[sinker man]

People are using red hooks with a lot of sucess these days. Most think that the red resembles blood to a fish and therefore a wounded quarry. Well stop and think about it a second. The reason for their sucess is obvious. Red actually disappears underwater. Yep folks if you dont believe it just go to any tackle shop and bring a spool of red cajun line to the counter and ask the sales person if the stuff actually disapperars underwater. Having asked 30 of them I already know the unanimous answer. Now I know why red works so well. the answer was right in front of me all along: invisibility. Fish can't see red hooks so they are much easier to catch with red hooks. Well I got to thinking....

 

[HOTSPOT]

Red is the first color in the color spectrum that disappears in water.

I'll use a red hook from time to time, but I like my moss green line.

 

[sinker man]

Here is the tip of the iceburger. Photo # 1. Headless minnows /all white Photo # 2. Headless minnows/ all green & Invisible sinker Photo # 3. Invisible Sinker / The pompano and sea mullet will never see it Photo # 4. These ought to confuse the living daylights out of them ... headless minnow yellow on one side / green on the other.

 

[HOTSPOT]

Purdy work man.

 

[sinker man]

Now if you want to scare them right out of the water.... use these . They can feel the vibrations but they can't see nothing but eyeballs!!!!

 

[sinker man]

Then there is the leader issue....should I waste money on flourocarbon or just spool up with RED CAJUN ???? I'll give you a hint.... I went fishing after spooling up with RED CAJUN . It was misting rain the whole morning.... I never did see my line....

 

[Dave B.]

Nice Al !!

 

[Hunter's Haven]

They say red dissapears at a depth of 6 ft.
Gery

 

[sgtfish]

I have used cajun red for the about the past year for everything from blues off the pier to bass. I also use cajun red for leader when plugging for blues and spanish. It is hard to use if you are need to be able to watch he line (plastic worm fishing). All in all it has been pretty good line.

 

[sinker man]

One really good feature about it is if a king nails your jerk jigger and don't cut you off... you got him! Once he spools you you got another 100 yrds of stretch ...the further he swims the more he has to work. With that dead steady increase in pressure he will decide to swim in an easier direction.

 

[sundrop]

I like the Cajun line on my freshwater basics. It has good flex and cast well for the price. The translucent red looses its visibility in 4-6 ft of water because of waters effect on the light spectrum passing through the line. Solid red or red over chrome like many of the hooks out there does not disappear so it stimulates my simulating blood. Just watched a thing on Bill Dance about all of this, and he is THE MAN!!! LOL!!!

 

[Topsail Angler]

As a scuba diver let me add some clarification. A red item does not disappear underwater at any depth, not 1 foot not 200 feet. The color red appears to be the color blue/green as you lose light (go deeper). So do all the other colors. Stated another way, a red item appears greenish/blue then just blue the deeper you go. You can still see the item just fine, well as fine as you can see a dark blue or green item at that particular depth.

However if the color of an item matches that of the water at a particular depth, it would be hard to see, almost invisible but remember if there is any light at all (you need it to see) then there will be shadows and even things of a similar color can be discerned.

IMO - it seems red is a more effective color for line than it is for a bait. You want your bait to stand out. I do believe red line is hard to see underwater but so is blue and green.

On the other hand that's some pretty work there Sinkerman. I just wanted to clarify the invisibility stuff.

 

[sinker man]

Mike, I have a serious question.... How far down in the water does a red snapper or red grouper appear red when you are looking down at a fish being caught? Can you watch the color start to shift as you reel him toward the surface?

 

[Dave B.]

or vermillion snapper.... them things are pretty red(ish)..

 

[sinker man]

Go ahead Dave, you have been there done that numerous times. I'm looking for an honest unbiased estimate. thats all

 

[Dave B.]

I'll be flat honest... I dont "go in the water"..... I know what swims around down there.

I would think that they, they being red grouper, snappers, pink porgies, vermillions, rock shrimps/crabs... would take on a brownish color and blend in, sorta like fish camoflauge with the surrounding rocks.

Hard to compare fishing line to something like the fish... but I dont know about the red line. They (people that make the red line and magazines that review or do articles on this stuff) do say at a certain depth (3 ft or more) that the line does blend in (hence the perception that it disappears) with it's surroundings... but usually the deeper you go the darker it gets anyway (the water column that is).

So, I dont know... I'm not convinced. I've never spooled my gear with it, but have used other folks gear that do have it spooled on. Did we catch fish? yes we did... but I've also caught fish on non flouro 400-500lb mono leaders as well.... So for me it's hard to say...

I fish Ande' Backcountry blue line on my trolling gear... I believe in it and it catches fish. Why do I go with blue? I dont know other than I know I do not like pink line or hi-vis line... it's just a personnal preference that really has nothing to to with fishing. Fishing the Back Country stuff though, I have confidence in the line itself and know it works.

Red hooks, do I use them? sure. Oshaunassy (SP?) 7/0 J type hooks in red are my "got to" hooks for baiting squid for mahi on floater lines. They're fished near the top (surface).... why? I dont know other than I know I dont want something "flashy or silver" in my bait while it's up that close to the surface on a drift... so I use red hooks to give the bait more of the look like it's bleeding as most of the time I have the hook exposed... that's just my line of thinking... we catch fish that way,, but we've also used Tru-turn plain ol' silver 7/0's and caught fish that way too...

My take is this, and I'm as particular as anyone else... go with what you believe and have confidence in. If it's working and you feel confident with your gear... then opinions dont matter and you know what works. What's fun though, is seeing what other fisher's use... cause maybe that one guy that just cant seem to hook up,, might switch from a hi-vis line to the red Cajun stuff and have a majical day on the water.
Think he'll spool up the rest of his gear with the red stuff?? go buy red hooks?? or worse, red swivels.... what's next? red line cast nets??

Advertising is a powerfull tool. Tackle monkey is a powerfull draw and know's how to market to feed the addiction. People in the tackle business arent collecting food stamps.......

I think some claims can be exaggerated (but no... fisherman dont lie!!) but it boils down to what you think works for you.

Bottom line, fish dont care if it's dacron, wire, pink, purple, red, blue, day glo orange... if you have what they want on the end of the hook,, you will catch the fish... just like the fish could care less what type reel reels their scaly butts to the boat.

I know it's a ramble.. but I personnally havent bought off on the idea of the red line, but I do fish with blood red hooks.... Looking at a fishes camo and knowing how bottom fish live,,, I'd say the reds and oranges would turn dark or brownish to blend in with the rocks, reef, corals that they live in and around...

just my thoughts...

 

[sinker man]

I like flashy silver hooks....for ribbon fish. I agree 100% with the line deal. It really don't make a lot of difference to the fish. They can sense that it is there thru vibrations most of the time anyway. But anyway in the interest of getting to the bottom of things say it is between 10 am and 3pm and the sun is out in the clear. you just happen to be reeling in a red grouper and watching him as he comes up. What color does he look at first and then as he gets closer at approximately what depth does the red coloration become appearant? I consider this an important observation and who has posted the most pictures of snapper and grouper? Maybe Capt. Butch ....Maybe Welcraft Dave .... Topsail Angler has been, there done that, got the pics to prove it....

 

[Dave B.]

Usually when we see "color" it's that white under belly and a orangish color... sometimes a silvery orange or even brownish/orange.

I'm looking for pix, but dont have any sub surface pix for what I think your wanting... but if you look at these pix, grouper (reds) are more orange than anything, red snappers are close but orange/pink...

 

[sinker man]

OK I was looking for a depth but the orange part is helpful. Agreed the first thing you see is the shine off of it's scales which might apear more of a silver color then you might get the blue-green color when the flash isn't on so to speak. The orange color starts coming in near the surface and then with just a few cranks to go the red pops out at ya. One color that I don't recall seeing on the way up is yellow. This sort of puzzles me. It take red and yellow to make orange. you take a red fish and put him down in the water a little ways and as the red light gets filtered out he looks orange. Yellow filters out next after orange but the orange don't seem to fade to yellow and even though it is next, yellow can be seen pretty deep. My guess is there really is not much of it in these fishes' skins/scales and you could take away all the red pigments and the yellow still wouldn't show up well. Otherwise they would have a more orange cast while on the surface. (With some fish you get an unmistakable orange cast that seems to be more noticible when the fish is scaled). The part that is a mystery to me, is yellow. Yellow shows up pretty good but it drops out before green which is just a mix of blue and yellow pigments. It seems like the green would look blue as soon as the yellow dropped out. Green shows up really well at depth,but it does drop out and then the blue is left but it also eventually drops out. As colors drop out of the light spectrum they take on a shade of black or gray.

 

[sinker man]

So where am I going with this? #1. Kids pay attention in school and in life. Otherwise when you grow up....People will try to sell you red fishing line and hey I can't believe it ...I actually caught a fish on this stuff..... It really works... this science stuff really works....it must really disappear. (It doesn't actually it turns a dark gray) #2 They will try to sell you deep jigs in a variety of colors. You will want one of every color and the fish wil be seeing in black and white. If someone catches one on pink the next thing you know a few people will quickly swap to that color and then before you know it they will hook up on pink and it snow balls. During all the action the guys with the green were averaging just as many fish but more people were using pink so more fish were caught on pink and to most of the people It seemed like if you didn't have pink you wouldn't have caught any fish. you will also just have to have those red assist hooks on the red line which they charge mucho green dollars for. #3. people will try to sell you camo for spear fishing. They know that it is a crock just like the guys selling red line and colorful deep jigs. Ask any spearfisherman where 90% of the fish are that they spear are in relation to them... The answer is below them . Then why do you see all these guys in break up camo that appears as a dark blob from below but looks really cool on film when the camera man is filming from above. Why don't the people watching these videos realize that the fish are running away from this stuff. It's a matter of first impressions and a sad fact of life is the more complex life becomes the more we tend to rely on First Impressions. Red heads work on plugs for a good reason. It might not be the reason we think at first but they work. It is not that red looks red at a long distance but that it is a dark spot in a light colored world and if the fish don't see the white they will see the dark and you will get attention. When he gets close it turns into red which does seem to induce more strikes. Why did I waste all this time telling you what you already know? Cause I love you and I wouldn't want you to be seen with that red line on your reel....