More Clues on Fish Vision (Bass Edition)
Can fish see color? Bass don't see our flies like you'd expect...
June 2023
Can fish see color? In the never ending quest to understand fish behavior, color perception frequently pops up as a poorly understood element for both scientists and anglers. How a fish sees the world influences how they might forage and mate. But we're not really here to talk about ecology, we want to know how our flies (or lures) truly look to fish. Are fish drawn to colors on flies for the reasons we think? Do they see our flies the same way we expect them to?
Using trained fish in a laboratory experiment, largemouth bass were rewarded for striking a lever when seeing a certain color, depending on how they were trained. Then scientists changed the color of the food-releasing-lever to examine how color is perceived in largemouth bass.
Findings