This is the time of year when thousands of college kids start their job hunt. Many of them will heed their mother’s advice – wear clean underwear and dress nice. For guidance to define “nice”, they will turn to books like Dress for Success or Dress Smart. Those who take the right advice may find their ability to land a nice job improved – they obtain an edge over the college slob that wanders in for the interview wrinkled from a night on a couch, smelling of beer.
I was astonished to see that trout are equally discriminating. The well written, 93 page ebook titled “How to Catch a Trout Every Time” by Nick Anikijenko spends a number of pages on trout vision and the types of colors that are easy for them to see and which colors allow you to blend into the background.
Nick points out that trout are not colorblind; something proved by experiments that demonstrated trout could distinguish not only between colors, but shades of the same color! We already know that they have pretty acute vision – a fact each of us has already verified when we carelessly wander up to the bank and see dark torpedo shapes instantly dash to cover.
So, to get an edge, Nick recommends you dress in colors that the trout has a hard time seeing. For years, I always wore brown or shades of brown in an attempt to blend in. Turns out trout can see brown just fine. While I had the right idea in the picture below, my dull colors really did not help.
According to Nick, trout can see red, orange and yellow like a neon beacon blasting thru the night. Brown is a shade of yellow – guess I was not fooling anyone! On the other hand, trout have difficulty seeing blues and greens. So everyone out there with green waders is already half dressed for the party. Armed with this knowledge, I am changing my wardrobe. We’ll see if it makes a difference next season. At least my hat and pack are blue – so I just need to change everything else.
Bottom line: Maybe we should dig out our turkey hunting outfits and really lay it on. Those trout will not know what hit ’em.
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore