Selecting the Right Colors for Salmon Fishing

0:00 selecting the right colors for your salmon trolling spread can seem like a Dawning task the color combinations out there are countless so how do you know which colors to use in a given situation now you may think that the only way to approach this is to just throw some Hardware out there and see how it goes but for most of us salmon fishing opportunities are few and far between each season and even when you're out there the bite is usually only hot for short windows of time but with a bit of understanding of how light behaves under the water you can make your trolling spread much more effective in this video we'll discuss how light behaves in the water column to help you make better color selections and take advantage of these small feeding windows and at the end of the video we'll discuss a strategy for using this information to help you put more fish in the boat so in order to understand how our presentations look underwater we first need to understand how light behaves

0:45 underwater light is simply radiation that comes in the form of electromagnetic energy it travels in the form of waves and is characterized by the distance between these waves which is simply known as its wavelength the electromagnetic spectrum represents all possible wavelengths of light visible light is the portion of the band that is detectable by the eye light with shorter wavelengths is known as ultraviolet light and light with longer wavelengths is known as infrared light while humans are limited to the visible portion of the spectrum fish can see a bit beyond this into the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum so the good news here is that a fish's eye is very similar in structure and operation to a human eye at the back of the eye are two distinct types of cells Rod cells and Cone cells these cells sense the light coming through the lens of the eye and emit an electrical signal

1:32 to the brain which results in the perception of sight Rod cells are the dominant cell at lower light levels they are also dominant in the peripheral region of space which is important because most of the fish's field of view is in the peripheral region this means that more often than not fish is detecting Bait fish with its Rod cells and they are largely responsible for the black and white that fish perceive in contrast the cone cells are dominant at higher light levels they are more dominant in the central or focal region of vision and they are responsible for the color signals that fish perceive both salmon and humans are trichromatic this means that we have three distinct types of cone cells each detecting its own distinct color of light these colors are red blue and green so to illustrate how this works let's consider a red light wave that

2:17 hits the front of the eye after passing through the lens the light wave interacts with the red sensitive cone cell at the back of the eye signals are sent from these cells to the brain where the brain interprets this as a red Vision the same thing happens with blue light and with green light something interesting happens when multiple light rays of different wavelengths hit the eye at the same time when this happens all three types of cone cells are stimulated and send signals to the brain simultaneously the brain then has to do its best to interpret the color in the case of red blue and green the brain interprets this as white to demonstrate this here's a picture of an LCD screen zoomed in so that you can see the individual pixels notice that each pixel is nothing but a red blue and green block these blacks when zoomed in

3:04 are distinguishable by your eye and your brain so you can see them individually however when we zoom out you can see that the screen slowly Fades to a white color this is because your brain loses Acuity or sharpness at these distances so instead of being able to distinguish between red blue and green it simply interprets the combination of the three as white our sun emits a whole spectrum of light including all colors of the visible light region of the electromagnetic spectrum when that light hits a water surface some of it is reflected however a certain amount of it will penetrate the water column it is this light that allows humans and fish to see underwater this chart shows how deep the various colors of sunlight penetrate into the water column in both deep ocean water and in Shallow Coastal Waters similar to what we might find in our deeper Great Lakes notice how the red and violet light is filtered out very high in the water column this means

3:51 that this light will not be available to reflect off of presentations in deeper water now let's examine how light interacts with our bait presentations under the water so here we have a red spoon and coming in from the upper left is a ray of blue red and green light notice how the blue and green is absorbed by the spoon and the red is reflected this is a characteristic of the paint used to paint the spoon itself it absorbs blue and green light and reflects red light as a result the spoon looks red and that's exactly what we see in bright sunlight but what happens to that same Red Spoon as it's lowered into the water column where the red light is filtered out by the water what appears to be a bright red spoon near the surface is just a dark shade of gray at 100 feet this is because the red light from the sun is completely absorbed at this depth and can no longer reflect off of the spoon this results in the spoon

4:36 turning a dark gray color this makes the spoon very difficult to see in this deep water so while Reds and oranges can at times be a great choice in the top 30 foot or so of the water column they lose their appeal in deeper water let's contrast this with what happens when a white spoon is lowered to the same depth because it's white this spoon reflects all colors of visible light but since the red and violet light is filtered out by the water the spoon Fades to a bluish green color this makes the white spoon much more visible in deep water and a much better choice for attracting a fish's attention glow in the dark spoons have a special photoluminescent paint that emits light when activated spoons with this paint will retain roughly the same look throughout the water column because it's emitting its own light as much less dependent on the light in the surrounding environment but remember that the submitted light will itself be filtered out by the surrounding water so while a fish close

5:23 by will see it as white the color will fade to a bluish green as the fish gets further away so finally the part we've been waiting for how can we incorporate all this knowledge into a coherent strategy for salmon fishing in the early morning and late evening hours when light conditions are very low glow-in-the-dark presentations are a must when I say a must literally all of the baits should have some glow to them try combinations of black with glow white or glow green these will show up better than any other colors in these low light conditions remember that the fish are predominantly using the rod cells to detect these so the black contrasting with flashes of white or green best mimic the flashes of bait fish that are seen in these same conditions as the lighting conditions in the water column increase color does start to matter but this is where it gets tricky if the fish are holding deep the skies are Cloudy and the water is more stained the light conditions where

6:09 the fish are May remain very dark even though the skies getting much lighter if that's the case it may be best to leave the glow in the darks in your presentations at least at the lower depths when you do start adding more colorful presentations to the mix start with your highest rods in the setup in these later conditions greens blues and yellows make the most sense as they will be seen first when the conditions become very bright oranges Reds and violets can be worked into the spread again starting at the top but because of filtering these colors as discussed earlier should only be used in the top 30 to 50 feet of the water column depending on water Clarity if the fish are not located in that part of the water column you may want to avoid these colors altogether to summarize in very low light conditions use glow-in-the-dark presentations exclusively in slightly brighter conditions add greens yellows and blues high in your spread while keeping glow in the darks in the deeper water finally

6:55 in the brightest conditions as the sun gets higher in the sky and especially in Clear Water Reds oranges and violets can be added into the top 50 feet of the water column just keep in mind that lighting conditions under the water can change and Vary significantly from day to day and even hour to hour so the depth recommended here are just got guidelines and should be adjusted according to those lighting conditions hey if you enjoyed this video please hit that like button and ring that Bell to be notified of future videos consider subscribing to our Channel and as always thanks for watching