who cares what green or red looks like 10' down if someone has enough experience to know that a certain color bait gets better results on a certain lake at a certain time?

isn't actually catching fish more important than how they see a certain color?

_{Interesting discussion.}

I'd focus on location first before I try to refine my lure and color selection.

I'd start by targeting adjacent structures that offer some ambush points.  The fish using these are often more willing to play and usually are in shallower locations where its easier to get a lure in front of them.

 If the cisco are staging for a movement after dark... try targeting where they will be then rather than following the bait to deep water durly daylight.

 Once musky contacts are made... then I'd start refining your lure choice and color.  

Many years ago when I was a fishery bioligist I worked with Commercial Fisherman on the LOTWs using a Trawler to catch tullibees. We caught them by the ton! Here's a few things I remember about this. If we where in the middle of the big school of tullibees we hardly caught anything but tullibees. If we missed the big school and hit the edges of the school we would catch a good number of walleyes (some dandys), burbot, an occacional a northern pike. It seemed like the predators would skirt the edges, but wheren't in the middle of the school. Seen this many times.

Then here's some of what I've found on the LOTWs. It's really not necessary to have bait fish in the area, as the fish that have found the bait fish have fed. What I'm looking for are the fish that haven't fed and they usually aren't where the're lots of bait fish. Could well be different on smaller lakes with every fish in the lake at this area.

Doug Johnson

the scientific method approaches these problems by attempting to prove hypotheses false, not trying to prove them true. if someone figures out that fish are preferring an orange bait and they're catching lots of big fish on it without knowing whether the color was derived from red dye instead of yellow, i suggest they've proven false that this knowledge is necessary. that, and they were probably too busy casting to sit in the boat frozen with indecision because they don't have the dye lot numbers for their lure paint.

someone with a few big fish under his belt once said, "if it moves, it's food." i'd make a cast and get the bait moving. that probably provides some contrast against, well, everything.

you failed to understand...my hypothetical was that there's a correlation between catching fish and knowledge of how the color looks underwater. what that lure actually looks like wasn't a part of it at all - it was about whether or not knowing such is related to catching fish.

there is a world of difference between "i don't care" and "this doesn't matter." many things are interesting and true but have no application. and some things might have an application but they're so esoteric as to render them useless. you don't catch fish gazing into your navel.

I agree!!!

my point was that it's possible to get too caught up with interesting minutiae. you love that kind of stuff, so i'm betting you'll agree that it hooks you. i agree it's interesting, just not that everything interesting leads to catching more fish. it's the part of actually fishing that leads to catching more fish.

there are waaaaaaay too many variables at work to try and predict which particular color will work best at a later date. Lucas' "bright day - bright lure, dark day - dark lure" formula works much better because it simplifies all of that down into something easy to remember and easy to use. and in those Lindner's F+L+P=Success formula color is just one small part of the presentation considerations. you want contrast? hold the lure up to the sky and ask yourself if it stands out...and then "present" the #*^@ thing by making it MOVE.