Colour matters

Alien Baits specialise in artificial baits which are UV reactive.


The aim of the article is to provide a non-technical uncomplicated overview into colour and vision and is purely based on my years of extensive research and subsequent experiments undertaken by myself and my company.


To me colour is the most important part of my armoury when it comes to fishing and bait application. I have found it very interesting having read the many other articles written about colour and vision. Although written by very competent anglers I have yet to read anything that makes any sense about how colour and fish vision work. I can only assume that the articles have not been heavily researched and they are purely based on assumptions made by the writers and their experiences based on their own vision.


Human vision is without doubt one of the most limited when it comes to colour perception although for all you guys reading this one fact you should know is that women have superior colour perception to us guys and will see shades of colour far better than us. To get a better understanding you first have to understand a little about colour both from both a human perspective and that of a carp.


“Colour does not exist it is nothing more than a reflection of light that hits parts of our eyes an certain wavelengths” is a comment I have used in conversations and debates many times to get people thinking differently about how colour is perceived. Depending on the wavelength it is our brain that tells us we are seeing a certain colour. Our interpretation of that colour will then depend on what we have been taught. From small children we are taught that the sea and sky are blue and grass in green. If we lived on a remote desert island and were never taught about colours what would we make of the world around us?



As humans we have colour receptors for three wavelengths or the colours red, green and blue enabling our brains to perceive various other colours that can be created from these colours. It was initially thought and documented that instead of green being one of the colours it was yellow. However, modern and extensive research has confirmed that it is in fact green and not yellow that we see. This fact is indeed very interesting as green is not a primary colour!

Now, this may seem absurd at first, because it doesn’t seem to work the way we recall being taught at school, which was that by mixing yellow and blue paints together would give us green, mixing all of the coloured paints together would result in black, and so on. The reason for this is that mixing light is additive, while mixing paint is subtractive:


In the case of light, the primary colours are red, green, and blue, these are known as the additive primaries (where primary colours are those which can be combined to form all of the other colours). In the case of paint, the primary colours are yellow, magenta, and cyan, these are known as the subtractive primaries. It is also common to refer to red, yellow, green, blue, white, and black as being the psychological primaries, because we subjectively and instinctively believe that these are the basis for all of the other colours.

Either side of the visible colours we see as humans there are two other spectrums of colour not visible to us but which, are very visible to many other animals. These spectrums are Infra red and ultraviolet.


You may ask how this information affects the way in which you fish. Well, first lets look at the world of the carp and what affect light has on their vision.




The whole world of flavours is really a complete other article, and is often again used to catch anglers in my opinion, Yellow pineapple, pink tutti-frutti ,red Strawberry??

And when it comes to flavoured artificial corn!!! It’s plastic!!! it does not absorb or release flavour or attractors if you leave your plastic in a flavour it will wash off when it goes in the water.

Use it for what it is designed for as a visual attractor and don’t waste your time or money trying to flavour it.


Water and light.


Not so long ago I read an article about colour that suggested that as UV was a short wave length it did not penetrate water to any depth thus suggesting that UV light is not visible in water. However in my opinion this was one of those misleading articles not backed up by any fact or research but based on the writers own assumptions and opinions. UV is a short wavelength. However, its make up allows it to pass through water to a much greater depth, at the very least to the same depth as the colour green.


Recent research scientists have stated “that it is conservatively estimated that there is sufficient ultraviolet light for vision down to 200 meters (700 feet) in clear ocean water”.  Other scientific articles report that there is sufficient ultraviolet light transmission to support ultraviolet vision for up to one half mile in clear water. Visible light is completely absorbed in the first 40 feetBased on these comments one can assume that any fishable lake would allow for UV vision. For the purpose of this article let us assume that carp along with most other fish have greater vision than we could ever hope for.


Water reflects a lot of visible light and it is that reflected light that gives the suggestion that our sky is blue. Most light penetrates water when the sun is directly above which, is normally around lunch time. Water is like a mirror, how many times have Anglers commented that they prefer a ripple on the water, ever thought why?


When there is a ripple on the surface of the water it acts like a broken mirror and therefore reflects more light into the lake whereas a still surface reflects light back into the sky.


Midday is when most light penetrates water and when most colours are visible, at other times colours will be affected and it is at these times when certain colours will work better than others. So how do colours and water work? For this article we will assume that you are fishing on a lake less than 40ft deep. Under these conditions some of the colour spectrum known to us will be visible and the order in which colours become less effective and turn to shades of grey are as follows:


First to disappear will be red followed by yellow, green, blue and then violet followed by ultraviolet. Therefore, orange which is made up of red and yellow light will sit between the two colours that make it up, the rest you can work out for yourself. Extensive tank testing and subsequent field testing both in the UK and Europe was undertaken by our company to prove the concept of colours and how they work with water and light hence the production of our range of artificial corn in the colours that we currently produce.


I was recently asked “ why do certain of your colours work better at night than during the day” The answer is very simple in that certain of our colours are designed to work better at depth where there is less visible light. As such fishing at night with certain colours would be like fishing at depth during the day. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions as to which colour works best


Glow in the Dark


Alien Baits was the very first company to design and produce an edible glow in the dark bait which was launched in October 2003. The very first product I created for the company was a natural glow in the dark pop-up available with either a blue or green glow. The concept behind the colour of the glow was designed around the colour and vision spectrums.

During extensive testing of the glow in the dark baits we found that if bait glows extremely bright it will in fact spook fish and as such would take longer for the fish to be interested (when this inicial glow had subsided

If the bait is extremely bright to us it would be like a welding tourch to fish.

This is also the reason why the Alien Baits ‘NiteGlow’ products were designed not to charge extremely bright but enough to create a sufficient glow. The Alien Baits range of ‘Niteglow’ baits will also charge in normal daylight which is normally natural UV light from the sun. A significant amount of testing has been carried out by our company before the release of the Niteglow baits to the general public insuring the success of our products in helping you catch your targeted fish.


The glow in the dark concept was then replicated by many other companies that had little or no knowledge of why and how it works. Our company design bait to catch fish not Anglers.