Fishing Breakthrough or Industry Gimmick?

Tackle buyers were seeing red at ICAST 2007, the fishing industry’s showcase for new products—red hooks, red line, red spinners, red lures, even red reel spools. Red’s been a hot tackle trend and it’s growing even steamier as manufacturers rush to capitalize on the latest craze. ¶ Increased sales make sense to all on the production and sales side of the ledger, but anglers are rightly confused by some claims that accompany red products. Indeed, promotional materials at the show indicated two diametrically opposed schools of thought on red tackle.

On one side, we hear how red attracts extra bites by simulating blood of a baitfish, gills, or perhaps a crawfish. On the other side of the aisle, makers of red line refer to its disappearance in water, since it’s known that the wavelengths of light that make an object appear red are absorbed before other wavelengths as depth increases, provided water is clear.

On the surface, these viewpoints appear contradictory. If one is correct, the other must be false. “Not necessarily so,” says Dr. Keith Jones, the Pure Fishing scientist and expert on the sensory systems of fish and bass in particular. As a true scientist, he digs well beyond the superficial to separate facts from rhetoric.beyond the superficial to separate facts from rhetoric.

Red Hooks

“While it seems plausible that bass might focus on red markings on a lure, or on red hooks,” he says, “we’d like to see some evidence before becoming believers. From studying their vision, we know that largemouth bass have optimal color appreciation for red. That means they can detect minor differences in reddish hues better than other colors of the spectrum. They also differentiate greens well, but not as clearly as reds.

“In aquarium tests, bass quickly learn to distinguish between colors in the red and green sectors of the spectrum, but struggle to differentiate shades of blue. This suggests that bass color vision is relatively good from red to green but weak in the blues and violets. At wavelengths where green turns decidedly blue, bass’ color vision seems to fade out entirely. Dark blues, purples, dark greens, and browns are likely interpreted merely as dark.

“This is because bass have two optical pigments, or types of cones, for color vision—red and green. Humans, in contrast, have three types of optical pigments, red, green, and blue. Some species of minnow, including carp, have four types of cones, red, green, blue, and a specialized set for detecting ultraviolight light. Some bottom-dwelling species have only one type. They’re believed incapable of color vision.

“But while bass see red well, no research demonstrates any instinctive attraction to it. They’re not naturally inclined to strike red.” But what about using red hooks or adding red slashes on the throat of a crankbait to simulate blood? Wouldn’t it be natural for something that looks like a wound or exposed gills to stimulate the predatory nature of bass?

“Sheer anthropomorphism,” Jones responds. “While humans reason by thinking something like ‘Blood is red, bleeding baitfish are vulnerable, so I should attack a fishlike object with red markings on it’, bass brains are incapable of such reasoning, as they’re not equipped with the neurological processes to come to such a conclusion. They cannot put two and two together.

“We can rule out any innate attraction to red hooks or other red marks or tackle to largemouth bass, based on both behavioral research and brain studies.” Jones notes, however, that it’s theoretically possible for bass to learn to associate red with a positive feeding experience.

“Bass are highly capable of learning,” he says. “Being caught is punishment enough to teach them not to attack a type of lure. In our circular tank at the lab, we have a robotic device to tow lures and count the number of strikes from bass. To avoid injury and having to handle fish, all hooks are bent down. When you tow a set of lures past a sample of naïve bass, they jump all over them. But by the third lap around the tank their response drops dramatically, and there’s virtually no response by lap 5, even though they’re never hooked.