was just a fluke, I've using regular mono and have just not been getting any strikes. I've switched back to fluoro but haven't had enough fishing time with it (only used it once recently for one set).
Where I usually go has a lot of fishing pressure so I suspect that has a lot to do with line visibility and bite. I need to keep better track of where the use of fluoro makes a difference and where it does not.