what fish see

scrubs

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Jul 4, 2014
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Just received the "What Fish See" from a used book shop on Amazon. A buck or two plus $3.99 shipping. Can't beat that. I've only read about 20 pages but it looks like it will change a lot of my trout lure ideas on color selection.

Anybody read and used it? I saw it in a couple of threads but not much plus or minus.

bill
 

Pup

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This book was recommended to me by an instructor at a local fly shop.

As a part-time bass fisherman of rivers, I put some stock into what he mentions about black and red colors and visibility. These are stock colors or combinations for the river I fish when visibility through the water column isn't so good.

Much of the book seems geared to trout. That's a good thing for where you live. ;)
 

scrubs

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Yeah it's mostly Steelhead but hopefully I'll get some stocker Rainbow info out of it.

I used to love fishing for river Smallies when I lived in SE Wisconsin. Great fish!

bill
 

Bucho

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Its a book I wish my fly tying material dealer would have read :) Just received anoter batch of "fluo"-yellow marabou that fades to grey under blacklight. :dodgy:

As I recall it the focus is on water depth rather than stain, but in my opinion it holds some very useful basic information on lure color design. I still meet a lot of people that argue stuff like "who knows if fish can even see uv light" etc.
 

Shoemoo

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I checked this book out at the library awhile back. While it has some good information on light penetration and the way light appears underwater, I would take the parts on how fish perceive color with a very hefty grain of salt.

You have to remember that fish are a very diverse group of animals. What goes for one group doesn't necessarily mean all animals in the same class see the same way. Take mammals, for example. Most mammals can only see a very limited range of colors compared to humans. Old world primates are generally considered to have color vision similar to humans, but new world primates have vision similar to other mammals except in a few species where only the females have color vision similar to ours. Some mammals that lack our range of color vision can see ultraviolet light that is hidden to us.

Trout can also see reflected UV light, which is different than UV fluorescence. Blacklights do not show reflected UV, only fluorescence. It's possible for a material to reflect UV and not fluoresce. For example human skin is not UV fluorescent, but here's a UV reflective photo of someone's face:

300px-UV_Portrait.jpg


The only way humans can see reflected UV light is with sophisticated camera filters, and even then it's no guarantee fish see the same results.
 

scrubs

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Jul 4, 2014
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Interesting take on the book's ideas. I would think that a large part of what a fish senses with spinners in off color water would be vibration in addition to visual clues.

bill
 
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