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Run UV spoon colors or non UV spoon colors


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Run UV spoon colors or non UV spoon colors

I suppose my question comes down to UV-fluorescence.  I've attached 2 pictures below that show what I'm talking about - and they show three types general color patterns:

A.  UV-fluorescent coating (first picture far left, second picture right & left)

B.  UV-fluorescent colors (first picture dots on spoon 1 & edge of spoon 4, second picture center

C.  Not UV-fluorescent (first picture spoons 2 & 3)

 

What conditions lead you to run what colors over others?  I generally fish with a large number of type "A" and type "B" spoons.  Any situations you would switch to type C?   Lets see what people think!

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Actually I've been doing a lot of research on this as I'm in the learning process of airbrushing my own lures and before I order UV paint, I looked into this. First thing that came up that I thought was important was at 40ft of water there is no visible light. Blue and violet wavelengths only penetrate water to about 40ft. Water absorbs red in the first 2 feet in the water column, yellow-green in the first 15-20. Hmm I'm fishing the majority of the time below that!!?? There was a study that says that ultraviolet light for vision is down to 700ft. Most of these studies were done in the mid 90's can't remember exactly. LOL also there was another scientific study, also in the 90's that fish have a optically active Rodopsin proteins in the retinas of their eyes, also birds, which reacts to UV. Wavelengths, totally invisible to human. The chemical that man came up with was Titanium dioxide in two different crystalline forms. Rutile & Anatase, the Rutile was the second best known to us as diamond crystals are the most reflective. The reflection is the strongest at approximately 350nm in the ultraviolet spectrum and 450nm in the visible spectrum. These are the wavelengths where this Rodopsin proteins in the retina of a fish react most strongly to UV light and blue light. So you need to see if the chemical called Titanium dioxide crystals in two forms Rutile and Anatase. The Rutile crystalline form of titanium dioxide is in the paint or spray as they are the refractive crystal known to us, other than Diamonds. Also this chemical can be ground to a fine powder and just becomes a clone of its bigger form and still keep it's reflective abilities. One other thing to keep in mind when choosing colors is, visible colors of red, yellow-green and blues are maxed out while transmitting only 2-40 feet in clear water. This 40' radius is transmitted in every direction, not just down. Only because of UV vision are fish able to see objects more than 40' away either by reflections or the bottom of your boat, a silhouette. One other interesting thing I came across is electromagnetic energy exists simultaneously as a wave and as a packet of energy. The reactive retinal Rodopsin proteins have a very narrow range in which they will react to a particular wavelength of energy. Your black box. LOL also the sounds of rigger cable hum, anything that comes close to that 350-450nm wavelength, whether its light or sound in our world it's wavelengths in their world. Lures that rattles, to a fish is a injured fish in distress or they actually see it. I believe in it, I've run UV high and low. I bought a bottle of that UV spray for lures, at first I thought the oder was not fishy, so I mixed in shiner scent. Does it work yea when there feeding, just cuz they can see it doesn't mean everytime you make a cast its FISH  ON. PAP.

Edited by pap
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Glow spoons were TERRIBLE for me last year on Lake Michigan.  I don't remember getting bit in the dark while fishing mornings.  And looking over my records (yes I keep records for every fish) I only caught 3 fish using glow!  My Moonshine flounder pounder didn't take a fish all of last year!

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That's weird King possible... I have a moonshine glow rv crabface that literally takes at least one fish every time I go out. Glow took a ton of fish for me last year


The Fishin' Physician Assistant

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Some brands of lures have those glow particals in the paints already, so if the company sprays a UV onto a paint unknown to them that already has refractive properties, blue's like what's shown would look like a spot light shining in our eyes, that's what the fish see's also. It's not a natural look. If you see it that bright, imagine what it looks like to a fish!!!  I'm not going to say UV isn't the answer, because they are proven time & time again, what some people don't understand is it's possible to over UV a product. Take a UV spoon and spray UV product onto it, they sell the UV spray all day long, and you just created a deer in the headlights spoon. It's proven fact even when fishing a trout stream, bright colors on bright days and dark colors on dark days. Why, because those colors flow with the surroundings, that's why at night we use a flashlight to see it's totally opposite in the light conditions.

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Glow spoons are great but what you have to remember is they only stay charged for a short time whereas UV spoons remain charged throughout the day even when it's somewhat cloudy and that's down much lower than any depth I'll ever be fishing!

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My general rule of thumb is UV works best when there's sunlight, introduce glow on darker days or very early in the morning.

Nowadays I like to use spoons with both UV and glow.  Start off on a clear morning, when it's dark and the glow works, as the sun comes up the UV takes over.

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2 minutes ago, moonfish said:

Do walleye and trout see differntly ? From what I know walleye see well at night. So would a glow or UV appear unnatural ?

It works well, at night to run stick baits near the surface and in tight to shore, also spoons with a 1/4oz split shot 3-5ft in back on the line, use shallow divers with rattles and I use a UV spray on my lures. You can shorten your leads at night also, plus I use a glow stick on my big boards so I know where they are even though I have a good light mounted on my light bar to shine on the boards, which I also have that dept of motor vehicles tape on also, Heavy duty trucks have this reflective tape. So I don't need to have the light directly on the boards, should they drift back or front.

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I am not sure I believe that color disappears at depth so much anymore after seeing footage of a spoon with orange paint on a downrigger camera down deep.......the spoon was still orange.  I have diving buddies that claim their pink air tanks look grey down deep.  I am not sure what to think anymore.  Going to let the fish tell me.

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A good book on the topic of color changes under water is "What Fish See" by Dr. Colin Kageyama who is an optometrist that primarily steelhead fishes in the Pacific Northwest. The book has a ton of color pictures of various lures, paints, tapes, fly materials, etc. at different depths, water clarity, and light conditions. It's a pretty technical book but a very informative read. As far as the UV vs glow comparison, for us glow definitely shines in the dark and just as we're starting to get enough light to see, then their effectiveness slowly goes away unless fish are very deep meaning 90+ ft down or it's a cloudy/rainy day. With that being said, there needs to be kings around for them to really shine, we don't do as well on other species in the dark on anything. On Lake Michigan last year the east side of the lake didn't hold many kings until late in the year. 90% of our trips the low light bite was very minimal except for the few trips when the kings finally showed up or we happened to drop in on some then the glow stuff worked very well as expected. The UV stuff works best for us in the sun and/or dirty water. The fish definitely seem to pic it out during those types of conditions.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

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We had two water melon spoons one with extra uv and one with just a little uv I thought I was on to something with the extra uv this thing would blind you if you turned on a black light! So all summer the two went down for testing for my company. I was wrong the extra uv sucked! So I changed spoons and colors and again the extra uv came in last again. Little uv is what I will stick with too much uv is no good pap is right there is a happy medium.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

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1 hour ago, hybridlures said:

We had two water melon spoons one with extra uv and one with just a little uv I thought I was on to something with the extra uv this thing would blind you if you turned on a black light! So all summer the two went down for testing for my company. I was wrong the extra uv sucked! So I changed spoons and colors and again the extra uv came in last again. Little uv is what I will stick with too much uv is no good pap is right there is a happy medium.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Thanks buddy!!  Everything has to look as natural as possible, then you hear of someone catching a huge eye or King on a fluorescent orange stick bait with Crome flames painted on like hot wheels car!! just about the time you think you have it all figured out.  :@.  :lol:.  Oh buy the way Nick your new site is awesome!! Be gettin in touch soon!!

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On 1/17/2017 at 11:43 AM, rdebadts said:

That's weird King possible... I have a moonshine glow rv crabface that literally takes at least one fish every time I go out. Glow took a ton of fish for me last year


The Fishin' Physician Assistant

Not really. What works on one Great Lake might not work on another Great Lake for variable reasons. Heck, what works on the west end of Lake Ontario doesn't work on the east end of Lake Ontario at times. I know....I have fished both areas.

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Not really. What works on one Great Lake might not work on another Great Lake for variable reasons. Heck, what works on the west end of Lake Ontario doesn't work on the east end of Lake Ontario at times. I know....I have fished both areas.

That is spot on. Greener water in the Western basin. Another example is, lake Michigan is clearer and they love blue. I have given blue a chance every year with not much luck here in Ontario.

Lake Ontario salmon fishing charters

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1 hour ago, Silver Fox said:


That is spot on. Greener water in the Western basin. Another example is, lake Michigan is clearer and they love blue. I have given blue a chance every year with not much luck here in Ontario.

Lake Ontario salmon fishing charters
 

I know Scott. I left all blue colored spoons at home the last couple of years. I don't have many anyway because I don't catch anything on them. Lol.

Edited by MikeyP
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Moonshine blue flounder pounder RV on Lake Michigan.   Thats all you need.  The original one I had caught over 100 fish on a single spoon before a buddy snapped it off on a big king.  It had so many teeth marks on it the UV tape was almost gone.  I've added a few more to the spread since then and it always takes fish on leadcore.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

in conversation with Dr. Bruce Tufts Queens University ( Tufts Lab ) he told me fish don't see UV. As most of his research was with warm water species I asked if this applied to trout and salmon and he said it did..

Further searching on the net looking for scientific articles it said that salmon fry could see UV while in the rivers but lost the ability when the smolt and enter the ocean or big lakes.

 

 

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3 hours ago, horsehunter said:

in conversation with Dr. Bruce Tufts Queens University ( Tufts Lab ) he told me fish don't see UV. As most of his research was with warm water species I asked if this applied to trout and salmon and he said it did..

Further searching on the net looking for scientific articles it said that salmon fry could see UV while in the rivers but lost the ability when the smolt and enter the ocean or big lakes.

 

 

 

I have seen similar research.  I believe trout and salmon can again see UV when they enter rivers to spawn.

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I just want to clear up the penetration of visible light in water... Pap, your numbers are way off. Maybe if you were talking in meters, but they'd still be off.

The longer wavelengths, red, orange, and yellow are absorbed quickly near the surface, in the first 10-15 meters. The shorter wavelengths, green, blue, and violet travel farther with blue going the furthest about 150 meters.

If light stopped penetrating at 40 ft, why the hell would we use any colors at all below 40ft when we all fish well below that and talk of our hot colors and such???

The numbers here will ultimately vary depending on water clarity, more stuff = less penetration.

I like the topic and am interested what everyone thinks. I'm still newish to deep trolling and threads like this really interest me.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

 

 

 

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I think I worded myself wrong, about no visible light, I ment it to be enough visible white light to keep the color sceme's to stay at the colors they are as we know them. Water acts as a selective filter, it filters out one by one as the light descends, it's gradual. Most of the red is gone from the light, at 5ft. Some of the Orange is gone in the first 10ft. Less of yellow is lost at 10ft. At 25ft most of the orange is gone. At 35 most of the yellow is gone. This continues through the spectrum until all is left is violet light and that fades out after hundreds of feet. Ok so if we swim down 30 ft and take a picture most objects would appear blue, green, violet and/ or black. Neon colors don't loose their colors like spectrum colors. Ultraviolet is found after violet, which is invisable to humans. Like violet it go to extreme depths, when a neon color is hit by the invisible ultraviolet it glows or "fluoresces" the more foreign products are in the water, mineral, algae, pollen, water fleas, things change. Sometimes for the better. I think I came across as the water, light was gone as in black. Sometime we forget that everyone is on deck with whatever ones talking about.

Edited by pap
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