The same man who said that, however, also admitted to having more than 230 crankbaits in his boat, on the counter, and in boxes in his closet.
"In those boxes," he continued, "I have every color of the rainbow, and not just one color. I have three to five different versions of the same bait. As far as plastics go, I have shades of white, black, orange, and pink, not to mention shades and hues of green, red and blue. As I pull out my three spinnerbait boxes, I notice gold, nickel, copper, silver, and even a couple of painted blades in there. Don't look at the fourth box that includes all the extra skirts in a thousand different color combinations.
"When I first started fishing tournaments, I bet I carried more than 50 crankbaits in 20 different colors and patterns. I had a hard time deciding what bait to throw. As I look back, I realize that I only used a handful of those crankbaits. The others were just space eaters and added weight to my tournament bag."
As a result, this fella decided to cut down his crankbait selection to just a few colors, concentrating on two specific forages: shad and crawfish.
"For most all of my crankbait fishing, I use Tennessee shad, silver, chartreuse/blue back, and brown/orange combos. Also, firetiger is a tremendous crankbait color for me."
He went on to explain that he's also not convinced that bass get conditioned to a certain color. He cited the example of a tournament, in which he and his partner had been throwing a silver/blue back rattletrap.
"We had been catching fish all week on this bait," he said. "But on the day of the tournament, the bass shut down. My partner switched to silver/black back traps, and I just changed depths and smoked him. He continued to struggle, even though he switched colors.
"Day in and day out, green pumpkin is in every single tournament angler's plastic bag. With presentations like flipping and pitching, bass don't have time to decide or analyze the color. They hit out of reflex, anger or hunger. Can you say reaction strike?"
There, however, is a cadre of fishermen who think differently. Many believe that the color of their fishing lures does make a difference. They answer with a resounding "yes" when asked if color matters.
Scientists are the ones who likely will offer a less enthusiastic "maybe" or "sometimes" when asked the same question. They defend that position, saying, "Underwater, where visibility is usually limited to dozens of feet, under even the clearest conditions, there is little need for long-range vision."
Fish have been described as being nearsighted and probably can focus on objects much closer to their eyes than humans can.
"Unlike humans, many fish have their eyes set far apart on the sides of their head, rather than to the front. This allows a very wide arc of monocular side vision for spotting predators or prey but provides only a narrow range of overlapping binocular vision to the front. There is a blind spot to the rear, and the range of binocular vision to the front encompasses only about 30 to 45 degrees. For this reason, some experienced anglers believe a fish is more likely to spot a lure if it is cast to the fish's side, instead of directly in front of it.
"Once a fish spots something, turning to face it undoubtedly gives the fish a better estimate of the object's distance. Even though fish will turn to examine objects, their eyes do have limited independent movement within the sockets. Like humans, a fish's eyes move in unison when looking around."
The big question facing anglers and lure manufacturers the world over is: Do fish see color? The answer is: Yes they do. In many cases, a fish's color vision is probably comparable to that of humans.
"So you can justify purchasing Uncle Joe's Bass Slayers in all 32 available colors," say the scientists. "Like those of humans, fish retinas possess both cones for color vision, as well as rods for black and white vision. During daylight, fish primarily use cones for vision. At night, the rods, which provide much higher light sensitivity and resolution, are used instead. The process of switching between using cones, instead of rods (and then back again) may take two hours, and a predatory fish, whose eyes adjust more quickly than those of forage fish will have a visual advantage during dawn and dusk--at least one reason why these times provide the best fishing. Sharks, interestingly enough, do not see color."
A very important factor in a fish's color vision is water depth. Water completely absorbs (or attenuates) different colors of light at different depths, affecting which colors are visible to a fish. Water attenuates red light from the spectrum first, oranges and yellows next, and blues and greens last.
"What this means," according to the scientists, "is that at a particular depth, a red lure no longer will look red but might appear as black or brown, while a green lure at the same depth could still look green. At even greater depths, colors no longer are visible, and fish probably see objects in varying shades of gray. It therefore is not surprising that within both fresh and saltwater fish, shallow-dwelling species have better-developed color vision than deepwater fish. Of course, water turbidity that inhibits light penetration greatly reduces the depth at which a particular color is visible.
"Despite the fact that red is the first color to disappear from the underwater spectrum, some research has shown that red elicits the strongest response from largemouth bass. Yellow was the next most important color for this species. Other research has suggested that largemouth bass also possess some of the better color vision among common sportfish, followed by smallmouth bass, muskie, northern pike, rainbow trout, bluegill, crappie, and gar. Fish which feed primarily by smell, such as catfish, may have poor color vision in comparison."
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