Colour by Jan Eggers

(Autumn 2001 Edition)

 

Recently I was looking in an old tackle box and was surprised to find some old Abu Reflex spinners that I used about  40 years ago. But I was even more surprised to see black and red stripes of paint on the silver spinner blade. I remembered that sunny day in November 1956, due to the fact that the Hungarian revolution was in the news, when I couldn't catch any pike on this spinner that was by far my favourite lure then. I even remembered the book in which I had read that you'd better use a dull and dark coloured lure during sunny days. That evening I painted some silver spinner blades in dark colours. A few days later I caught a nice pike on my first home-coloured spinner and for a long time my confidence in this theory was high, maybe even too high.

Writing an article about colours now, over forty years later I can only give examples from 40 years of lure fishing all over the world with lures in all kinds of colours.  And after all these years, after all these thousands of hours catching thousands of predators, my answer on this question is still: I don't know.

Fish cannot speak, but...

There have been moments and occasions that I was absolutely sure that colour was a very important factor in catching predatory fish. But there were also situations that I caught predators no matter what colour of lure I used. And what to say of situations that you catch a lot of fish, loose your favourite lure on a snag and catch nothing on the same lure in a different colour? Too many open questions to which nobody can give the right answer. The only living creature that can give the exact answer is the predatory fish itself. But until now I haven't heard of pike, perch, zander, trout or salmon that can speak. A pity, for it would make my job in writing this article a lot easier.

Although fish cannot speak, they can show in a very clear way if they like a certain lure or not. I have seen many times how a pike, zander, trout or other predator followed my lure, looked from some distance at it but didn't take it and even turned its head. By putting different lures on the line, I often managed to catch that fish that ignored my first lure. The same happened when I just changed to the same lure with a different colour. So then it had nothing to do with the vibrations and action created by the lure. I dare to say that a Mepps Lusox 3 spinner or a Rapala J-11 plug have the same vibration in colours silver or gold and same action in colours firetiger and fluo-orange. For me this can only mean fish can notice different colours. I have discussed this subject with many biologist and scientists doing research in this matter. Dr. Keith Jones and Paul Johnson of Outdoor Technologies Group in USA confirm that predators like bass, pike, trout and walleye can see different colours and select a prey that has a favorite colour for the fish.

Dr. John G. New of the Loyola University in Chicago spends a lot of time on finding the right colours for musky and pike lures. His conclusion is that pike especially have good colour vision in the red-orange-yellow-green range of the colour spectrum. He is also convinced of the fact that pike see contrast, even in dark conditions. Nice to hear these opinions of scientific people, but for me theory and practice still differ a lot. What seems to be the right colour today, because I catch a lot of fish with this colour, can be no good at all tomorrow, I think many readers will agree.

There are more important factors

For many lure fishermen the colour of a lure seems to be the most important thing. They can spend a long time in a tackle shop discussing which is the best colour with the shopkeeper or friends. I know this behaviour from the days when I was young. One can say that it seems that nice coloured lures often catch more fishermen than fish... Nowadays colour is for me less important than other factors. I will mention a few. For me the most important thing of a spinner, plug, spoon, spinnerbait or whatever lure, is that I can offer it at the right depth. And the right depth is for me the area where I can expect the predators during that period of the year. That can even mean different lures swimming at different depths for the same lake or canal. In summertime the pike, zander and perch are active in the upper water levels. But in winter time you have to offer your lure much deeper. The action of a lure is also an important factor. Jointed wobblers can be fished slow but still have a lot of action. So not surprisingly I use these jointed versions during the colder periods when it is better to offer your lure with a slow retrieve. On bigger waters I prefer lures that have a lot of vibration so that predators can locate it better with their lateral line. All these factors have nothing to do with colour but there are other factors that do have to do with colour. The first one is the colour of the water. The clearer the water, the better and from greater distance the pike, zander or other predator can see the lure. And not only the lure but also the shape and colour of the lure. Don't have the idea that as soon as they see the spinner, plug or spoon they attack it at once. Often they just follow, remaining some distance away and when they don't like the lure for whatever reason, turn their head and disappear. The opposite of clear water - coloured, dark, grey and murky water, means the fish have more problems in seeing the lures. In these conditions lures painted in high visibility colours are seen easier and sooner so the lure manufacturers tell us. Again, if this is true, I don't know exactly for the fish don't speak. I can only give my personal opinion having fished quite often with fluorescent colours in waters with a very low, often not more than 50cm, visibility. I can say from many years of practice that these fluo-coloured lures do catch more fish than the normal colours in these bad conditions. Later in this article I will give some examples. Another factor where lure-colour is important is the availability of certain preyfish. If 90% of the pike's dinner consists of small perches, it is a good idea to start fishing with a lure in perch colours. When you fish for pike in the Baltic Sea, you should have in mind that small herrings are breakfast, lunch and dinner for these pike and blue-silver coloured lures represent these herrings well.

The visibility of colours under water is not only depending of the clarity of the water but also of the weather conditions. When the sun is shining and penetrating the water, a shiny lure gets much more reflection than during cloudy and rainy conditions. Waves on the water create different sunlight penetration to a flat surface. I have been talking a lot with scuba divers and especially my friend Edwin Sterckel has given me a lot of information how a changing sunlight penetration can change the underwater world and also the behaviour of the fish.

Now we come to another important factor that can have some influence on the colour of the lure. I don't know how to call this factor that has to do with how aggressive, hungry, irritated or just food-jealous a predator can be. It can happen that a zander is not hungry at all but just wants to get rid of the lure that is entering his territory where it protects its nest with eggs. I have seen with my own eyes how a very fat pike, with a big preyfish in its stomach, was hitting a big spoon with his nose and mouth closed like he wanted to chase away the intruder. I kept throwing the spoon in the same area and saw after a couple of casts how the pike opened its mouth and tried to bite the lure, and I hooked him. My belief is that I could have irritated this zander and fat pike with any other lure, no matter what colour, and this might happen more often then we fishermen realise. I have been so lucky to watch the behaviour of thousands of pike in the pristine, clear and almost unfished waters of the very North of Canada. And here I noticed some interesting things that have also to do with colour and which also happen in my home waters in Holland.

Catch and release

The Taltson River that flows into the huge Great Slave Lake, a lake the same size as the whole of Holland, is in my opinion the best place in the world for big pike. To catch 100 nice pike a day is nothing special and I remember one year I caught no less than 77 pike over 100cm in one week of fishing. There were so called "hot spots" where you could catch pike after pike after pike on any lure you wanted. As long as it moved in the water, the pike attacked it. But.... this only happened during the first days of the trip. We released the pike and often we caught a pike that was caught a day before for a second and even a third time. But the more we were hammering our lures into these hot spots, the fewer pike we caught. And they were definitely there for we saw them following our lures. They became suspicious, they had learned that grabbing such a lure, created problems. And although they were often very hungry, they avoided the lures more and more. The first solution was to use total different lures in different colours and instead of spoons and plugs, we could catch them again on streamers, surface lures and soft plastic lures with some scent like the Berkley Power Baits. But at the end of the week they had also learned to ignore these newer lures. It was frustrating to see 20 pound pike follow your lure but not taking it. One could even see on the scars on the mouth of the pike that proved it was one that was caught before but had become wiser now. The only way to catch them now was to use a small deadbait like a small pike, walleye or whitefish (Coregonus). I still remember the evening we tried deadbaits for the very first time, for it still is my best pike fishing evening ever. I caught in 3 hours an awful lot of big pike and no less than 9 over 20 lbs. Unfortunately there were no more days left to find out how these pike would react after being caught several times on deadbaits but I know it from similar sessions in Holland and England. Catch and release of pike is well practiced in these countries and that means our pike get wiser by being caught and released several times. They learn to ignore certain lures and deadbaits and we have to use more tricks if we want to catch them. It has become popular to colour your dead herring, roach, mackerel or whatever deadbait in the fanciest colours like red, blue and yellow. It seems that pike don't recognise these coloured deadbaits as something dangerous, take them and of course get hooked, and released, another time.

Thinking about these strange coloured deadbaits, made me thinking about total different colours for plugs. During a trip to Lough Mask in Ireland, where the pike have seen almost every lure available, fishing was very hard and I decided to use total different colours. Trolling a totally black Super Shad Rap fished deep on a thin, 0.17mm FireLine, resulted unexpectedly in 5 nice pike from deep water. That evening the other members of the SNB (the Dutch-Belgium Pike Anglers Club) started painting their lures black as well, and with success. Next day we not only caught more pike but also big ones like my 118 cm pike that weighed 14 kilos. From that moment on I had a lot of confidence in totally black lures and Rapala made some test samples for me. But because I wanted to know if it was only the colour responsible for my improved catches, they also made some total white plugs so that I could start a testing programme to find out the importance of colours. Later on I will tell a little bit more about the test results, but first I want to say something about the probably most important word regarding lure colours:

Confidence

I fish with a lot of lure fishermen from all over the world and in a lot of places in the fishing world. I fish with both very experienced fishermen and with kids who hope to catch their first pike on a lure. But no matter if they are old or young, with either a lot or almost no practical experience, they have almost always one thing in common: confidence in certain lures. When I start fishing in my home waters with Fisch und Fang editor Manfred L�er, he will use his soft plastic 10cm shad. My colleagues Bert Rozemeijer and "River Piker" Piet Driessen use the Rapala Super Shad Rap wherever possible. The "Piking Pirate" Gord Burton from England will always use a 14 cm Floating Magnum. I know of a lot of colleagues that have a favourite lure in which they have a more than normal confidence. I have seen with my own eyes that they make 10-20 cast with a different lure and change again to another one but always return to their favourite lure and often remain fishing with their favourite one.

During the Rapala weekend in Bovenkarspel, December 1996, I noticed how Pedro Weigand, Gerardo Sanchez, Bertus Rozemeijer and Piet Driessen tried several lures but returned to their favourite ones and caught pike on them, that gave them even more confidence. And Jan Eggers himself? For me it was easy, I started with my favourite lure for my homewaters, a Rapala J-11 in the fluo-orange GFR colour and never used another one. Why should I? With my 9 pike, including some nice ones of 81 and 92cms, I was top scorer of the group of journalists and was very content. But because all journalists caught pike on different lures in different colours, it also proves that it is sometimes more important to fish with a lure you have confidence in than with a lure in a special colour recommended by local guides. In my opinion it is because they have learned in many fishing days the right presentation of their favourite lure.

I dare to say that the right presentation of a lure is more important than the colour of a lure. A lure with a "hot" colour for a special lake that is presented in a wrong way will catch less fish than the same lure with the "wrong" colour with the right presentation. When I fish with guests in my home waters, it often happens I catch more pike and zander than my guests. They look at my lure and regret they don't have one in that colour. At such moments I offer them to switch lures and the results is that I also catch fish with their lures. Even if I catch nothing in the first hours, I don't change my lure because I know that the presentation is right and sooner or later I will catch.

Moments I won't forget

I admit I can be pretty stubborn when it comes to changing lures and colours of lures. There have been moments and situations where I had to admit that the pike didn't attack my lure and I successfully changed the lure or the colour of the lure. Here are some examples from the past that made me realise there are moments you have to change colour. I was fishing with a group of journalists for pike in the Baltic Sea near Trosa in early spring. I fished in the cold water with Jointed Rapalas 11 and 13 cm in orange, perch and chartreuse colours, my favourite lures and colours. My American friend Bill Tenney and Danish journalist Jens Ploug Hansen were catching many big pike mamas, it was before spawning time, on 13 cm silver-blue Swim Whizz wobblers. Whatever kind of presentation of my Rapalas I tried I had no success while my friends at least had 20 pike each. That evening I bought some Swim Whizz lures in the silver-blue colour in the local tackle shop and next morning I caught fat pregnant pike from the first cast on.

I remember a day on the Rat River, a small river running into the Taltson River, after 2 days of heavy rain. The water was dark coloured and conditions not the best. I tried a lot of lures and all of them failed until I tried a fluo-orange Mepps Syclops of 28 grams. I hit the jackpot with this hot orange lure but still don't know if it was because of the colour or the action. But to be honest, as long as you catch, you don't care about these things.

I remember a weekend in my home canals around Bovenkarspel when the only lure I could catch pike on was a red tandem spinner. And not only me, also some of my friends had to use this spinner if they wanted some pike action. Believe me, we had tried at least 10 different lures that had caught a lot of pike before, but this weekend they only wanted that red tandem spinner and don't ask me why.

In the spring of 1996 I fished with some English journalist in the Baltic Sea around the Aland Islands between Stockholm and Helsinki. Of course I mostly used blue-silver plugs and we caught plenty of good pike. But when we moved one of the next days to another bay, the pike ignored all our silver-blue lures. Perch fanatic Steve Burke told us he would use a smaller lure than our 13 to 20 cm plugs for maybe he could catch some perches then. He used a small chartreuse Fat Rap and with the second cast he hooked a 19lb pike. 'The exception to the rule', we thought, but when he hooked 5 more pike over 15 pounds in the next half hour, while we caught nothing, we wished we had a similar lure. The end of the story was that Steve caught about 10 pike over 15 pounds plus a lot of smaller ones and we caught only a few pike and not a single double figure one. Remains the question: was it the shape and action of the lure? The right presentation or did the colour have some influence? As so many times before, I don't know the answer. But I do know I will take some yellow Fat Raps with me next time I fish the Baltic Sea in springtime.

One final example. I have told you I received both black and white Jointed Rapalas for my testing programme. One day I use only the black one, the next day I fish only with a white model. I have been fishing with each colour now about 40 hours and to my own surprise I have caught in my rather grey and dark coloured home waters 40 % more pike on the black version than on the white ones. Don't ask me why, I don't know, it just happens. But the most interesting point of this testing was that in sunny conditions the black lure was catching more than double the number of pike than the white one. So I get more and more convinced, like I did 40 years ago already, that there must be a relation between sunshine, water clarity and colour of the lure. Together with some members of the SNB we will do some more testing and make notes of the visibility of the water, the weather, the temperature of the water and more factors. And who knows I will write within a few years a follow up of this article in which I can give some advice about the right lure colour during certain circumstances. At this moment I have more confidence in the right action and presentation of a lure than in the colour. But I also know there are always exceptions on the rule. Therefor I always carry a lot of different coloured lures with me, for you never know.....