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Blog
July 23, 2010
Some thoughts on the color pink
Pink is a hot color in our area (and many other trout areas in the country). I did some digging on other boards and came across an older post on a conventional tackle forum that explains pink a bit.
"First, the primary colors of LIGHT that produce a color response in humans are red, green, and blue (longest to shortest wavelenths, repectively). *
Second, the primary PIGMENTS that produce color (in other than fluorescent lures) are cyan, magenta, and yellow. *These pigments act by absorbing (removing) one of the primary colors of light - red, green, and blue, respectively. *
Pink is a variation of magenta. *Note that pink is NOT a primary color of light, and is NOT a dilution of red!!! Pink pigment absorbs green light, but reflects red and blue light, and humans interpret this as pink. *
We understand that the red light in sunlight is relatively quickly removed with increasing depths, but pink lures should continue to reflect any blue light. *How a fish perceives this is another question, but it is cleat that pink will be reflecting blue light at any depths to which blue light penetrates. *
As to other primary pigments -- Cyan pigment absorbs red light, but reflects green and blue light. *Thus, it would be interesting to have a true cyan lure in at depths. Yellow pigmented lures would seem to be poorest choice to reflect any light at greatest depths because yellow absorbs the blue light which pentrates farthest, but might be great a moderatedepths because of the green it reflects. *
Of the primary pigments, it can be noted that pink is unique in that it refects red and blue light that are at the farthest ends of the spectrum, *and would be expected to have distinct 'color' shifts as red light is absorbed at depths. *In contrast, cyan and yellow pigments refect light of contiguous wavelenths, and any color shifts with depth may be obscure. *"
So from what I am reading that no matter what the degree of red (low light) or blue (sunny skies) from the sun, pink will reflect light.
Driftless Angler, slowly uncovering the mystery of why the pink squirrel (and other pink bugs) works so darn well.
"First, the primary colors of LIGHT that produce a color response in humans are red, green, and blue (longest to shortest wavelenths, repectively). *
Second, the primary PIGMENTS that produce color (in other than fluorescent lures) are cyan, magenta, and yellow. *These pigments act by absorbing (removing) one of the primary colors of light - red, green, and blue, respectively. *
Pink is a variation of magenta. *Note that pink is NOT a primary color of light, and is NOT a dilution of red!!! Pink pigment absorbs green light, but reflects red and blue light, and humans interpret this as pink. *
We understand that the red light in sunlight is relatively quickly removed with increasing depths, but pink lures should continue to reflect any blue light. *How a fish perceives this is another question, but it is cleat that pink will be reflecting blue light at any depths to which blue light penetrates. *
As to other primary pigments -- Cyan pigment absorbs red light, but reflects green and blue light. *Thus, it would be interesting to have a true cyan lure in at depths. Yellow pigmented lures would seem to be poorest choice to reflect any light at greatest depths because yellow absorbs the blue light which pentrates farthest, but might be great a moderatedepths because of the green it reflects. *
Of the primary pigments, it can be noted that pink is unique in that it refects red and blue light that are at the farthest ends of the spectrum, *and would be expected to have distinct 'color' shifts as red light is absorbed at depths. *In contrast, cyan and yellow pigments refect light of contiguous wavelenths, and any color shifts with depth may be obscure. *"
So from what I am reading that no matter what the degree of red (low light) or blue (sunny skies) from the sun, pink will reflect light.
Driftless Angler, slowly uncovering the mystery of why the pink squirrel (and other pink bugs) works so darn well.
Nathan - 2010-07-23 15:10:42
I think the pink squirrel works so well because the fish want to tick off all the dry fly purists out there!
Dan VonFeldt - 2010-07-27 17:52:43
It just seems strange to fish Pink, but man it seems to work. I was up in Fernie, BC last fall fishing for bull trout on the Wigwam and did well fishing big pink streamers. It kind of made sense for the Bull's to take it mainly because it was just big and annoying to them, but what was really interesting is that the next day we floated the Elk and I used a smaller pink streamer (zonker) and the Cutt's were all over it. I left BC thinking pink.
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