Sk8man

There may be some much more important things to consider than COLOR of line in its selection starting with the specific use of it. Color may have more importance to US than to the fish such as when we want high visibility outside the water to see where our lines are or what we think is low visibility when fishing shallow or clear water conditions or very "green" water( e.g. using clear or moss green for instance). Each type of line considered whether used in fresh or salt water has has its own characteristics to evaluate for a given situation or use. Line types such as mono, braid, fluorocarbon, copolymer, etc. all have their strengths and weaknesses and again the selection depends largely on what you intend to do with it. A lot of the decision will come back to personal preference factors and familiarity for most folks, but there are also some claims by manufacturers that may come into play and influence the decision such as knot strength, smoothness for castability, small diameter for increased line capacity on reels, sinkability (leadcore and copper) for specific depth control, ability to cut through the water well (stranded wire), and lack of visibility in the water (fluorocarbon). Some of these claims may or may not be accurate or truthful in my view. For example the lack of visibility of fluorocarbon.....how has that been determined? My hunch is they are referring to humans viewing it in the water and that is a real problem because the eye structure of a fish is quite different than that of humans and if based on fish...how the h did the fish report the information? Some previous research data reporting the visibility of lures underwater had similar credibility problems because it was based on human diver observations (e.g. human vision and the number of feet where red, green, blue are visible and then seem to "disappear"). Line selection will most likely be a "trade-off" for most folks and now days the water fleas add another important dimension to the equation; substantially increased line diameter (e.g. 30 lb and above to help keep the fleas at bay as contrasted with previous selection of 10-12 lb test in times past). I have shifted back to mono use from fluorocarbon for deep applications such as copper or wire rigs because I believe that there needs to be a slight bit of"stretch" in the line somewhere for good hook-ups and when you have basically none (using fluoro leaders on wire or copper) the chances of hook pulls or break-offs increase. I gave up using snubbers in the late seventies so this is my "substitute" for those folks who like them This seems especially true of flies so I now tie my own with 50 lb Big Game and so far no break-offs. I still use fluoro leaders of varying lengths for shallow water or clear water conditions and downriggers and run them further back when up high because of a little more stiffness in it which seems to impart a little more action to the lures. I m no charter guy spending massive amounts of time out there and what I have stated here is anecdotal and not based on hard research and is merely an opinion so I imagine that some folks will have a very different view of things but I think it is important to give folks new to this activity something to think about and form their own opinions anyway.

http://www.mpnnow.com/article/20150909/NEWS/150909653

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Keeping that log information is probably one of the smartest and most productive uses of time spent not actually fishing. I did it for many years until many of those patterns became embedded in my brain. It is especially useful for the perch fishing. What you find is that they travel the same areas year after year and once you know these routes and structures, and have examined their stomach contents over time you can tap into the patterns and you just travel along it and they will most often be within a hundred yards or less from where they were the previous year and in roughly the same depth and there are times of the year when they appear totally absent and then you find them way out deep gorging themselves on fresh water shrimp or baby crayfish in shallow. The trout patterning is a bit different and seems more reliant on water temperatures and depth and varies quite greatly by species and is more affected by particular weather conditions of a particular year and warming/cooling of the water layers. I eventually gave up on recording the particular lures or spoons or their color for that matter because I found that it didn't seem to pattern much but the size of the spoons and sticks did matter a lot as the size of the bait they feed on changes and it can be helpful to try to match it as the season goes along. It is often very instructive looking at the information over the span of several years so it is worth the patience and consistent effort involved in collecting the data. Salmon patterning is a whole different matter as the last couple years have aptly pointed out

Ditto on Justin's "karma" comment Mike. My son and I once were in a perch tournament on Seneca and hammering the jumbos when a half dozen boats came right in on us making all kinds of racket with their engines and actually cast their sinkers right inside our boat.....probably good I had forgotten my flare gun that day