Saltwater Flyrodders

In Rons discussion of Rohans pink clouser style fly there was mention on the why.

In Raleigh Scattering the last colour seen is red. This is because red being long wave goes around particles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering

The pink and chartreuse are short wave high penertration in clear water until they hit something. Pink and Chartreuse can be the result of ingestion of dinoflagellates, hence squid glow pinks and greens.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinoflagellate

River species do accumilate phosporesence in the water probably from a high fertiliser/nutrient content which activates with movement of the animal and UV street lights. Their silhouette glows chartreuse green in bubbles attached etc. When crabs etc hit the bridge lights or street lights and move they glow green.
It probably explains why prawns move out under outgoing tide around the new moon with little movement to avoid glowing like a Simpsons nuclear fish.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum
All are light 'sources'. Mussels refract emerald light that were in Rons fly bodies. Bream must know this signal.

Bream are dichromats (Grey Scale) but referring to Raleigh scattering if gold through to red is the last signal in the spectrum they are seeing it as signal in the spectrum as grey somewhere.

Pinks & Chartreuse will penertrate in clearer water but fall shorter as the water gets dirtier as they cant get around the particles in the water.
Prawns have gold eyes when you shine a light in them. Barra, Giant Herring, Mulloway all go into brackish water.

Further to that when you look at fish they have colour. Bream black and silver dichromats. Trout Golds and all sorts as the light refraction is picked up in a camera. Rainbows the clearwater fish. Pinks snapper.
I try lures of similar colours of the fish because they must see this colour not always as colour but they see it when spawning ID etc.

An excommercial fishermen once said to me Mulloway use gamma rays off the moon but it would be absorbed, then it must be UV in some form. Max maybe able to help with the moon thingy.

Just saying *throws hands in air and runs away*

Heres a link to Photophores in marine mammals

Common colours are pinks and chartreuse although Marlin, Sailfish a different spectrum.

Even Tiger sharks display black stripes just before they eat you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photophore

Not quite how you see them in the Swan under a gas lamp but sort of. All the species are coated in charteuse bubbles especially crabs.

Western King Prawn

Under bright light their eyes are gold but under low light in the water their eyes are red as an apple.

I believe this is known as guanine, a common element in blood

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the information you have posted regarding colours etc. It makes very interesting reading. - Trev

Interesting stuff there Neil - must look into that stuff a bit more - a bit more for my learning curve! Rohan told me how his fly works on the sink for more consistent results - I was probably fishing it too fast thinking of full on ambush mode - still have that fly somewhere - must pull it out and fish it differently! The info' you have posted means I need to rethink those colours on his fly.

• Sooty Grunter
• Murray Cod
• Small Barra

in dirty water so far
Its a Tasmanian bream fly

Raleigh scattering in the background. Notice the irridescent blue in the lower fins which maybe indicitve of mussel consumption like bream or is it because they are closly related and adopt this colouring not easily seen by humans?
Under UV street lights maybe a different story.

There are a lot of papers written on the subject, check with the WA Univ, here and overseas,but mostly they see what we see in the spectrum, like red,blue green since they have, the species seeing the full colour spectrum, just 3 cones in the retina, science stuff, and the pelagics have just blue green since water in their area is just blue breen.
Water is illuminated by the sun, and that illumination varies with the brightness, aka sunlight which depends on the stuff in the way, like clouds and their density.
Red is gone at 10 mteres, and with it goes ALL of the associated colours, like orange, yellow and violet and while SOME fishes may see UV in shallow water not all species do see that. Blue green goes to 200 metre plus depths
That fish do have similar retinal cones to us is a sort of fact, since its been looked at seriously.
Fish do not see all of the funny things like fancy eye colours, since its a food chain, and for FOOD to be fitted with irredescent eyeballs which attract hungry gobblers is a bit outside the food chain reality, wouldn't you think.
Things that look strange to us, might not do that to other fishes.
White is not a colour nor is black.
Water is pretty thick, and red is not red at 30 feet but a bit brownish, since its very heavily attenutated along with those other colours that only appear because of the fish eye balls are red/blue green and as only as long as red does.
After al they are light sensitive.
That you can see red prawn eyes does not say that other fish can, simply because there are a number of skin layers over fish eyes, which remove that obvious attraction for the eaters. Maybe prawn are the same.
That sunset is outside the water surface accetance bandwidth and in the water under those conditions is pretty dark,
which is why barra have reflective eye balls.
Light and life in the sea.....PJ Herring etc, Colour sensitivity and vision of fishes, Lythgoe, and" specialisitations in the telost visual systems",our very own Shaun Collin.
MaxG.

All makes sense max - when freshwater goes brown golds etc from tanin in the water, same same.

10 metres of red light would be enough for most those species like the barras, mulloway, Giant Herring etc feeding in relatively shallow water in the dirty stuff. Obviously its only part of there hunting senses.

I have noticed that herring at times accumilate the bioluminescence around there eyes as little dots which glow the green.

They must use this reflective bubble to see at night by illumination into their eyes.

Thanks for the info Max

Interesting corals under a UV light glow a large array of luminescent colours. While our own eyes have limited range, certain fish species must see in the spectrum of even of low levels of UV off the moon in low swell.

It is said by sceintist that some sharks can see & hunt by star light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK1SLMnousk