Explain Water Clearity....

For me, this is one of the most confusing things to understand. Especially, when your trying to apply the lingo "match the hatch" in attaching a color pattern to the type of water you normally fish.

It's hard to understand if when people are using a term to identify the "Clarity" of water if : there referring to color of the water or depth there able to see the bait (depth at which light no longer penetrates in creating visibility) or both. Which, the color of the water can effect your ability in seeing the bait.

I think theres a lot of flipping around or mitch-matching of the terms. Which, It's hard to explain what I exactly mean by this and/or what factors confuse me about this subject.

For example: Someone may used the word "Dark" as an describing word. But One person sees or takes "Dark" water as meaning "Muddy" and not murky or abyss-like. Which, it can confuse people because I would think you would use totally different color schemes in Muddy water, as opposed to deeper, darker water.

Or Knowing what is exactly meant by "Stained" water, in Comparison, to what is meant by "dingy" water etc.. Basically, not knowing the logic in the criteria for identifing and matching water types.

So, Anyone else have a hard time understanding the point-of-view of Terminology used for water identification and color selection (lure color) for each paticular water type also? I tend to micro-look at things, which tend to make things even more confusing.

But anyways, This is what comes to my mind or my understanding of the terms, so far, when each water clarity identification term is used. Whether, that may be in an article or when people use them in a post: Which, This can affect whether the color choice I use is correct, as maybe opposed to what an author would use or was trying to bring across as proper. I might be wrong, Which that wouldn't be surprising and thats why It would be nice for clarification or a better explanation of the lingo or logic used in discerning what type of water clarity I fish and apporiate colors to use.

Clear water: water color is lighter and I can see the bait at a greater distance down. (Like dropping an object into a bathtub). I think of shallow "Ocean water" when I think about clear water clarity.

Tea color or murky (creepy) water : The water is clearer, meaning it does not have a "Milky" texture or an extreme dirtyness to it. But, it's a darker shade and therefore, you can't see all the way down due to the darkness inbetween. Basically, I think of darker sweet tea in a glass. You can still see the bottom of the glass but the water color itself has a darker shade to it. Which, influence the visibility of the bottom and fish at deeper depths because of a light's limited ability to penetrate through it.

Stained: Water color is lighter but has dirtyness to it. You can still see your bait but the water looks to have impurities to it, Whether from duckweed or fresh rain that washes light color mud in it.

Dirty water: Basically, The bottom visibility is greatley limited or you can't see it whatsoever. But, The water color can be a light, milk chocolate shake look (mocca) or it can look like Dark chocolate or have an extremely muddy appearance. Once again, I use the example of the type liquid in a glass. You can't see the bottom of a glass with "dark" chocolate milk in it.

So, Can anyone give a basic and easy understanding of the logic used to identify and match a body of water, to it's proper water classification and color selection?