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FISHING LIGHT ATTRACTOR Just as fisherman seek conditions where the chance of catching fish is optimized, so fish seek areas where the chance of catching their food is optimal. Most game fish seek waters that are rich in food such as smaller fish, insects or shrimp. And, it follows, that these smaller fish, insects and shrimp congregate where their food is most concentrated. So, to catch fish look for the location of their food chain. Scientific research shows that all of this food chain has eyes sensitive to the colors of blue and green. This probably evolved because the water that these animals live in is blue to greenish in color, depending upon how much and what kind of particulate matter is suspended in the water. This is the color of their space…the equivalent of a room where the ceiling, walls and floor are painted blue or green. The source of this color comes from the white light of the sun. Sun light contains the familiar colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple as well as additional light humans cannot see, ultraviolet and infrared. Pure water containing little particulate matter scatters light in the blue-purple region of the spectrum. Human eyes see this water as blue. If water is rich in nutrients and contains photosynthetic microorganisms and plants, the chlorophyll in their bodies preferentially absorb red light. The remaining, unabsorbed light is transmitted and scattered, thus giving the water a greenish appearance. If the water contains a lot of organic material from decaying plant life or suspended sediment, it may take on a yellow-brown color. Fish and members of their food chain have color receptors in their eyes optimized for the light of their “space”. Eyes that can see a single space color can detect changes in light intensity. This is equivalent to a world in black, white and shades of gray. In this simplest level of visual information processing, an animal can recognize that something is different in its space – i.e., that there is food or a predator “over there”. Most animals living in a lighted world have an additional visual resource: color vision. By definition, that requires that they have color receptors containing at least two different visual pigments. To efficiently perform this function in water illuminated with light, an aquatic animal would have visual pigments sensitive to the background “space” color and one or more visual pigments offset from this blue-green region, say, in the red or ultraviolet region of the spectrum. This imparts a clear advantage to these animals because they can detect not only changes in light intensity but also contrasts in color. Many fish, for example, have two color receptors, one in the blue region of the spectra (425-490 nm) and the other in the near UV (320-380 nm). Insects and shrimp, members of the fish food chain, have blue, green (530nm) and near UV receptors. In fact, some aquatic animals have up to ten different classes of visual pigment in cells of their eyes. By comparison, humans have three with maximum sensitivities in the blue (442 nm), green (543 nm) and yellow(570 nm). It is the differential responses of these receptor cells that enable color vision. Since it has been know for a long time that a light attracts fish, shrimp and insects at night, what is the best color for this light attractor? Base on visual receptors, the light should be blue or green - the space colors of fish and members of their food chain. However, while blue or green colored light is a desirable feature it is not essential. Even if fish or members of its food chain have color receptors in their eyes centered at the blue or green spectrum, these same receptors have a broad but decreased sensitivity to other colors. Therefore, if a fishing light source is intense enough, other colors will also attract. For example, a sodium vapor light with its characteristic yellow color will attract fish - if intense enough. A fishing light attractor can also be white light because part of its total energy is in the blue to green region. The perfect fishing light would have the following properties: 1) high intensity, 2) emit its light in a color similar to the fishes space (blue or green), 3) be powered by a portable electrical supply and 4) be submersible. The last attribute is desirable because significant amounts of light energy from land- or boat-mounted lights are lost by reflection off the surface of the water. Practically speaking, only one commercial fishing light is able to offer all of these properties. Many high intensity lights such as tungsten-halogen, medium pressure mercury or metal-halide lights are so power hungry that they cannot be operated for long on a battery, thus limiting convenient portability. While green colored LEDs or specially coated fluorescent lights are energy efficient, they are not very intense. And, many lights cannot be submerged in water without risk of electrical shock or damage to the light system. One company seems to have successfully solved all of these problems and fishermen say the results are amazing. It is called Hydroglow. They have a website www.hydroglow.com |
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