Red Hooks

[tacklerunner]

How many of you guys change out the hooks on your gear to red ones or use red hooks on bait rigs?

Mustad and Gamagatsu seem to be the more common ones. I know guys like Dave Mercer, Italo, Bob Izumi like them a lot. Dave told me that red is the first colour in the spectrum to disappear but only in 8 feet of water or deeper. Heard stories of guys using the same lures but the one with red hooks caught all the fish

Think it looks like blood on a wounded bait on the surface or is it the fact that they are less noticeable once you get down a bit???

Aren't fish colour blind?

[gl2]

i found some days walleye wanted the red hook and some days they wouldnt touch it. on a slower day its usually one of the first things i change. i see owners has got some red hooks but havent been able to find a local store that carries them.

[alodar]

I use a variety of gamakatsu colored hooks they work but ive never used a control so i cant say better or worse. I use the glowing ones aswell

[Braun]

good debate here. Yes I do use them/change them when I can. i recall there being a debate on this before talking about the rods and cones in fish eyes. Even if they are colour blind, the different colours still have stronger / weaker wavelegnths therefore certain colours will show up better (even in black and white) at distances in water. that would be my understanding of it although im no biologist. Heck, fish might not be colour blind. I'm sure some other board members have more info than me. im interested to find out though

[gl2]

i believe walleye are blue-yellow color blind, so they see most things in some shade of RED or green. if i can remember correctly northern pike are not as color blind as walleye but i could be wrong.

[chubbdarter]

for the last 4 years ice fishing ive used the red triple grip hook.
I probably had the worst year ever landing big walleyes(8,9.5,11 and a 13.5) and i fished hard.
The weather sucked with cold front after cold front,east winds drove me nuts and the pressure yo-yo'd constantly.
My wife is a avid eye fisherman and dedicated camera watcher. Late in the season she began to notice bigger eyes would not hit a mid hooked minnow on the hook side but she could convince them to hit the non hook side. We changed to a plain barbless gammies and we did much better. I experimented with hiding the majority of the hook but saw little improvement.

What did i learn.......im not sure....lol....next year

[Dust1n]

if i go for walleye i use a single red hook on the back and pike it realy dosent matter mabe if the water was clear and it was very preasured but for the money they ask for em im sticking to black hooks now

[npauls]

I use nickel, black, red, orange, pink, and chartruese hooks and I don't know if it makes a difference or not but I have them so I might as well use them. I try to match the hook color to the rest of the colors on my rigs.

[gramps73]

I use all the colours and don't know if it makes a difference. Some days are red and some are plain.

[Jwood 456]

I have used red hooks and with my experience using them, I don't believe they made a difference. However, I do notice that those red hooked lindy jig heads can work dynomite for walleye, though I have also caught plenty walleye on plain coloured hook jigs as well.

[Jwood 456]

i believe walleye are blue-yellow color blind, so they see most things in some shade of RED or green. if i can remember correctly northern pike are not as color blind as walleye but i could be wrong.

I notice chartreuse seems to work awesome for walleye and chartreuse is kind of a yellowy green. Perhaps the walleye just see the greeness or can see the chartreuse colour much better than green by itself.

[Dust1n]

yellow color blind and blue color blind? i dont know about this...iv caught them off yellow jigs, yellow spoons, yellow wigglers and some minnows are blue. makes it kinda hard to eat when your prey are invisable lol

[RedHeadedFisherman]

I use Gamagatsu red hooks, on the chartreuse jigs as a stinger hook,for walleye at PCR,.. works well. also used black painted hooks

also i got some lure paint in different colors and dipped hooks ( and jug heads, tryed green, chartueuse, red, orange and light blue all worked to a degree on different days presentations water clarity ect.
RHF

[tacklerunner]

yellow color blind and blue color blind? i dont know about this...iv caught them off yellow jigs, yellow spoons, yellow wigglers and some minnows are blue. makes it kinda hard to eat when your prey are invisable lol

Doesn't mean they can't see your lure just means they don't see it in colour. Not blind as in invisible blind or like they can't see where they're swimming.

[tacklerunner]

Here's how I see it. The majority of baitfish we are trying to imitate are silver, gold, maybe a white belly with some grey in it, yellowish tones in perch... Yet who's caught a flourescent green and bright red and orange on yellow perch. Yet that's what we chuck to imitate them. And the colour of eyes on our lures can be any colour in the spectrum.

I do a lot of open water trolling (usually on the surface) for large trout. Human rationale would dictate that you use a brighter lure on an overcast day to make it more visible yet it's absolutely proven to be the opposite. Darker colours on darker days and vice versa. This has to do with the way the fish see the contrast of bait with the sky. Yet once you get down deeper, certain colours start to dissappear in certain conditions.

We tie streamers with bleeding gills and in different colour combinations. But when we tie smaller insect flies, we try to tie it the exact colour of the bug it's imitating.

It would be nice to have a "fish eye's view" of different colours in different conditions. Somebody needs to invent some goggles that a human puts on to change their vision to a fish eye view.

[chubbdarter]

yellow color blind and blue color blind? i dont know about this...iv caught them off yellow jigs, yellow spoons, yellow wigglers and some minnows are blue. makes it kinda hard to eat when your prey are invisable lol


hhhahhahahahhaha color blind doesnt mean they go invisible....i dont see red well but the shape of the train engine rolling down the tracks is obvious.

In Fisherman did a story on walleye's sight but i cant remember the results

More than wonder about something as subtle as colors.....ever wonder why they strike a certain profile? Double paddle buzz bait with a hula skirt dangling from it. Making a gurgling, spitting sound as it tears across the water

[tacklerunner]

I guess that's the thing Chub. If it was that easy to figure out, it wouldn't be fishing and we wouldn't be sitting in front of this glowing rectangular screen talking about it all the time. :computer-18: But that's what make this sport so damn great! :fishing:

[horsetrader]

I change the front hook to red on a lot of my crank baits but also keep some of the same ones original. Sometimes it makes a difference some times not.

[gramps73]

I would have to say it has more to do with, how many hooks do you have in your box now that there are colours?

I can tell you that instead of 2 spots in the tackle box they have there own box now..lol

[Geezle]

I use all the colours and don't know if it makes a difference. Some days are red and some are plain.

X2

I have a package of red Gamakatsu's just because they happened to be the only ones in the size I wanted that were barbless.

[horsetrader]

Red is one of the first colours to disappear or be absorbed by water so its usefulness may depend on water depth

[Dust1n]

in 14 FOW

[calgarygringo]

There is a color chart out there for wallys and I may even have it here somewhere. If I can find it I will put it up.

[calgarygringo]

Here is the Walleye color spectrum sheet I have. If anyone wants a copy shoot me a pm with your email address and I will send you one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/calgarygringo/walleye-color-vision-777326.jpg

[Dust1n]

the secrets out now for the begginer walleye fishermans!

[calgarygringo]

Strange part is if you look at blue and black they are low on the list yet many times they are my best color for getting good action. I guess it shows there can be more factors than just color.

[Dust1n]

yeah ialways use blue spoons for them or yellow cranker and black jigs ect. i got most things right

[Jwood 456]

Here is the Walleye color spectrum sheet I have. If anyone wants a copy shoot me a pm with your email address and I will send you one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/calgarygringo/walleye-color-vision-777326.jpg

It seems like walleye can see orange the best. Probably why chartreuse jigs with orange feathers and orange jig heads work dynomite for me when i fish for walleye. I usually use those chartreuse/orange jigs in 13 to 20FOW before orange dissapears at 25ft.

[Daceminnow]

Here is the Walleye color spectrum sheet I have. If anyone wants a copy shoot me a pm with your email address and I will send you one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/calgarygringo/walleye-color-vision-777326.jpg

blue is near the top of the spectrum, like i've always been told? maybe i don't know how to read this thing? longer colored lines equals the top?

[npauls]

Hey Dace I think the longer the line the better the walleye sees the color and the higher up colors disappear faster in the water column. I am not positive on this by any means but that is what came to mind when I looked at it

[Cal]

yellow color blind and blue color blind? i dont know about this...iv caught them off yellow jigs, yellow spoons, yellow wigglers and some minnows are blue. makes it kinda hard to eat when your prey are invisable lol

Yes FH7, anything yellow or blue becomes completely invisible to them. I paint the hull of my boat blue and wear blue clothing, works great, you should put that one in your book. Heck when the water is realy blue the walleye think their flying so using a lure that looks like a small song bird can be deadly! :thinking-006:

[calgarygringo]

I believe there are 3 theories and I think Nate is on to one of the others. One is how they see the colors as far as which come through the best for vision (above). The other is what colors do they react to or prefer best. The last is what colors remain visible through the water column. I have seen charts as well that show how colors disappear at certain water depths. I may have one of them around here as well, which is another reason certain lure colors don't work as well depending how deep you are fishing. If I remember correctly they say red is not a good color to use if you are fishing the depths. The chartreuse, whites etc will be more visible deep fishing. Probably a good reason why we catch lakers at spray at 80-100 ft of water with white jigs and buzz bombs. I'll see if I can find it and post it as well. Some of this color info does work well I have found.

[calgarygringo]

Here is some more color info I have for in the water at depths. Interesting article as well. Explains a little more about why we should watch our colors as fisherman.

http://www.educatedangler.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=921


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/calgarygringo/diagram3_220.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/calgarygringo/color_graph.jpg

[npauls]

So it looks like pretty much any color should be visible by the walleyes I fish for. I don't fish any deeper then 30 feet of water for them if at all possible so the only color that should lose its color through that depth would be the red and the rest of them should be good all around.

Thanks for the charts. Gives me a better understanding of what I will need for information when trying to figure out what patterns to go with.