Fish Vision model · Clear

Lure colour in clear water: what the fish receives

Oligotrophic lake or clear ocean. Blue-green window; red is gone first. At 3 m, viewed from 1.5 m at noon, the model scores Chartreuse, Red craw, Firetiger, Shad highest for a largemouth bass (100/100) and Blue lowest (35/100).

What the model says about clear water

Highest detection contrast at 3 m: Chartreuse (100), Red craw (100), Firetiger (100), Shad (100).
Lowest: Blue (35).
Gold gets harder to see with depth: 81 at 0.5 m to 30 at 10 m.
Junebug gets easier to see with depth: 62 at 0.5 m to 82 at 10 m.
Species disagree on: Blue. The eyes differ, see the species table below.

As the bass receives it

Each tile pairs the lure as the model hands it to a largemouth (left, after the water and the bass's cone set) with the water behind it at that depth (right). The small swatch beside each colour name is the lure's nominal sRGB, for reference; it is not a paint measurement. A bass has two cone types, so its swatch is a false-colour rendering of which colours it can still tell apart (the same convention as the Fish Vision Camera), not a literal view.

Firetiger

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 100

lure

water

6 m · contrast 100

Chartreuse

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 100

lure

water

6 m · contrast 100

Shad

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 100

lure

water

6 m · contrast 100

Red craw

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 88

lure

water

6 m · contrast 100

Blue

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 31

lure

water

6 m · contrast 39

Black

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 80

lure

water

6 m · contrast 81

Gold

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 81

lure

water

6 m · contrast 44

Junebug

lure

water

0.5 m · contrast 62

lure

water

6 m · contrast 79

Background water goes from #4d7e7e at 0.5 m to #3a8080 at 10 m. Tiles show the 0.5 m and 6 m views; the table below has all four depths.

Detection contrast by depth (largemouth bass)

0 to 100, from the same contrastScore() the Fish Vision Camera reports. The score is capped at 100, so several colours tie at the top. Chroma and luminance are the two channels it is built from.

Scroll the table sideways to compare every depth →

Colour	0.5 m	3 m	6 m	10 m	Chroma / luminance at 3 m
Firetiger	100	100	100	100	98 / 69
Chartreuse	100	100	100	100	100 / 75
Shad	100	100	100	99	93 / 68
Red craw	88	100	100	100	70 / 100
Blue	31	35	39	44	31 / 31
Black	80	80	81	82	29 / 77
Gold	81	61	44	30	57 / 39
Junebug	62	72	79	82	30 / 69

Same water, different eyes (3 m)

The model gives each species its own cone set. Dichromats (bass, walleye, pike) lose the short-wavelength axis; trout and bluegill keep three cones.

Scroll the table sideways to compare every species →

Colour	Largemouth bass	Walleye	Northern pike	Rainbow trout	Bluegill
Firetiger	100	100	98	91	81
Chartreuse	100	100	100	100	100
Shad	100	100	100	100	100
Red craw	100	100	100	100	100
Blue	35	39	45	74	79
Black	80	81	81	81	81
Gold	61	58	56	50	59
Junebug	72	72	67	67	59

What this does not tell you

This is how visible a solid-colour lure is against the water behind it, not how likely a fish is to eat it. It does not model prey matching, patterns, flash, UV, vibration or mood. Scores saturate at 100, so a tie at the top is not a tie in appetite. Inputs are fixed at 1.5 m viewing distance, noon light and a flat water column; change any of them in theFish Vision Camera. Spectra are rebuilt from sRGB, which is lossy; the limits are listed under how it works.

To see how a visible colour does against a feeding decision, run it through The Fish or browse the scenarios.