Are Fish Color Blind ?

[Tony Buzolich]

Now don't just go blowing this off. My wife asked me if fish could see colors or are they like deer and only see in shades of light and dark and gray. I know it has something to do with the cones and rods in their eyes and certain animals only see light and dark, but, do fish?

Someone out there (maybe Ralph) might give us a good scientific answer. I'm tying tons of baitfish patterns for stripers,(some with some real goofy color combinations) that are not at all like anything natural but they all seem to work at certain times. Dark colors on dark days or at night, and lighter colors at midday or bright light. So, what do you think?
TONY

[Larry S]

Posted this sometime ago. Max Garth knows his stuff.

http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/whatsalmonidssee.shtml and

http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/colourinthefisheseye.shtml

Best,
Larry S

[Ralph]

Yes, trout see colors (all the ones we do, plus a bit into either end of the spectrum that are invisible to us) but probably perceive them far differently than we do. Even between one human and the next, our perception of a specific color will be slightly different.

I disagree with several of the statements made in the Sexy Loops article. One is "the lower the order of animal, the lower the order of its vision". Baloney. Wild turkeys and raptors can see many times better than humans. A mantis shrimp can see 18 kinds of polarized light. In terms of mammals, we're only about middle of the road.

Another statement that has been blown out of the water is that humans see 14 times better than a trout. It has been pretty conclusively proven that humans and trout have about the same visual resolving power (that's not say the brain interprets the image the same).

[Darian]

I haven't read all of Max's stuff but have read some of his statements on another BB. It seems to me that one the points he tries to make is that light penetration in water is diffused as the depth increases until it's essentially eliminated. Therefore, as depth increases, colors are washed out into shades of light and dark. Now, it has been shown that the color that remains visible to the greatest depth is blue. :-|

So, on that principle, Fish probably do see colors (as Ralph suggests) but flies/lures fished at depth are probably perceived as non-colored even though seen quite well. :-|

Now, please don't ask me to tell anyone how deep each color ceases to be discernible at.... :lol:

[Fats]

My rule of thumb is that if the critter uses color as part of a mating behavior... they can perceive colors. You can get all scientific if you want, but for most it is lost on them.

[Ralph]

Lake Davis just below surface and same flies, same spot, at 20 feet. This was on a day when you would swear the water is clear when looking down from your boat, yet underwater visibility was less than 8 feet.

I added fluorescent dye (Veniards) to the orange so the color shift was stabilized. The same orange without fluorescence looks mud brown at this depth. In this visibility, the flash of the cone heads would cut through 20 feet of water when the fly itself is invisible.

[Larry S]

Ralph:
Neat stuff. Thank you. I think I have fished with the far right-hand fly in the 2nd
picture. Always wondered why no strikes.
Best,
Larry S

[oldtrout]

Reed Curry wrote something on the subject: http://overmywaders.com/index.php


Reed's book, <u>The New Scientific Angling - Trout and Ultraviolet Vision</u> has caused some controversy. I have the book, but have yet to read it, so I cannot speak. Currently reading <u>Inventing Montana</u>...

[Tony Buzolich]

Great pictures and reading Ralph. So, would you say contast along with movement would be the best attention getters? Fishing stripers with fast sinking lines gets the fly down but I'd like to add as much attention getter to the fly that I can. I know I could appeal to their other senses of sound and smell by adding rattles or a little Pro-Cure to the fly but I'd like to stay with the basics.
TONY

[Ralph]

I'd say THE RIGHT AMOUNT of contrast and movement, plus flash. The right amount of those three components is up to you and the fish. Of course you could add size, shape and silhouette to make this a 3-D game, which it is. Throw in some luck (or bad luck) and you have fly fishing.

[k9mark]

In Bernie Taylors book; "Big Trout, How and where to catch them", There is and excellent section covering how trout see, colors, etc. Depth and water clarity has a lot to do with color as Ralph showed in his photos along with time of day. There is not enough room here to discuss in depth what Taylor wrote, but I would strongly recommend, it's a good read.

[Darian]

Excerpted from Ralphs post:

"In this visibility, the flash of the cone heads would cut through 20 feet of water when the fly itself is invisible."

Pretty much says it all for me.... :nod:

[ycflyfisher]

I would tend to agree with Larry that Max seems to know what he's talking about. I've read Kageyama's book: What Fish See. It's chock full of images of various lures and materials at different depths under different light and water conditions.

Kageyama really seems to blindly leap to the conclusion that if fish can see something better at depth that alone by default, makes them more likely to eat it. I'm really not buying that. Max wasn't either, and wrote a pretty scathing review of the book at Amazon. I think Borger better explains the color shift phenomenon than Kageyama does.

I did think what Kageyama attempted to do was interesting and it was interesting to see how various materials of highly visible, nearly glow in the dark colors, 'shifted' to blandness or winked out of existence like in Ralph's pic in as little as 8' of water in a crystal clear swimming pool on a bright day.

The issue I really had with his book is his overriding notion that fish are more likely to eat something simply because they can spot it like a beacon from further away. I'm really not seeing it likely that a fish that is actively feeding on prey items at depth that it can under the conditions only spot from 5-10 feet away, being somehow more inclined to confuse something it spots at 2+ times that distance as potential prey. Fish, particularly salmonids are instinctive no doubt, but in this case, I'm seeing 'more visible' as not being an instinctive trigger that gets a grab in most cases.

If you look at a fresh from the salt salmonid under non-turbid water conditions, the dark steel blue back, silver laterals and pearlescent under belly seems a near perfect camo adaptation against larger predators in the deep blue salt. I'm guessing most prey has similar utilize similar adaptations that make them harder for most predators to spot.

I think it would be more telling to see what various bait fish and inverts look like at depth under different lighting and water conditions than the various spinner components and other materials that Kageyama shows us. I'm betting that most get less visible at depth under color shift rather than standing out like a long distance homing beacon that Kageyama insists is more effective. Just my take. Don't know if it's justifiable.

[Darian]

Interesting thought. I guess we've all seen baitfish (non-spawning) in clear water. They all seem to have the dark back, silvery sides and pearly under-belly.... The main features I think I've seen are the appearance of translucency and flash from reflected light. Of course, not all baitfish are minnow shaped and colored. Some are darker with opaque camo matching the bottom where they live (e.g. Sculpin, etc.) providing a silhouette in clear or turbid waters.

With a few exceptions, flies used successfully in Baja (Sea of Cortez) seem to incorporate certain colors (depending on the species sought), a small amount of blended flash and are not overly bulky/long unless fishing for Billfish.

As for seeing flies/lures at distance, my own experience has been that a fly dropped anywhere within 20' of cruising Roosters or Dorado will cause an immediate reaction turn towards the fly/lure to figure out if it's edible (at least that's what I think they're doing). They track, close and if interested take. Now, this was in the surface zone (0 to 10' depth) without a lot of chum in the water. Different game when chumming 'em up. Having said all that, I've scared off enough salt water predators by making a bad or poorly timed cast "en la playa".

At depths deeper than 10', I still get strikes using sparsely dressed flies with minimal flash but darker, contrasting colors (e.g. black/white or all black).

Hmmm,.... Where was I going with this???.... Oh yeah. I believe that silhouette, action and a reasonable amount of blended flash is important in constructing flies/lures to be fished at depth or in turbid waters.

[FlyReelFisher]

My father was "color confused," which is different than color blind. He didnt see the wrong color so much, as he lost color differentiation when color changes happened close together, as in: small changes of brown, red, and green he would see as just brown. But individually,in big pieces, he saw each color fine.

I found it interesting that he always seemed to spot camoflauged animals with ease. He told me they actually stood out against the background to him. Wierd.