Have you ever thought much about how lures look under water? If you’re like me, you probably haven’t put too much thought into it. Most of us have a set group of lures and colors we use and we pretty much stick to those pretty religiously. Or we are the other extreme and we buy everything that strikes our fancy or because someone says its catching fish. I admit I have been guilty of both.

Do we really need to understand how water conditions affect lure color to catch fish? The short answer is yes and no. On the no side of the equation, you can and will catch fish without this knowledge. On the yes side of this equation, would you like to catch more fish? Well, chances are good you will catch more fish if you willing to put a little effort into understanding how color changes with water depth and conditions and apply that knowledge to adjust your tactics to those conditions.

I have found a number of videos that focus on this topic. In the first video, Kendall Roberg built a rig with marker caps attached to his GoPro showing how color changes as depth increases. This video has made the rounds quite a bit on various Facebook groups and is a good basic introduction to how color is impacted by water depth.

The second video by Len Thompson and Northern King Lures out of New York, provides a similar demonstration. I do like this video a little better because I think the color chart Len uses is more representative of lure colors than the marker caps used by Kendall Roberg. In addition, in Len’s video you can easily see how much of an impact UV has on color underwater.

While these are both cool demonstrations of the impact of depth on color, there are lots of factors that influence this. It’s important to understand that both Len’s and Kendall’s videos were taken in salt water on a bright sunny day with calm conditions and very clear water conditions. But what if you don’t have optimal conditions like this?

Dr. Greg Vinall dives into the subject in more detail. His series is broken down into four videos. Watching all 4 will only cost you about 30 minutes but its worth the time.

The first two videos in the series focus on how color changes under water as you go deeper in the water column similar to the first two videos in this blog.

The third video discusses how waves affect light and lure color under water. I found this video particularly interesting because it was something I personally hadn’t thought much about. One eye opener was the fact that smaller waves impact light transmission into the water more than big waves do.

The last video in the series discusses how water clarity impacts lure color under water. It is interesting to note how dirty water impacts blues and greens in a way I would not have expected.

So how do you use this information trolling for Salmon and Trout on the Great Lakes? Think of this as one more tool in your tool box. This tool by itself isn’t going to help you catch your limit. But understanding how color is influenced by light, depth, waves and water clarity can help you find fish faster and hopefully catch more fish.

Pay attention to the water conditions and adjust accordingly. Is the water flat calm or do you have waves? Is the water clear or is it dirty? Is it a bright sunny day or is is cloudy? Use this information to help set your lines and the lures you use.

• Bright calm days typically force fish deeper. So you may have to focus on blues and greens in deep water.
• Bright wavy days, may allow you to fish shallower and add yellows or oranges to the mix. Or bring in UV.
• If the water is murky how murky is it? Maybe switch to lures with UV or in real murky water maybe color isn’t important at all but instead you want to focus on motion with big flashers and rotators or rattles and e-chips that make noise to draw fish in.
• If it’s a cloudy day or you’re fishing really deep, maybe add UVs to the mix.
• If it’s just before sun up or just after sun down. UV and glows are more likely to attract fish.

The key is to use all the tools in your toolbox to increase your chances for catching fish. This is especially important once you start catching fish. Also pay attention to what color, depth, direction and speed you caught that fish on? Start switching out lures to match what you are catching fish on. Last and most important, once you find fish, stay with the fish! Go back and hit that same spot until you aren’t catching fish any more.

Anyway, I hope you found this post helpful. As always, let me know what you think.