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Posts: 8717
| Shawn, I can't answer your question but I've made a radical shift in my view on color, for several reasons:
1. Fish feed at night. I doubt that they can see what they're eating, but they manage to find it anyway
2. The depths we contact fish at often times are depths where most colors are filtered out and light penetration is minimal
3. Fish feed successfully in turbid water, heavy current, etc.
There was a study a while back where they studied feeding fish in various states of impairment - some had the lateral line disabled and fed by sight only, some had their sight disabled and fed by lateral line only. I can't remember where I read the study, but if I remember correctly the lateral line was far more important to successful feeding than vision was.
I still tend to stick to natural colors in clear water, because I still believe it gives you a slight advantage, but much of the time in dark/stained/muddy/etc water, I will choose colors that enable ME to see the lure more clearly. I know the fish can find it. This is why I laugh a bit at some of the color patterns out there -- amazing for us to look at, works of art. But I believe much of the time the fish has already committed to eating that lure because of what it is doing LONG before it gets close enough to take a good look. Then I think about some of the things fish eat, things that look nothing at ALL like their normal prey. If a fish is going to eat a big bucktail with red and orange feathers and big metal blades, not even shaped like a fish, might it be more about what that lure is doing to the lateral line of the fish?
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