Does coloured mono affect the fishes ability to see it?

[Isaac Ct]

Hi raiders,

I know this might seem like a silly question but does coloured mono affect the fishes ability to see it? I recently purchased a spool of 10 pound leader and I couldn't find any clear mono so I went with the option of red mono. If anyone has any advice or info it would much appreciated.

Cheers Isaac CT

[Pickles]

Hey Isaac, great question we all think about and marketers of fishing lines, hooks, sinkers, beads etc use to sell us gear. The colour spectrum for vertebrates and invertebrates is perceived differently depending on the species. Each eye contains photoreceptors made up of “rods” and “cones”.  Basically my understanding is that the rods are not receptors of colour, but light and so allow night vision (in shades of grey). Cones require much more light and seperate that light into colours (of the light spectrum - Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo and violet). Some species have more cones and so can “see” colours and others have more rods and very sensitive to colours. It gets a bit more complicated as some species have multiple eyes (arachnids such as spiders can have 8 or more eyes) or “compound eyes”, such as insects and “see” colours differently to humans.

Even amongst humans there are different perceptions of colours and some folks are colour blind and varying degrees of “colour blindness”. 
I remember buying a smart looking “Salmon”  coloured dress shirt, when my wife saw it she complimented my choice of a “pink” shirt - this resulted in a lengthy “conversation” about what colour it was - I asked several friends - some saw pink and others salmon/ orange.

The following link is worth a read, but might not answer your question.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/uom-cvf050919.php

“Vertebrate eyes use two types of photoreceptor cells to see--rods and cones. Both rods and cones contain light-sensitive pigments called opsins, which absorb specific wavelengths of light and convert them into electrochemical signals that the brain interprets as color. The number and type of opsins expressed in a photoreceptor cell determine the colors an animal perceives……."

[noelm]

This has been discussed many times before, I have "experimented" with colours (human eye of course) and it's often said red is the first colour to go, and up to a point this is correct, however, the line doesn't "disappear" it's just no longer red, it's just a dark grey "stripe" ! clear line, red line, blue line, Fluro carbon are all the same, just varying shades a grey stripes in the water, on the surface, all colours are visible, but below about 5m or more, to us, there is no colour.

[XD351]

It might affect things on timid fish or in really clear water - funny thing is I see people using Fluorocarbon leader  and a piece of red tubing to catch whiting or a brightly coloured lure for bream . I run fluoro green braid down to a swivel and sinker  then  a metre of fluorocarbon leader down to a red hook for flathead and I have also run braid all the way to the hook and didn’t notice and drop off in catch rate . Back before fluorocarbon lines we used green , pink and blue mono as leader and before that linen lines were used and they all caught fish . 

iirc red drops out of the splectrum first so probably looks grey once it gets a few metres under the surface . (noelm posted the same answer while I was typing this )

If you want to burn half an hour of your life ( but be entertained and educated as well  ) search on the web or YouTube for a little critter called a Mantis Shrimp - they have eyes like no other creature on earth - savage buggers too! 

Edited July 14, 2021 by XD351

[noelm]

I think diameter is way more important than colour, that said, for beach fishing, I use blue or clear line, Snapper always blue or green, it's just a confidence thing, would not feel confident with some wild fluro orange line to the hook.

[Isaac Ct]

55 minutes ago, noelm said:

This has been discussed many times before, I have "experimented" with colours (human eye of course) and it's often said red is the first colour to go, and up to a point this is correct, however, the line doesn't "disappear" it's just no longer red, it's just a dark grey "stripe" ! clear line, red line, blue line, Fluro carbon are all the same, just varying shades a grey stripes in the water, on the surface, all colours are visible, but below about 5m or more, to us, there is no colour.

Thanks for the help noelm

 

51 minutes ago, XD351 said:

It might affect things on timid fish or in really clear water - funny thing is I see people using Fluorocarbon leader  and a piece of red tubing to catch whiting or a brightly coloured lure for bream . I run fluoro green braid down to a swivel and sinker  then  a metre of fluorocarbon leader down to a red hook for flathead and I have also run braid all the way to the hook and didn’t notice and drop off in catch rate . Back before fluorocarbon lines we used green , pink and blue mono as leader and before that linen lines were used and they all caught fish . 

iirc red drops out of the splectrum first so probably looks grey once it gets a few metres under the surface . (noelm posted the same answer while I was typing this )

If you want to burn half an hour of your life ( but be entertained and educated as well  ) search on the web or YouTube for a little critter called a Mantis Shrimp - they have eyes like no other creature on earth - savage buggers too! 

and XD351

[Rebel]

One of the Pro's on this Forum sometime ago said the best colour to use is Black.

Only passing it on.

[Isaac Ct]

3 hours ago, Rebel said:

One of the Pro's on this Forum sometime ago said the best colour to use is Black.

Only passing it on.

I'll see if I can find it

 

[savit]

I have got a couple of multi-color leader (just like multi-color braid) spools from NZ, and use them 95% of time. It looks a bit unusual, but I dont see any noticeable difference in bites.

[Isaac Ct]

7 minutes ago, savit said:

I have got a couple of multi-color leader (just like multi-color braid) spools from NZ, and use them 95% of time. It looks a bit unusual, but I dont see any noticeable difference in bites.

I'll keep that in mind