Lure Fishing in
Coloured Water
by Ian Rycroft

INTRODUCTION
Always a contentious topic this one! Some lure anglers swear by clear-waters only, while others will cast their lures in any conditions. But what's the best way to get results when the water in your venue is coloured, and if it's a river, in-flood or in-spate? A lot of bolony is written and talked about lure colours and fishing in coloured water. You must have read it too, some of it by people who should know better, and some by others who clearly haven't a clue what's going-on below the water's surface, especially regarding how light and its colours are selectively and differentially absorbed and reflected — and we're not talking about how humans see things underwater either: we're talking about things as viewed, felt and otherwise detected by predatory fish species. Anyway, here all-weather & all-waters lure fishing fanatic Ian Rycroft tries to drag some clarity out of the murk.

CLEAR & COLOURED WATER
I'm a lure fishing fanatic so I fish in any conditions, clear or coloured water, still or in-spate — if I didn't go lure fishing regularly I'd go mad, and so I don't let the potential annoyance of heavy rains and even floods hinder me if I can at-all help it.

If you haven't already read Steve Adams' very erudite article about Lure Colours & Fish Vision, then it might help you better understand this article if you have a look at it first. What happens to light when it enters the water's surface and travels-around underneath, is pretty-well understood ; obviously these things are much easier to study scientifically in clear water conditions, but at least that's a start.

If the water also contains a dispersion of tiny suspended particles, silt, algae and so-on, things get harder for the predators, and even harder for us to understand when it comes to knowing what they can detect by sight, by smell, and from vibrations and electrical impulses from prey fish, and feel too as far as catfish are concerned.

It's pretty obvious that predators that rely primarily on sight to detect and attack their prey, favour clear water conditions. A good example is the perch, which has an added advantage that it can see further into the infra-red part of the spectrum of light than humans. Zander are even better equipped — they are the sighted fish in the waters of the blind when it comes to hunting prey in coloured water!

Their eyes are specially adapted with an internal layer of mirror-cells that contain guanin; this means that zander can detect very low levels of light entering their eyes and therefore they can detect prey fish when the prey have difficulty in muddy or cloudy water. These mirror-cells actually make the zander look as though it is blind, and hence the name Wall-Eye, meaning blind-eye. Nothing could be further from the truth though.

This is what some tests with zander have shown about their likely underwater perception of colours.Of course this assumes that sufficient light of all those wavelengths has reached the depth at which the zander is hunting.

This is quite surprising, though, because it seems that zander are more sensitive to reds, oranges and yellows, when in-fact, these are the wavelengths that the water absorbs first, with the greens and blues penetrating furthest through the murk (see above, & below). Furthermore, in murky conditions where suspended particles diffuse all wavelengths, vision becomes more difficult, but this is where the zander's specially-adapted eyes come into their own. So maybe this is why lures like this (right) seem to be really effective for catching zander .... maybe!

PIKE THE SUPREME HUNTER
When it comes to the pike, the supreme hunter, coloured water doesn't pose much of a problem either. Consider the facts that pike can hunt quite happily in total darkness, and that blind pike are able to survive. This shows that pike, even with their forward-facing eyes and sighting-grives along the upper-jaw, don't have to rely on sight to predate successfully, and so coloured water doesn't pose too much of a problem for them.

Coloured water, however, can pose a problem for the lure-angler! Like perch, lure anglers generally prefer clear-water conditions, and then they feel more comfortable employing their theories and experience about which lures and colours to use, and whether or not to use internal rattles etc.

When lure-anglers are forced to fish coloured water, be it murky because of algal blooms or suspended particles of silt etc., they are also forced on to the back-foot about which lures to use. The key to success in choosing which lures to use in such adverse conditions, is a proper understanding of the senses and sensory mechanisms that the masterful predator, the pike, uses to hunt-down, attack and devour its prey.

Sight aside, the pike can hunt and scavenge by smell. It can also detect movement, distance and direction of prey fish, via its lateral-line sensory pits.Furthermore, sensory pits on the underside of the lower jaw enable the pike to actually detect the electrical impulses triggering the muscles in their prey fish — what chance do they stand?!

Well, prey fish have some defence, but mainly in clear-water conditions they are difficult to see from above, the the side and from below, because of their eveolved scale & skin colour camouflage .... but all this is to no avail in coloured water when the pike is hunting using its other sensory systems.

WHICH LURES THEN ?
It make you wonder, doesn't it, that if prey fish have evolved to disguise themselves, and accordingly pike are used to seeking-out prey that are camouflaged in this way, that pike attack non-natural-looking lures at-all .. but attack them they do ... maybe also for territorial reasons, or simply instinctive natural aggression .. who knows!

So with all this knowledge, speculation and guesswork, coupled no doubt with years of experience, how can we use this to select the best lures for such adverse conditions? Well, one thing's for sure, just because Lure-angler "A" has caught pike in very coloured water in a canal in Lancashire, with a Creek Chub Pike in Yellow coach-dog or fire-tiger colour, it certainly doesn't follow that the same lures will work for Lure-angler "B" in the River Thames in Buckinghamshire.

For sure, pike in a particular venue will be used-to preying on their local species of prey fish whatever they may be. Also the pike will be familiar with their haunts and habits. In clear-water conditions, you will find pike also anywhere and everywhere: in narrow shallow channels of fast-flowing water, in deep pools under over-hanging trees, and probably most commonly of all, in slack water and eddies.

During periods of spate and coloured water, prey fish and therefore their predators, seek respite from the full force of the flow by inhabiting slacks, eddies and side-streams — so at least, in coloured water and spate conditions, we can hope to at-least find pike in these areas.

Zander on the other hand have no fear of coloured water and indeed rely on it and so probably don't change their hunting habits much when the water becomes coloured. Indeed I have watched, and I hasten to add, caught, zander feeding on small bream right in the wake of boats where they have been disorientated by the propellor and the mud that it's churned-up.

GETTING TECHNICAL WITH COLOURS
I'll be talking about lures with and without internal rattles in just a moment but before I do, I want to talk about lures colours and patterns for coloured water. As you will hopefully by now have read in Steve Adams' excellent article, the perceived colours of a prey fish or lure are determined by the colours that are illuminating it and which it does not absorb i.e. by the non-absorbed colours that it reflects.

Choosing which lure colours & patterns to use in clear-water conditions is easier than for coloured, muddy water conditions. In fact, other properties or lures i.e. their shape, their action and emitted noise and vibrations, become much more important when the clarity of the water is poor and the visibility is almost zero.

Sticking with colours though, as the main subject of this article,since having read, marked, learned and inwardly digested the words of wisdom in Steve Adams' piece on lure colours, I have felt much more confident in my lure colour choice for these conditions and for both reasons (confidence & colour choice), I have managed to increase my catch-rate very satisfyingly.

I mainly choose colours that contrast with the murky background underwater, using if I can, lures which themselves are painted with contrasting colours and patterns too ... and if I can't buy what I want, I paint them myself. From what I gathered from Steve's ace article, there are two main types of colours or coatings: passive or reflecting ones, and active emitting ones. The main contrasting passive colours that I use in coloured conditions are, obviously, white and black, but also red and blue.

Active colours are the fluorescent colours, found on many lures these days, usually yellows, oranges and red i.e. colours at the red end of the spectrum.These colours also contrast well with black and red spots or stripes, as in coach-dog and fire-tiger patterns. I have been told that fluorescent greens also work well but personally I haven't tried them out yet.

ADD NOISE TO COLOURS
As I mentioned earlier, in murky conditions, it can be advantageous to choose lures not only of the right colours, contrast and patterns, but also ones that give-out sound vibrations .. let's just call them noisy lures. Pike hunt by smell, vibration detection and electrical pulse detection (from the muscles inside prey fish), and so it often pays to give them something to home-in on and attack, even if it's purely out of agression or territorial possessiveness. This is particularly true for surface lures, and especially at night. When it comes to colours for surface lues though, I don't think colours are crucial because the lures are seen only from below and are therefore only in silhouette.

When fishing sub-surface though, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits and spinners can be very effective in waters with poor visiblity, and contrasting colours can be used for their hackles and tails. As far as plugs for these conditions are concerned, I fish with the pro-rattles fraternity because I have managed to convince myself that I get better results in such conditions. As well as perhaps those having internal rattles, it's best to choose lures that have a good intrinsic action such as jointed lures, or banana-shaped lures (such as the KwikFish & Lazy Ike) and others with wild, erratic actions such as the crayfish mimics.

Also favourite lures of mine that combine most of what I regard as the necessary attributes for murky water lure fishing, are the Rattle-Spots — Rapala of course have an excellent one in theor lure range (see right) , but so do Cotton Cordell who not only have a suspending rattle-spot type lure (see above left ) , but they also have the super spot-minnow, an elongated version of the rattle-spot.

DIY
Now you're going to have to forgive me here, but I am going to state the obvious — if you can't find the colours, contrasts and patterns in the lure of your choice, then paint it yourself — it's easy — simply paint the whole lure in the base colour e.g. white, black, yellow, red or blue, and then add the spots and stripes etc., in the colours of your choice!

Good luck with your lure-fishing in murky water !
Ian Rycroft

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