Lure Visibility for Bass Fishing – It’s about the Allure

Lure Visibility

Lure Visibility, essentially forage visibility from a bass’ perspective, is a measure of how visible the lure (potential forage) is to the bass. High lure visibility bass rely on mostly vision to identify forage. Low lure visibility bass rely more on sound, lateral line, smell from a distance and taste to find forage and less on vision.

Why is Lure Visibility Important?

Lure Visibility is important for:

Lure Selection: Understand which senses bass use to identify forage (hunt) based on lure visibility and select the best lure type.
Lure Color Decisions: Make appropriate lure color selection based on lure visibility.
Lure Profile Selection: Decide on shape and size of chosen lure type, for example to go with a large or small profile.
Fishing Speed Decisions: When to fish fast so the bass can’t get a good look at the lure or slow it down so the bass can find the lure.
Fishing Depth Decisions: Some suggest the lower the lure visibility the more shallow to fish as some believe bait fish go shallow as visibility increases near the surface water no matter the level of water clarity.

Lure Visibility Options

Low Lure Visibility Factors: Low lure visibility results from one or more:
- Low Water Clarity: Murky, stained water, can significantly reduced lure visibility.
- Low Brightness: Overcast skies, dawn or dusk has reduces lure visibility.
- Wavy Water: Wavy water reduces lure visibility as more sun gets reflected and less penetration into the water.
- Deep: The penetrated light gets absorbed as it goes deeper resulting in the lure getting less visible and the color getting duller as it gets deeper. As such, lure colors are more visible in shallow water.

High Lure Visibility Factors: High lure visibility results typically from one or more one of these:
- High Water Clarity: Clear water has the highest clarity is the largest contributing factor to high lure visibility.
- Bright Conditions: Direct sun maximizes sun penetration and thus highest lure visibility.
- Little Waviness: Flat water has the least reflection and thus the most sun penetration.
- Shallow: Shallow water has the most light penetrated with the light providing maximum lure visibility and the largest recognizable color range.

Additional Considerations

Lure Color Considerations:
- Low Lure Visibility: Some suggest dark or bright colors.
- High Lure Visibility = Some suggest natural colors.
  - Suspend: Bass are more likely to suspend.
  - More Cautious: Some suggest bass are less likely to move from cover.
Shadows: Some suggest shadows partially because bass reside in lower visibility water to ambush forage in the nearby higher visibility water.
Mud Lines: Some suggest fishing mud lines, which are the transitions from murky water to clearer water that can occur when murky water comes from streams and rivers, or, near shore on a wavy day or a day with significant boat traffic. The reason this is suggested is that it is believed that bass will reside in the murky water looking to ambush forage in the clear water.