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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | I know that fishing at night and what is the best color lures to use has been beat to death,.. but my question is: Do muskies see color at night ? do muskies care what color lure your using at night ?
Or is it just a lateral line/vibration/noise thing ? Personally, I don't think color matters at night....right or wrong ?
Jerome |
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | They do not. The fish's eye transfers from cone vision (see color) to rod vision (see extremely well in very low light in black and white) on a 'clock' basis every evening, and back to cones every morning.
There is very little color available at night anyway, unless the moon is kick butt full, and in that case, you can see color but Muskies cannot. |
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Posts: 2275
Location: Chisholm, MN | I agree, it probably doesn't make much of a difference. But Steve, can a muskie see the difference between a black or white lure under the darkest conditions in your opinion? |
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Since at night for the most part muskies are using rod vision which provides highly sensitive low/almost no no light, they see contrast quite well. White against black, yes, black against anything yes. There is no true black under water, so balck contrasts with most anything. |
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Posts: 1660
Location: central Wisconsin | My two best night baits are both shallow jointed cranks. One white/black and one black/silver. |
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| http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/204/6/1207
heres a study to read if bored.
Edited by mnmusky 2/1/2015 1:57 PM
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Posts: 79
| Starting next year all boat guests will be required to use only black lures after dark....................while I get to choose the colored ones for myself. |
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Is what it is. Muskies do not see color after dark. Contrast...yes! So patterns and whether a lure is 'dark' or 'light' under low light have a definite effect. The question was whether Muskies could see color after dark.
I offer a seminar I do for clubs/shows that displays what happens to color under very low light. The idea is to take the 'light' lures and 'dark lures' you own, once identified (no way you can tell in daylight), and keep the categorized for use in low light and at night. |
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Posts: 79
| I do agree that. One time I caught a fish in the middle of the night on a new moon that was quite healthy and fat. It's eyes were heavily damaged and I am pretty certain it was blind. Lateral line worked well for that fish. |
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Posts: 13
| Muskies are lateral line hunters color means nothing but the silhouette certain colors make in certain water color in certain lights conditions is what matters. I think that they only use their eyes in the last 5 feet of coming in for a kill and probably makes them miss more often than not. In my experience muskies are much more accurate after dark than during day light especially with top waters. This is because they're relying on their lateral line and seeing the bait at the last second doesn't throw them off or spook them like it can during the day. Color catches fisherman not fish but whatever. You as the angler is confident in can mean a lot. I always start with bright day bright lure. After dark or over cast dark lure. Also don't rule out how well a black lure stands out in extremely dark coffee with cream colored water. As far as after dark goes it all depends on the moon phase, how much light it is emitting and what angle its relative to the spot you are on. Bright moon metallic blades or prism on a bait can be the ticket and a dark moon I've always done the best with painted blades or flat colored baits. Also for me after dark the bigger the better. Much easier for fish to feel a big bait from farther away than a small one. |
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Why bright day bright lure? Conversely, why dark day, dark lure? First to use that terminology was Jason Lucas way back over six decades ago, and he was dead on correct.
Believe me, the muskies are seeing the lure after dark just fine. The rod vision a fish's eyes go to each evening is extremely sensitive to tiny amounts of light. Some fresh water fish are day/night feeders, and some are not, but is seems that has little to do with how well they see at night. |
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Location: Minnesota. | Interesting topic for sure and one that I'd wondered about rather than just "We've always done it that way" thought process.
Good to hear/know some are informed other than simply "I've heard". I've always thought a predator attacks using contrast too but I'll be making notes on this read for my refs.
Believe it or not some things actually get jotted down in a boat-log now and then 'cause I know I'm smart enough to forget when I need to refer back!! Great topic. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | color/contrast whatever.. I have put in lots of hours at night and have seen some nights color matters.... those that don't fish much at night won't agree, but then again they don't fish or catch much at night for me to care what they think...  |
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Posts: 284
Location: Eagan, MN | Brad, do you have any general 'rules of thumb' with re. to color at night? Do you default a certain way under bright moonlit nights vs. dark moonless or cloudy night? For me, the most effective night colors have changed over the years. Or, maybe I've just changed them. ha
Brian |
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Location: Contrarian Island | I start with bright night, bright lure...dark night, dark lure, and go from there... I have seen this tho... 2 or 3 boats on the same lake... our boat was getting ZERO action, another boat had some good action and texted us chartreuse blades/chart skirt... we switched and bingo, we got action, now did the window just open and that was it.. no I don't believe so... i do think sound/vibration of certain lures at night also plays a huge roll in getting bites... take 10 bucktails for example and one of the 10 will have the trigger they want that night.. just like during the day I guess...I think musky fishermen care more about the dark than the fish do..that is for sure |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Not unlike others who've responded, much of my fishing time has been after dark, over the past couple decades. I have my own ideas, which is the beauty of this sport, as 'don't we all'.
I would never argue with the science behind what/when a fish can best see, which colors are most 'visible' or silhouette the best, or which noise is 'loudest'. I've come to rely on my own experiences for the when/where/what, which just as often differ as they do adhere to the rules I was once taught. While depth plays a key role in my choices of night lures/colors, fishing extremely dark/dingy water to gin bottles have shown me color nuances repeated enough to warrant adherance. To say that what a fish cannot see, at least at first, can be as or more important than what they can, could minimilize my BST. To simplify, things that happen/ed more than a few times, help/ed develop confidence 'sets' of lures to compliment conditions. While certain lakes/lures seem to remain somewhat static, others, particularily 'new' waters, have really evolved in terms of what these confidence 'sets' are. Once these sets are determined and manifest repeatability, that's when hat sizes get too small and rules are rewritten....hehehe...
Edited by Reef Hawg 2/3/2015 6:12 PM
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | Reef Hawg - 2/3/2015 5:53 PM
Not unlike others who've responded, much of my fishing time has been after dark, over the past couple decades. I have my own ideas, which is the beauty of this sport, as 'don't we all'.
I would never argue with the science behind what/when a fish can best see, which colors are most 'visible' or silhouette the best, or which noise is 'loudest'. I've come to rely on my own experiences for the when/where/what, which just as often differ as they do adhere to the rules I was once taught. While depth plays a key role in my choices of night lures/colors, fishing extremely dark/dingy water to gin bottles have shown me color nuances repeated enough to warrant adherance. To say that what a fish cannot see, at least at first, can be as or more important than what they can, could minimilize my BST. To simplify, things that happen/ed more than a few times, help/ed develop confidence 'sets' of lures to compliment conditions. While certain lakes/lures seem to remain somewhat static, others, particularily 'new' waters, have really evolved in terms of what these confidence 'sets' are. Once these sets are determined and manifest repeatability, that's when hat sizes get too small and rules are rewritten....hehehe...
Well said! |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Reef Hawg - 2/3/2015 5:53 PM
Not unlike others who've responded, much of my fishing time has been after dark, over the past couple decades. I have my own ideas, which is the beauty of this sport, as 'don't we all'.
I would never argue with the science behind what/when a fish can best see, which colors are most 'visible' or silhouette the best, or which noise is 'loudest'. I've come to rely on my own experiences for the when/where/what, which just as often differ as they do adhere to the rules I was once taught. While depth plays a key role in my choices of night lures/colors, fishing extremely dark/dingy water to gin bottles have shown me color nuances repeated enough to warrant adherence. To say that what a fish cannot see, at least at first, can be as or more important than what they can, could minimize my BST. To simplify, things that happen/ed more than a few times, help/ed develop confidence 'sets' of lures to compliment conditions. While certain lakes/lures seem to remain somewhat static, others, particularly 'new' waters, have really evolved in terms of what these confidence 'sets' are. Once these sets are determined and manifest repeatability, that's when hat sizes get too small and rules are rewritten....hehehe...
It's fact Muskies can't 'see' colors after a 'clock' driven period of time in the evening to black and white, and the return to color as cone vision takes over. There are hundreds of variables with color anyway (it's paint. How did the paint company or builder make that color?), so saying 'go chartreuse' may mean 'go light blue' or 'go light yellow', which at night really means 'go off white'.
If you can nail down the shade that is eliciting the strike response as a portion of the lure's footprint to an actual shade of off white and use that bait, that's money. Even if YOU can see color at night due to moonlight, the fish is, in the end, looking up at your lure and sees a silhouette until the final attack, at which time the fish has already committed, and can't see what you are seeing due to rod vision taking over.
Perhaps sometimes the fish are turning on, one boat has yet to contact the fish, a text is sent to change lures, the change is made, and 'magic' happens attributed solely to the lure 'color'. Sometimes is is, sometimes it isn't, but no matter what, it's not color, it's shades from black to white.
Variables. Hundreds of 'em.
The way to crosscheck what the lure looks like to a creature seeing only shades of black to white is to take your similarly colored lures, and place them in very low light. Line 'em up from darker to lighter. If one is significantly darker than the others, place that one aside and you'll probably find it will end up in the middle between dark and light. Try that with your confidence sets, and see if it makes sense that it's the color.
Look at the pattern critically as well, it's obvious patterns make a difference sometimes for some unknown reason. It's possible that could be a key element on any one given body of water on any one night, and as important as contrast or lack thereof.
What if it's dark enough to make vision completely secondary to lateral line and hearing? How do we know if and when that happens? Loudest may not mean best...turn the lights off tonight and walk through a very dark room or two. Your sensory perceptions sharpen on the hearing end some, I'd wager. Fish have to adapt/react to changing conditions far more than we care to think about.
Sort of like looking at cars in a darkish parking lot. There are no beautiful colors, just shades of light to dark. And that's with you being able to SEE colors if they are available.
SO.... perhaps 'color' is the wrong term to bandy about in the first place.
As a sort of interesting parallel to the logic involved, think Whitetails and what they can see and react to, what scares them might attract a muskie. There's some support for that BST....
PS:
start with bright night, bright lure...dark night, dark lure, and go from there.
That's a good standard anytime of the day or night, and the first time I read that comment in print was a book by Bass writer Jason Lucas from the late 1930's, I think.. Fish most times are looking up, and in that era, most artificial lures ran in the upper half of the water column. Ahead of his time, he was. |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Great discussion. The science of it all often supports choices, even if not as intended by the fishing peers of my youth that I'm so thankful for having having read(Fishing Facts ruled). Not to give away all of my BST(or is it just BS?...), I'm right onboard with the choices often coming down to shades vs color. Heck, one of my favorite colors sometimes happens to be an off white or what I'd call 'cream'. The whole daily vision transition thing reminds me of a certain fisheries proff in college who had us don the 'fish eyes', a cheesy pair of goggles meant to simulate dusk to dark vision in certain fishes(highly doubt they still do that as it was pretty low budg). I never did try them at the tavern to test their true effectiveness.
Back to the creamy dark(yummy beer by the way). I enjoy the times when hunting/musky/ice fishing, that it is what(I perceive)they cannot see as well, that can elicit further inspection. One of my 'sets' includes lures known by acedemia to be quiet and less visible in true dark conditions, especially in very dark water.. -Enter tangent- Harkens to the whole clear zara Spook thing that got me interested in this aspect of fishing, when I was a kid more amused by a 12" smallie, than a Jim Gantner rookie card. Not to anthropomorphize, but I believe at times an animal can be made to get too close to ignore something(not saying strike), and sometimes they just need to get closer to 'see' what it is(another tangent but I love it when a deer, already spooked or very alert, will walk right over to me to confirm I'm a dude sitting on a stump). When on those long trips to my parents place on Pioneer Lake in Vilas, as a wee lad, I had days when fish would fly up from out of the weeds from 4-5' down and blow the pee out of the black, bright or painted spook, all but eating the lure in the fury. Of course they'd often get it in their mouth on the second or third try. It was sometimes those over aggressive fish that I enjoyed mr. miaggi-ing into slowing down, walking up, and eating the stupid clear spook.
But who cares about aggressive fish, or the ones doing what they're supposed to, making us look smart. Along with most of you I'm sure, I started to realize that certain lures in the same size/displacement class as high visibility/high footprint/high 'noise' can, at times, elicit a curiosity(there I go again?) that if leads them far enough from comfort can be dangerous.
I really like your comments about patterns. It is amazing how a 'perchy' or 'barred' presentation can seemingly elicit looks after dark(bars typically of a darker shade than the surrounding lure pattern), when there are definate nods to the frogs, tigers and eddie vanhalens of the lure world elsewhere..
I'm getting off track, but it has been alot of fun to buy into my own BS about something and not have my wife holler at me about it. In fact, when she night fishes with me(which is next to nill anymore...), she actually asks what I think she should use, instead of telling me to go with the argyle tie because it doesn't clash with my cordorouys and her hand-bag.
Edited by Reef Hawg 2/4/2015 6:24 PM
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Posts: 9
| MNMusky - great article - any other recommendations from your personal library that might improve our hunting capabilities? |
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Posts: 241
| I’ve talked to fisheries biologists about this and have been told that there is no supporting evidence that muskies can determine color. Most agree that colors allow a fish to detect CONTRAST.
Even if a muskie could see color – so what?
I have never come across anything that says color alone determines whether or not a muskie will hit a lure.
All the hoopla about color is just that – hoopla
I use dark baits in dark conditions, water or sky. Light lures in light conditions, water or sky. Beyond that, I don’t think color is important.
The size of the bait is more important than color. The depth of the bait and the speed of the bait are more important than color. Where and how you present the bait is more important that color.
What is important to a muskie
Size of the bait
Speed of the bait
Depth of the bait
Presentation
Then color. Maybe.
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | No one will know exactly what a Muskie sees until we ask.... and get an answer.
The structure of the Muskie's eye (rod and cone vision cells) supports the generally accepted scientific stance that they see color just fine, but the final test is what reaches the brain and at this point that hasn't been studied and I'm pretty sure any conclusions would be conjecture on that front.
Behavioral studies also support that standard in Esocids. There's compelling evidence they also may be able to see in the UV range (aligning triangular cellular structures that resemble those in critters that have been proven to see in that spectrum).
The real issue is how much color is available at any one time in the water column. The longer bandwidths are broken down and absorbed pretty quickly, so the color you see in the boat is not what you would see if you were looking at the lure down 10' at 10AM on a sunny day in July. |
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Posts: 241
| All good information. Still, so what? Why yellow and not purple, why black and not red.
In my opinion, color doesn't matter.
In many opinions, judging by all the lures hanging from the racks at the shows, color does matter.
Mepps did a great study of color in various water conditions.
Steve - I'll ask the next muskie I catch and see what they say. 
Backdraft. |
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Posts: 32786
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | You are closer to correct, according to the majority of scientists who seem care about this, than you know. |
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| I like the cool paint jobs, but I'm not fooling myself into thinking that muskies are eating a perch pattern because it looks like a perch. What light refraction, sky color, and water color do to a perch colored lure compared to an actual perch is probably a lot different. The colors you see on real fish are evolution making them LESS apt to be seen and eaten, both from above and beneath. It's fun to "match the hatch" so you can tell yourself the fish ate that lure because it looks just like what they normally eat. But it likely doesn't. Nor does it behave like their prey, sound like their prey, or react like their prey does when they chase it.
Some days, though, color seems to matter. Witnessed by many, understood by few if any.
I'd venture to say that contrast is the key, not because it looks like anything in particular, but because it's easier to see. In low-light conditions, I suspect that a lot of fish just plain miss and we never know they were there. |
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Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | The funny thing about nite fishing is certain colors will out produce other colors under certain conditions. Only way to prove that is to see what the repeatability is. I have found a few color patterns that are way more productive than others. I have tested multiple lures with similar color patterns with good results. Paint is a funny thing to try and match up. It's all different and very hard to get the same patters with the exact shades.
Remember color is just shades for the most part. But color has a place after dark. Not a huge place but it does make a difference under certain circumstances. You just have to understand how fish see it. One of my best night colors could sit at the muskie show and not be purchased by 95% of the buyers. It's not an eye catcher......just a fish catcher.
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Posts: 8717
| I tried this a while back with 4 barred DDD's of different color:
1. Against a black background in various light conditions up to near darkness
2. Against a white background
3. Held up against the sky on a dark night
4. Held up against the sky on a bright night
What surprised me the most is that the lures that stand out the most outside against a dark sky are NOT the ones you would expect to be the most visible. Now, I get that I am looking at them with human eyes and there's no water involved. But it's safe to say that what you see when you're standing there looking at a lure thinking it's highly visible is NOT what the fish see, especially at night. |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | Good discussion,... But.... I haven't noticed an "ongoing Pattern" of Color during my Night fishing exploits.
Maybe a darker color pattern, but not sure. One night a lighter/brighter color but most nights a darker color. WTH !
I think Sworrall makes a lot of sense. |
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Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | Ok, I like this topic because I have been working hard to try and pattern colors at night under different conditions. I have a few baits and colors that are now my "go to" baits under certain conditions.
One other thing that I will share with others is my belief in color/shades at night. Go dark when fishing high in the water column and bright when fishing deep in the water column at night. Black on top and white on the bottom. That would be the genetic answer but you get my point.
Now I am not saying color is important at night. More a contrast like dark or light. I am just geyting into the stripped or light and dark on baits. Lots to think about but some does make a difference at night. To what extent I do not know. I will ask the next 50 muskies I catch ay night. Maybe one will talk to me. |
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| esoxaddict - 2/9/2015 7:52 PM
I tried this a while back with 4 barred DDD's of different color:
1. Against a black background in various light conditions up to near darkness
2. Against a white background
3. Held up against the sky on a dark night
4. Held up against the sky on a bright night
What surprised me the most is that the lures that stand out the most outside against a dark sky are NOT the ones you would expect to be the most visible. Now, I get that I am looking at them with human eyes and there's no water involved. But it's safe to say that what you see when you're standing there looking at a lure thinking it's highly visible is NOT what the fish see, especially at night.
Curious - what were the results? What was most surprising? |
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