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.

“Bass quickly learn to avoid or ignore something after attacking but not receiving a reward of food. And they retain that knowledge for months. Since these test fish aren’t cheap, we initially hoped to keep them and reuse them for various experiments. Even after three months, the number of bites on a type of lure was suppressed.

“If bass have been tested on crankbaits, we can use them again in worm or jig experiments, but no more with cranks. And bass used in worm tests can be reused in crankbait experiments but not with softbaits.” No wonder it can be so hard to get bites out on the lake some days.

“If bass so quickly learn to reject a hookless lure, a greater negative response is likely for fish that are hooked, landed, and released,” he says. “Theoretically, if you had a lake with heavy fishing pressure and all anglers were using silver or bronze hooks on their worm rigs and hardbaits, red hooks might offer the advantage of novelty. After being conditioned to avoid objects with silver or bronze hooks, red might work better.” Conversely, where red hooks have become widely popular, bass might become conditioned to avoid them and better results might come with bronze.

“But that scenario presumes that bass actually see hooks and associate them with the experience,” Jones points out.”If fish don’t get a clear sensory image of something, they can’t form a memory trace and become conditioned to it, one way or another. Their visual separation of hooks from the body of a moving crankbait is unlikely. It’s all just one image to them.”

Using red hooks on a dropshot or float rig in clear water might seem to bring the likeliest advantage, if hook color remained identifiable and bass had formed a search image for wirelike red objects. According to Jones, this is a stretch, unless fish had taken to a diet of bloodworms or other skinny creatures.

Red Lures

Jones notes, however, that bass might learn to key on red after being rewarded by attacks on objects of that color. In lakes where reddish-color crayfish are a dominant prey, for example, bass might be in the habit of perusing the bottom for similar objects. “I can imagine situations where reddish crawfish imitations such as softbaits or jig-and-craw combos might work better than other colors,” Jones says.

“Where bass feed heavily on a preferred item, they can develop a strong visual search image for that favored food. The search image includes characteristics such as motion and speed as well as color and size. But the idea of bass generalizing colors across lure types, for example attacking red jerkbaits or rattlebaits because they’re accustomed to eating reddish crawfish, seems implausible. They do not think like that.”

Pro anglers often use and recommend red lures in spring, when pre-spawn bass are thought to feed on crawfish. And I’ve caught plenty of big ones on red cranks, rattlebaits, and even spinnerbaits at that time. Cases of red Rat-L-Traps and other baits sold at tackle shops from Alabama to Texas speak to their effectiveness.

But Jones adds a note of caution. “Anglers are quick to come to conclusions without enough data to justify them. Say you go fishing and try a greenish lure and catch nothing. You switch to blue and catch a couple. Then a red version brings a couple lunkers. You might well conclude that bass really like red, that color made all the difference in your catch.

“That result could well be due to random error, the reason we apply rigorous statistics to the field tests we conduct with Berkley baits under product development. The angler might have come upon a group of bass after fishing through unproductive water. Those fish might have struck a green or blue lure as readily.

“We have longterm data sets from our field tests of crankbaits and rattlebaits. While some colors produced better at certain times, there was no clear preference for any color, including red. On a trip, one color might outproduce another by a ratio of 3:2, based on 100 strikes—60 on one color and 40 on another. But that ratio might be reversed the next time out.

“On the recommendation of Barry Day, former Field Services Director at Berkley, we also tested lures painted a different color on each side, which we labeled ‘schizo’ baits. One might have a firetiger pattern on one side and shad on the other. Curiously, these oddballs tended to attract bites intermediate between the two basic colors. So, if a firetiger Frenzy Rattl’r got 60 strikes to 40 strikes on shad color, a schizo version would be around 50, not as good as the preferred bait, but better than the less productive one.”

Bandit Lures seems to be the only company to offer such an option, as their “Mistake” color has black bars on each side, but with chartreuse on one and red on the other. It’s been a top seller since it was first offered, and I’ve found it deadly for largemouth and smallmouth bass, and walleyes, too, especially the 200 size.

Red Line

When Cajun Red Lightning first hit the market, the company claimed it would disappear underwater. Many anglers were quick to try the line for its hot new color and the possibility of a visual advantage, as well as its acknowledged qualities such as knot strength and abrasion-resistance.

Critics pointed out flaws in that argument, but red lines have been a hit nonetheless. “It’s true that in clear water red wavelengths are filtered out shallower than those for other colors,” Jones says. “And blue wavelengths penetrate deepest. That’s why blue prevails in underwater photos from the ocean.

“But the filtering of those wavelengths doesn’t equate to disappearance. With increasing depth in clear water, red objects become grayish, then eventually black, which is the absence of light. Against underwater backgrounds containing other colors of the spectrum, such as greenish vegetation or the blue of open water, a dark image contrasts and may be highly visible. That’s because it appears as a black portion on the retina, contrasting with other ambient wavelengths.”

As we concluded our discussion of line color, I couldn’t help wondering why anglers wishing to hide their line wouldn’t consider fluorocarbon as a first choice. Since initial offerings five or so years ago, we’ve seen an evolution in fluorocarbon products, yielding lines that are easier to tie, more abrasion-resistant, and more supple than early editions.

The primary advantage of this blend of carbon, hydrogen, and fluoride, called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF for short), lies in its similarity to water in refractive index, a measure of the way light passes through a medium. Water is about 1.33, while monofilaments range from about 1.53 to 1.62 and high-quality fluoros are about 1.42. The lower the index, the closer to water and theoretically the less visible underwater.

When Pure Fishing was working on its initial fluorocarbon product, Berkley Vanish, Dr. Jones conducted a study to test this theory. “In a large aquarium containing largemouth bass, we hung arrays of fishing lines from surface to bottom,” he explains. “A sensor attached to the apparatus recorded contacts with the lines as bass swam around the tank. The basis of this test was the assumption that bass would try to avoid bumping into objects underwater, a tendency we have observed when conducting other research.

“Bass bumped into the 10-pound-test fluorocarbon line considerably more frequently than 10-pound mono, suggesting they couldn’t see it nearly as well. We’ve considered expanding this experiment to compare lines of different colors and diameters, waters of different tints, and by comparing different formulations of fluorocarbon. That remains for future research.”

Fishing results bear out Jones’ findings: When you’re after finicky bass in clear open water, fluorocarbon gets you more bites. And the thinner the line, the better. Today’s fluoros are supple enough to spool on a spinning reel, though many anglers prefer to use a braided mainline, attaching a fluorocarbon leader from 3 to 12 feet long, depending on personal preference. Some feel that getting a full wrap or two of fluorocarbon on the spool limits knot breakage at boatside.

Camouflage or Contrast?

Fluorocarbon line tends to blend with the background in clear, open water due to its refractive index. Whether a line contrasts or blends with the background is perhaps the most important factor in its visibility. Transparent blue lines are likely the ones best disguised in clear, open water. And in waters with a reddish hue, red lines may indeed be least visible.

“Red becomes least visible when it’s camouflaged by a prevailing red background,” Jones says. “In impoundments with red clay banks, red particles are suspended in the water. Light disappears quickly in these conditions, but red wavelengths penetrate deepest. Against this reddish background, red line is well camouflaged. The same thing occurs in tannic-stained water. Similarly, if you found a chartreuse-colored lake, perhaps dyed by a bloom of blue-green algae, chartreuse line would be least visible.”

The concept of contrast is important when selecting lure color, as well. While anglers typically want their lines to blend with the background and not be obvious to fish, moving baits should contrast to draw bass’ attention. A dark lure on a dark bottom when seen from above, or a green lure viewed from the side against a weedy backdrop, is camouflaged and may go unseen. Against a green backdrop of hydrilla, though, a red rattlebait tipping the top of the grass offers excellent contrast that triggers bites from active bass.

Over a dark bottom, bass more easily notice a dark spinnerbait with a chartreuse trailer because of its contrasting colors. That sort of partial camouflage creates an image that’s hard for bass to identify but easy for them to find, generally a good thing. Other pairs of colors that stimulate both sets of cone cells, like blue and yellow or green and orange, make lures easier to detect.

That theory has played out well in the field. I’ve had great success with those particular combinations on worms, jigs, and crankbaits in clear and stained water. A junebug ring worm with a chartreuse tail is a perennial killer, while a green pumpkin jig backed by an orange Guido Bug is hard to beat. And a yellow-sided crankbait with a blue back is one of my all-time favorite patterns.

Judging by recent product introductions, the red phenomenon is not going away anytime soon. From the orange Carrot Stix rod from E21, to red jighooks and sinkers, consumers want more red gear. And they’ll get it.

Dr. Jones suggests that red tackle can provide advantages in certain fishing situations—in others, it may be disadvantageous; and sometimes it doesn’t matter. The best strategy lies in understanding how water color and depth affect the visibility of lines, lures, and tackle. For more information check Jones’ book, Knowing Bass, at globepaquot.com, a division of Lyons Press.

*Keith Jones, Spirit Lake, Iowa, is Director of Research at Pure Fishing. He has a Ph.D. in biology from Texas A&M University and fishes for bass and other species across the U.S.