UV baits are the rage for salmonoids the past decade.  Its now creeping into the bass market.  It DOES make a difference with deep water, and I'm talking really deep, and salmonoids.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, you'll see guys pimping stuff and hype.

Unless your fishing gin clear water, sight is not usually the dominant sense a bass relies on before hitting your lure. A bass will feel & hear the lure long before it sees it many times. Once the lure gets within sight then yes, color can sometimes be the difference in a bass striking or not striking but most of the time it's not the deal breaker.

I strongly disagree.  Sound and sight is the 1st thing a bass uses to detect prey.  The lateral line picks up the water pressure waves at the last few moments before the bait is engulfed. 

Unless your fishing gin clear water, sight is not usually the dominant sense a bass relies on before hitting your lure. A bass will feel & hear the lure long before it sees it many times. Once the lure gets within sight then yes, color can sometimes be the difference in a bass striking or not striking but most of the time it's not the deal breaker.

I strongly disagree. Sound and sight is the 1st thing a bass uses to detect prey. The lateral line picks up the water pressure waves at the last few moments before the bait is engulfed.

I can certainly agree with the sound part of it but many of the lakes I fish down here have next to no visibility and color plays next to no part of the fish striking.  I can change lures and colors every 5 min and still catch fish, which leads me to believe that in those lakes sight takes a back seat to sound & feel.  Now I do believe that in lakes that are clear that sight is the dominant sense.  My argument isn't on which sense is dominant but rather I think many times people put too much emphasis on what color will catch fish.

Hey Getfished, I'm just curious as to where you got that info on bass seeing ultraviolet? I've read about trout or the salmonoid species, like Francho mentions, being able to see this spectrum and agree with you in that we as people can't see it, but I have not heard of bass being able to see it. I'm not disagreeing with you, but everything I've read and googled has not supported this.

I read that bass see the same color spectrum as we do and have also read that they see a limited spectrum. I tend to believe the latter. I personally don't put a ton of stock into color per se, I look at what is visible at certain depths I'm fishing in. That might be the best strategy, but it seems to work for me.

from my personal experience i will say that i think its more of having a bait the fish can see well than trying to "match the hatch" with color. i've never seen a pink worm (or any worm for that matter) at any of my lakes.

that being said, there have been days where changing a slight color of the same bait (even a few strands of a jig skirt) can mean the difference between catching 3 or catching 30 fish. this has been very rare and only discovered because my friend had same bait tied on, diff color. him changing to my color or vice versa made all the difference.

what made the bass like one color more than the other at that particular day and time? no clue.

Unless your fishing gin clear water, sight is not usually the dominant sense a bass relies on before hitting your lure. A bass will feel & hear the lure long before it sees it many times. Once the lure gets within sight then yes, color can sometimes be the difference in a bass striking or not striking but most of the time it's not the deal breaker.

I strongly disagree. Sound and sight is the 1st thing a bass uses to detect prey. The lateral line picks up the water pressure waves at the last few moments before the bait is engulfed.

I can certainly agree with the sound part of it but many of the lakes I fish down here have next to no visibility and color plays next to no part of the fish striking. I can change lures and colors every 5 min and still catch fish, which leads me to believe that in those lakes sight takes a back seat to sound & feel. Now I do believe that in lakes that are clear that sight is the dominant sense. My argument isn't on which sense is dominant but rather I think many times people put too much emphasis on what color will catch fish.

Sure, perhaps in extremely stained, muddy, or algae water color doesn't matter, but movement can still be detected with sight. Sound travels much faster underwater, so sound is probably first in dirty water. Sight isn't totally useless in dirty water.

Your post makes it sound like the fish can "sense" your bait from a distance using its lateral line. Read Stephen Spotte or Kieth Jones - it simply doesn't work like that. Its a close range sensory apparatus use to pick up vortexes in water made from movement.

Unless your fishing gin clear water, sight is not usually the dominant sense a bass relies on before hitting your lure. A bass will feel & hear the lure long before it sees it many times. Once the lure gets within sight then yes, color can sometimes be the difference in a bass striking or not striking but most of the time it's not the deal breaker.

I strongly disagree. Sound and sight is the 1st thing a bass uses to detect prey. The lateral line picks up the water pressure waves at the last few moments before the bait is engulfed.

I can certainly agree with the sound part of it but many of the lakes I fish down here have next to no visibility and color plays next to no part of the fish striking. I can change lures and colors every 5 min and still catch fish, which leads me to believe that in those lakes sight takes a back seat to sound & feel. Now I do believe that in lakes that are clear that sight is the dominant sense. My argument isn't on which sense is dominant but rather I think many times people put too much emphasis on what color will catch fish.

Sure, perhaps in extremely stained, muddy, or algae water color doesn't matter, but movement can still be detected with sight. Sound travels much faster underwater, so sound is probably first in dirty water. Sight isn't totally useless in dirty water.

Your post makes it sound like the fish can "sense" your bait from a distance using its lateral line. Read Stephen Spotte or Kieth Jones - it simply doesn't work like that. Its a close range sensory apparatus use to pick up vortexes in water made from movement.

Very true & I understand that.  I should have worded my post a little better.  I was more or less talking about sight in conjunction with what color your using. What I mean by that is that I think when a bass sees the lure it's more concerned with the presentation rather then the color.  However I'm not a bass and therefore don't know if thats completely true  .  Just in my experience presentation is of greater importance to me then having the perfect color.  Some may view it another way and that's great if that's what helps them catch fish. 

Also I did not know that the lateral line was only a close rage sensory.  Good info, thanks.

Good discussion guys. I also think I am probably not explaining things clearly. Let me try again.

I agree with description of how the lateral line works. Now just think for a minute about a couple things. When you eat how often out of 100 times do you decide to put something in your mouth with the intention of swallowing it as a result of you being exposed to some stimuli related to this item other than sight? My guess is very very seldom. This is how you survive. We use other resources/senses in conjunction and subsequent to sight, but sight is the primary and most efficient. Other means are less efficient and increase risk. The bass is the same way. He will feed by sight almost always.

Now the next point.

Prey reflect UV Light. Bass see UV Light. What this means is similar to this.

Think about driving along and all of a sudden bambi jumps out in front of you. You freak, jerk the wheel, and the next thing you know bambi is gone. When you are telling your friend later about it you don't remember good enough and didn't see good enough whether or not bambi was wearing a white sock or had a white star on her head. It is not proof that you didn't see bambi because you definitely did. It is the same way with the bass. The bass will catch a quick glimpse of a UV light reflection and equate that to a positive feeding experience. This doesn't mean the bass can see the prey perfectly and determine a lot about it. It just sees the flash just like you saw the flash of bambi.

Have you ever been sunburned on an overcast day? It is proven that the UV lightwave will penetrate as deep as 40 ft. and is much stronger than other lightwaves. It is very capable of penetrating stained water, just because you can't see doesn't mean it's not there.

Now for the kicker which lots of guy get tripped over.

Basically the only way to illustrate this to the human eye since we cannot see the natural UV wavelength is to use a blacklight. If you take a green pumpkin, purple plum, black, pumpkin, or just about any other color what you are seeing is what it looks like with the colors reflecting natural light waves that we are capable of seeing. But what about the UV wave? If your bait would reflect the UV light wave those colors would pretty much all look alike which is hard for lots of folks to accept because what it means is that it really doesn't matter what color you throw because the important thing is to reflect the UV lightwave and if you do that most all other colors take a back seat and the strength of UV lightwave stands out and that is what the bass see. It is also the primary factor which signal to a bass that this is food .

There are some opinions to the contrary but usually those opinions are based on research done inside a lab under fluorescent light where the presence of UV light is absent.

Anyway, that's how I see it.

No matter what lure color we might choose, it's going to resemble some living creature.

It's highly unlikely that any color will cause an inactive bass to feed,

or that any color will cause a hungry bass to lose its appetite.

I choose lure colors based on "underwater visibility" under the current lighting conditions.

She's got to see it, before she can eat it,

and once she sees it, the importance of color will fall through the cracks.

Roger

No matter what lure color we might choose, it's going to resemble some living creature.

It's highly unlikely that any color will cause an inactive bass to feed,

or that any color will cause a hungry bass to lose its appetite.

I choose lure colors based on "underwater visibility" under the current lighting conditions.

She's got to see it, before she can eat it,

and once she sees it, the importance of color will fall through the cracks.

Roger

C'est fini 

No matter what lure color we might choose, it's going to resemble some living creature.

It's highly unlikely that any color will cause an inactive bass to feed,

or that any color will cause a hungry bass to lose its appetite.

I choose lure colors based on "underwater visibility" under the current lighting conditions.

She's got to see it, before she can eat it,

and once she sees it, the importance of color will fall through the cracks.

Roger

This is my point exactly. That is why any color you want to use is fine if that suits your fancy. As you say, once they see it the color issue will fall through the cracks. This is why you can choose any color you want as long as it reflects UV light. Because of the fact that UV light is stronger and penetrates deeper bass will key on this color which we cannot see.

     In gin clear water a natural color bait may appear fairly visible to a bass.  The portion of the color spectrum that we can see with the human eye gets filtered out rather quickly underwater. This is why folks use different approaches to make their bait "stand out".  Many will use a black/blue, a chartreuse, and lots of folks use a bigger bulkier bait. Usually this is a choice made by the fisherman in an attempt to make their bait "contrast" with the surrounding conditions. They feel like their bait may not be very visible, and they are right, and they want to maximize the visibility so they upsize, or choose bold contrasting colors.

     A bass has learned to be on the alert for the presence of any UV reflection as it will show up under more different conditions than any of the other color spectrum .

     Your plastic worm looks red because it reflects the red color in the light spectrum which the human eye can see. The bass has learned that the UV color is the most visible and just because you can't see it , it is definitely not a reason to assume that it is unimportant.

I can only guess that you're selling something, or working on a bait that harnesses this idea.  Correct?

Let's just say I respect  scientific  verification enough to accept the efficiency it affords us. In other words I have vehicles with power steering because the verification that it works provides much more efficiency so I move forward with it. Same with the UV lightwave. I've caught plenty of fish with baits that absorb UV so I know it's possible. That doesn't mean I'm going to scoff at updated improvements when it comes to making my offering more visible.

 

So how do you feel about the color black "getfished"? It does not reflect or emit light...

That's correct. THe color black will stand out in contrast as long as some natural light is penetrating. If a black bait won't reflect UV light then at the point where natural light gets filtered out, that is the point where a black bait begins to be invisible or blend in with the lack of natural light or darkness.

     Most guys that fish black do it in the light of day. If you fish black at night you need the moonlight to allow for a contrast or your bait just needs to be oversized to improve on moving water, ie. making sound waves. I don't think many guys fish a black bait on a dark night that is downsized, do you?