Does Flourescent line scare bass ?

[younto]

From time to time, I have found myself using a rod with flourescent line, left on the reel, during the daylight hours. I have been using Stren Flourescent Clear/Blue line which looks great under the UV of a black light and pretty "clear" in the daylight...but........wondering if it has enough scary color showing in the daylight to make bass hit my partner's secret bait rather than mine. Most of my fishing is at Clear Lake, so water is usually somewhat colored at best...but never flourescent blue..ya know ??
Any thoughts ?

[BassManDan]

I am a firm believer that bass aren't line shy when it comes to size of the line, why use 8 lb test when you can use 20 to the same effect.
I try to make my line blend into the environment, why, so most of the time I use a moss green colored line. Rarely do I fish gin-clear waters, but I would probably find my self using fluorocarbon, because those conditions would probably require a deeper presentation and lines of another color would be visible.
My thought is, if I have the right colored line available to me, why not use it.

With your situation, I would not object to throwing the blue fluor. line with reaction type baits, but with lures that will get closely examined, like jigs, texas rigs, etc. I think a properly colored line would be your better choice.

As per "Does it scare bass" doubtful, hopefully they are not running in fear of your line
BassManDan

[kopper_bass]

Younto,
As BassManDan has suggested, i think it really depends on the lure you chose to use it with. Throwing a spinnerbait or crankbait with it probably isnt a problem. I've seen plenty of guys using it on the delta with the dingy water and have no problems catching fish.

But, i can tell you that i have seen the negative effects first hand. Several years ago i was fishing Shasta as a co-angler in a club tourney. i had a full spool of the flourescent blue line on, but had a 5ft fluorocarbon leader on, and was whacking fish with the dropshot. After re-tieing many times, i ran out of the leader and got lazy and just cut it off and tied straight to the blue line. Well, sure enough, i couldnt get bit for the rest of the day while my boater just kept whacking 'em.

at the time, i couldnt figure out what was going on. So, my boater sat down with me and we went thru all the variables. He eventually gave me his rod, he took mine, and sure enough i could catch fish again and he went fishless. We didnt realize about the line since i was catching them earlier, but then it hit me...... i had the leader on and i cut it off. Soon as i put on a fluorocarbon leader again, i started catching fish.

So, yes, i defintiely believe that the blue line can scare the fish if used in those techniques where the water is clear, and the bait is presented for a long look.

I would only recommend using that line during the day with fast moving reaction baits and only if the water has some color in it. I would never use it for jigs, senkos, or drop shotting; especially in clear water.

hope that helps ya.

Kopper_Bass

[Cooch]

I am a firm believer, that Bass can be line shy, in any water condition. What we don't understand as humans, is the fish can see a whole lot better under water than we can. What may appear stained or slightly stained to us, offers a bass maybe 3-6 foot of visability. His eyesight is far superior to ours in his world. His biological design has evolved that way, specifically for his own survival.

The bass also have this thing called the "Lateral line", it tells their brains certin things that their eyes can't. Anyone who doesn't believe the affects of 8 pound test line and 20 pound test line indeed are greatly different, and are undetectable to a bass, doesn't understand the geometrical aspecs of line diameter and water displacement, and what happens when those two different displacements hits a bass' lateral line. But that's another topic fer another day! Sorry, didn't mean ta hijack the thread. LOL

Agressive, feeding bass, will typically hit anything with a vengance, with complete disregard for our line. Spawning bass can sometimes be the same way. You get a nuetral or negative feeding bass, that's not real agressive and that fish is very well likely to be wary of a lot of variables within his environment, including your highly visable line!

I see this regularly on the Delta and Clearlake while guiding. Both of these ponds offer a wide array of water coloration differences. I use fluorocarbon exclusively when pitching and flippen. At the end of the day, many of my clients will always say as we review the day, "I shoulda listened to ya, and left that braid or mono behind. You caught way more fish than I did today, until ya made me put that fluorocarbon line on." And this is the absolute beautiy of fluorocarbon and where it out performs any other line type. It is nearly, and even claimed by some line manufacturers as completely, invisable under water.

Long before Fluoros and braid, it was very common that we either used the clear or fluorescent monos, it was what we had. We made do, we caught our fish. But I have absolutely no doubt in the belief that using fluorocarbon lines, has made me a better angler and is putting more fish in my boat than monos ever did or could. Using fluoro, I never, ever, have to think about line shy fish. Should I change my color of line, should I drop down in size? Waisted thought processes to me.

Can you go out tomorrow and catch fish with that fluorescent line, yup, ya sure can. But if there comes a point where yer not gettin bit, then ya better hope yer instincts tell you, that the bass are telling you, ta change line before the day is done! Think about it, unless you make the change right on the water, you have absolutely no idea, if the line has had any affect on the number of bites ya got. Some folks may be quite happy with 6 bites a day flippen braid, or 10 bites a day flippen mono. What if they changed to fluoro in the middle of the day, and their bite total doubles? I've done this. I 've experienced it with clients, often.

Fish will, at many times, be line shy! They have convinced me!

[swimbait]

Amen to what Cooch said. Discounting line color is like discounting lure color, or line diameter, or water temperature, or moon phase, or....

There are many factors that lead up to hooking and landing bass. When you start to discount those factors, you narrow your opportunities. It's not as if you can't catch fish, but it's a question of how many you want to catch.

You couldn't pay me to use fluorescent blue or yellow lines. I almost never use braid. If I look at my line in the water and it looks shiny or reflective, or opaque, my confidence goes down immediately. There are big differences in monofilaments when it comes to these properties.

Look at your own line some time. Look at it in bright light, low light, shade, etc. Ask yourself honestly how easy it is to see the line. There's a lot of mono out there that (in my opinion) does not get bit well. I've gone through phases of using line that didn't get bit, and you have to just get rid of it. Most fluorocarbons are good. Some monos are good. Your own eyes and the reaction of the fish will tell you what is good or not. Bright blue or yellow line is not good

[Andy Giannini]

If you suspect it matters, and if it hurts your confidence then the answer is it absolutely does matter.

Sometimes the bait/technique, water clarity, or fish activity level can rule out line being a factor.

At other times the fish will look for any negative cues regarding your presentation.

The only other cool thing about flourescent or high vis other than a blacklight is extreme weather conditions. If the river is mud, and the wind is howling, you can see your line a bit better in the overcast daylight. (Cooch will add with flourocarbon under those conditions, you can FEEL it better if you can't see it.)

I like green line, and clear with no flourescent hues.

Just keep a reel spooled with flourescent just for night fishing, and pop another reel with something else on the same rod for day.

.02 A.G.

When the light is right, I can see line from set rod bank anglers from almost a half mile away!

[Jeff Jewell]

Cooch
As for the water displacement, Would'nt the Floro have a greater displacement than a thinner diameter Mono? And would'nt that be felt thru the lateral line ?n So is it a trade off of visibility versus lateral line sences??
Interesting topic of discussion...
Thanks Jeff

[mac (Doyle McEwen)]

The very simple truth is at times it will make absolutely no difference and at other times it will make all the difference..Those of us over the age of 50 should be able to remember before there weren't very many monofilament lines out there..We caught our fish on braided line that was normally of much larger diameter than most modern braided lines, attatched to the ends of cane poles and in some cases level wind reels..The first monofilament line I was exposed to was large diameter and really stiff, but we used it and still caught fish..When worm fishing with soft plastics became popular in the 70's (Texas rigging) you could find numerous brightly colored lines (yellow and orange for example), we still caught fish and lots of them..Especially me, the highly visible lines made it a whole lot easier to see subtle line movements indicative of some light bites..Now there are as many different types of line as one could ever find a use for..It was amazing to me when I started posting on this site that so many people were using braid..I was still thinking of the braid I had used years ago and just could not relate to its use, that is until I finally decided to give it a try myself..The new braids are as different as can be..Yet we still catch fish on braid..The new monos, colored or not, are a lot better and more sensative and less stiff than the monos of just a few years ago, we still catch fish on mono..Now there is floro lines and hybrid lines, these are usuallly a little stiffer (in some cases a lot ) more sensative and harder for the fish to spot visually in the water..We catch a lot of fish on floro also..

If the fish are hungry, you could probably present your bait/lure on a 1/4 inch red, white and blue rope and catch fish..At other times you will do much better using any of the newer style fishing lines in any color..

Now the original question about flourescent lines scaring the fish, I doubt if it really scares them, so much as it just alerts their senses to something that just does not appear right..If they are really hungry that will overide everything else and they will bite..So the simple answer is it depends..The difficult answer is the same..

As I get older and my eyesight becomes less sharp I find using highly visible lines to be to my benefit in detecting some bites..But that is just me, others may not have that problem..

mac

[Cooch]

I don't think so Jeff. First off any # test flouro, whether it be 4,6,12 or 20, has a smaller diameter than mono of the same test. I don't believe, but I could be wrong, never tested for this, but just because Fluoro is a denser line mass than say mono, I'm not so sure the geometric properties of it being denser, would create more water displacement while in the water. Certainly, any line, no mater what the visability or density of that line is, will create some amount of vibration cruising through the water that bass will detect with their lateral line. I think the more surface plane mass in a given line, will produce a greater displacement than it's density mass. Hence the belief of many, that dropping down from say 10# test to a 4# test line of any material componant, is required for line shy fish. The diameter is much smaller, hence displaces less water that can be detected by the fish's lateral line.

And there in lies my thought processing why Fluoro has such a great advantage over other co-poly and mono lines, it indeed has a smaller diameter compaired to line tests of simular strangth. So toss in a smaller surface plain, displacing less water, and the inivsability factor, and we certainly can't leave out it's supperior sensativity, I've choosen ta use and promote fluoro as the most versatile and reliable line available to us right now, under most conditions.

All this stuff is purty technical, and to the day to day angler, prolly means very little. But if you look at it from a numbers standpoint, calculate what you need to attain more or better quality bites, whether it be in competiton with others or just focusing on yer own performance, disecting little details like this can make a huge difference in yer confidence level, which ultimately will afford you much better success on the water.