Carp Baits – Just How important is Colour?

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: Carp Baits – Just How important is Colour?

How important is colour could be as simple as how clear is the water, if you cannot see it an inch under the surface then its a good bet the fish cannot either.

Also we are told that the colour Red is not visible 3 foot under the water so how come most of the visible baits are made in colours from the red end of the visible spectrum.

I still suspect that the vast majority of bate is taken because the fish stumbled across it and has nothing to do with Flavour, colour or attractants. :wh

The bait makers would obviously have none of that argument would they.

As it happens though my most successful baits by far are white Maggots and 6mm to 8mm Orange Boilies, but I do fish on some really murky waters so I am sure they don't see them before hoovering them up.

Paul

As the colour red is very visible underwater, (it's just the first colour in the spectrum to loose it's original colour and first become grey then a black/brown shade) I would assume that fish relate to the shade it appears to them. I believe that fish can see all the colours that we see and may well be able to see the ends of the spectrum that we do not, ultra violet and infra red.
Jerry
PS When grayling trotting I wouldn't want to be without red maggots.

paul80 said:

Also we are told that the colour Red is not visible 3 foot under the water so how come most of the visible baits are made in colours from the red end of the visible spectrum.

Click to expand...

It's a red herring, leading to the thought that red is somehow invisible under water. It isn't. You won't see red as we recognise it, it just appears to be black (or close to, depending on the depth). But that's to humans, if fish are anything like many other animals, they may not see the colour spectrum as we do anyway.

In the twenty odd years that I did little else 69/92 colour of the bait was very low on the list never found it to be that important. Mainly used to disguise what you were using from prying eyes . but I did very little in the way of sight fishing as is the case today, where it could be an advantage. I have used highly coloured dead baits for pike in clear water and had some very good results with popped up baits. I have been able to see them myself at twenty yards.

I once tried defferent colour Maggots,the so called party blend type,some very bright colours and dark just to see what the carp was taking a likeing to,i first tried the dark coloured ones that being Blue,Green,Purple and the results was not that good just the odd take in the margin with them but when i switched to the bright colours Red,Pink,Yellow and White the results was defferent,i had loads of takes off these and the best colour i found was the fluro Orange,i had my best catches on those colours and the brighter the better i found.

This was done on a local com water to me that is very coloured in fact you can not see your hand more than a foot below the surface yet these colours was catching now if colours don't play a big part in fishing for carp i find it strange that these worked so well,it is as though the carp can see these bright colours but not so much the dark in such water conditions,i find it very strange that some think that red goes invisable underwater when in fact all it does is change colour to Grey and so on because of the lack of ultra violet rays,could it be that it is the opposite to this that infact it is the dark colours that dissapear in such waters and the fish can not see them so well?..like i said i carried out a short trial with these maggots and i was shocked by the results and there is no doubt in my mind that fish/carp can indeed see bright colours in cloudy waters and in my opinion it is through the colour change that happens that the fish come to accecpt has feed/food.


STAN.