Now ive been thinking about this for a bit and wonder does the colour bait really matter. ?

Some days you can fish a lake with a bright yellow bait and catch, then fish it with the exact same coloured bait a few days later and not get a take, but the bloke on the other bank is using bright pink and getting takes !!

Carp see in ( NIR ) near infa red, so surely they dont see colors as we see them ? they must see as if we looked through night vision goggles if NIR is there sight, therefore bright pink yellow and red baits wont look like that.

Thoughts welcome

_________________
Excuse me fish, while i remove this splinter of steel from your leather like chops.

Website Creations

Well after talking to you John it got me thinking now they say that red is the first colour spectrum that disappears in water which if you have spooled up with red line you'll of noticed that but to our eyes it disappears but does red stand out even more to a carp's sight ... . How many times have you caught on a red bait compared to another colour bait. Why do spinners and most pike lures have red either painted or red wool attached to them...... just thoughts.......cheers Andy

_________________
God told me to do it............??
www.adbaits.co.uk

Carps eyesight is very much like ours and they can and will associate colour with danger. Red is one that they dont seem to shy from neither is brown(Pellet) its an age old debate guys and if you think to much about it will do your head in.

True Phil that's why i don't Robin Red goes into most of my baits don't leave home without it ......cheers Andy

_________________
God told me to do it............??
www.adbaits.co.uk

i stopped worrying about these things,that do most peoples heads in,a long time ago....
your either on fish or your not......
you either catch or you dont......

that....is up to you....

how you do it ....is another subject.....

I'm not going to try and explain it, but here is the most humanly readable bit i could find wrt NIR

"Plant life looks completely white because it reflects almost all infrared light (because of this effect, infrared photography is commonly used in aerial photography to analyze crop yields, pest control, etc.) The sky is a stark black because no infrared light is scattered. Human skin looks pale and ghostly. I have a photograph of a friend's black shirt, which looks white in infrared. My dark sunglasses all but disappear in infrared because they don't block any infrared light, and it's said that you can capture the near infrared emissions of a common iron."

Also becuase we see most of it as shades of red verging into black (because we see red), who knows what the carp see? I know it sounds weird, but yellow light is made up of red and green (I wouldn't lie to you I promise!), so red is what they have in common. Ditto orange as it's red and yellow. Brown would be dark grey? Purple is red and blue, the list goes on, but all are common lure colours, so what do fish (not only carp) see?

I'm not sure if this helps, but this is supposed to be the "in Depth" forum

_________________
Would like to be.....gone fishin', instead of just a'wishin'.....

Just watched a free dvd from Korda with a guy called Simon Scott that works at sparsholt college lecturing on fisheries and fish management cant find anything on youtube for it but if you have it then take a look at about 1hr 6mins in to the film as he explains fish eyesight and the fact they can see just like us in water and when removed there vision becomes blurry plus they have better night vision which kind of explain wny dusk and dawn always seem to be bite times, if you have it you need to see it as it is very informative.

suppose its just personal preference really but i do like to use eihter yellow or red baits weather this makes any difference weather i catch or not i very much doubt it.

_________________
they say carp fishing is easy just finding the buggers is the hard bit.

Read an article a few years back on depths at which colours will start to 'go' from the fishes visual spectrum. And red was the first to go once deeper and darker water was being presented to. Purple baits were to a carps vision the most visual and retained the colour appearance at great depths...Got me thinking about fishing pits and deeper waters presenting purple coloured baits...

_________________
.
[color=#000000].
.
.
We're gonna need a bigger boat !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.........................\()/...................../\......................

there do seem to be quite a few bait makers now producing purple baits. done very well on these myself i dont think its down to the colour tho or maybe it is

_________________
they say carp fishing is easy just finding the buggers is the hard bit.

i think the only bright bait ive caught on is yellow or white

Like wom i dont worry to much about these things anymore. I've caught on just about every colour i can think of and none seems to be any better or any worse than any other. I mean other than the heavily coloured/ flavoured flouro pop ups most baits wash out to a drab dull colour quite quickly any way. I will use a bright hookbait over the top of food baits on occasions to try and attract attention to it but that's about the only time i worry about bait colour.