Artificial lures have been used for centuries to catch fish alongside live bait, fish waste, and other living organisms. There are several factors that influence the composition of a lure. One of the most important factors is the lure’s colour. In this article, I have summarised a study conducted in Taiwan on the colour effects of lures.
Before I go any further, I’d like to list some of the most popular colours in the Maldives. To write this article, I asked some experienced fishermen about the colours used by fishermen in the Maldives. According to experienced anglers and fishermen, the top three colour choices are red, blue, and green. However, orange, blue, and silver are also considered effective lure colours in the Maldives. Pink and white are also used in may parts of the Maldives.
Let us now read about the various colour effects in the study conducted in 2001 in Taiwan by the Department of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan. In Taiwan, a study was conducted to investigate the colour effects of artificial lures on mackerel hooking.
In the study, it was found that transparent, purple, and blue lures had the smallest hooking rates. Luminous reflectance of nine different gray lures did not show any significant difference in the hooking rates. This is likely that ‘spectral’ (colored) effects are the major influence causing the differences in hooking rates and luminous play only a minor role in artificial lure. Higher hooking rates for the colored lures mean that the fish are attracted.
- Red
- Black
- Yellow-green
- Yellow-orange
- Reddish orange (pink)
- White
- Blue
- Purple
- Transparent
The colour chosen by the Maldivian fishermen matches the findings of the Taiwan study. The only difference is the absence of black, which is not widely used in the Maldives. Red tops the list of favourite colours. I hope this article on lure colours was useful.
