RED or DEAD

Red tags to attract predators to a dead bait. Red line because it is said to be invisible to fish. So what is it to be? I am interested to know. I am sure this subject has been discussed before,however is there a new conclusion?

think the red line being invisible is a load of rubbish where is the evidence?

Red wool on spinners has never done me any harm for perch.

Never bothered with the bait tags on deadbaits, cant see them making any difference to catch rates

A couple of years ago I would have very sceptical about using coloured add-ons for pike baits, but since then using the Fox red ‘poppers’ has out-fished using balsa inserts 5 to 1. I have a couple of mates who swear by the tags, if you need to use a tag it might as well be red.

Red can’t be invisible to fish under water, indeed I seem to remember reading that in relatively shallow water that Red is the most visible colour.

Red maggots, red boilies red groundbait etc. if it was invisible none of these would work as well as supposedly ‘visible’ colours.

stu_the_blank said:

A couple of years ago I would have very sceptical about using coloured add-ons for pike baits, but since then using the Fox red ‘poppers’ has out-fished using balsa inserts 5 to 1. I have a couple of mates who swear by the tags, if you need to use a tag it might as well be red.

Red can’t be invisible to fish under water, indeed I seem to remember reading that in relatively shallow water that Red is the most visible colour.

Red maggots, red boilies red groundbait etc. if it was invisible none of these would work as well as supposedly ‘visible’ colours.

Click to expand...

Exactly. So why was it suggested that red was invisible in the first place, was Jan Porters old choice of attire the new cammo.?

The Physics of Diving: Light and Vision

If you really want to know you'll read it.

I liked the bit about visibility decreasing in murky water. Don,t we just love scientific surveys. Thanks for your link, however that does not take into account the perspective of a fish.
and would Jan Porter wearing his 1980's match kit have been invisible? ten metres under.

A very interesting piece that Waggy! Not just about colours either, the old red lens or for us, using red lights at night to maintain our "darkadapt".

Have to go along with Bleak a little though, what about fish? Can they see more of the ultra violet spectrum?

Saying all of that, I don't use tags but I am using red hook covers and red line for lure fishing and even Bleadin' Trace wire for traces. Do they disapppear? The line manufacturer says it does, but the trace manufacturer says fish see it as a line of blood. I'm not sure either way not, but using it isn't spoiling my catch rate, I don't think, or is it?

We've done this before! The psuedo scientific claptrap about red line disappearing is absolute cobblers. It will appear grey or black depending on the density of the colour and the refractive index (another load of claptrap here as well!) originally.

For most of our fishing red objects will appear, well, red. Using red or orange pop ups does seem to work well to attract unpressured pike - once they've been caught a few times it's another story!

Bleak, fish can see without a divers mask. It would easily be able to see a red Jan sitting on the bank.

The reason why tackle say it becomes invisible is because as it says in the article the longer wavelengths of light get absorbed quicker in water. For humans the normal visible colours are the colours of the rainbow with red having the longest wavelength and violet having the shortest.

This means that in clear water the further you go down the less light there is but there is proportionately less red light sooner than violet. The line has not become invisible or colourless instead it would look black to a diver with a mask or a fish.

Most leaves of terestrial plants are green, this is because the green light is reflected and all the other wavelengths can be absorbed and that energy is harnessed by the plant. ROYGBIV. The colours of the rainbow. You will notice that green is in the middle, that allows the plant to be able to absorb as much energy as possible under lots of different light conditions. If you live near a part of the coast with a large tide at low tide you will notice that a lot of the plants will be red. This is because they reflect the red light that won't reach them any way but are able to absorb the green light (and blue etc.) that will travel further through the water.

Jeff, some species of fish can see ultra violet. I can't remember off the top of my head which ones. It would be simple enough to design experiments to find out but it would take a bit of effort to do it in free (or as we call it "fishing time") time. I'll try and look up some articles over the next ten days and come up with something better.

One thing in the article that Waggy put up was the fact that murky water or water with plankton sometimes reverses which wavelngths permeate furthest. I have my favourite lure colours in different conditions but this might give me something more tangible to work with rather than I have a liking for this or that, especially when my fishing buddy has the exact opposite feeling.

This is very simple...

Why if they can't see red, would perch, roach and rudd fins have evolved to be red?

Why would some fish turn red when attracting a mate if fish can't see red?

I have no idea if every fish can see red but from the above you can deduce that some can.

Pacific Northwest - A rhapsody in red | X-Ray International Dive Magazine

Have a butchers at 'Properties', etc. It's easy to see how pseudo-science is used to sell line, etc.