true or false, bright colored kayak attracts shark?

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by blitzburgh

"Each shark species was found to have only a single rod photoreceptor that captured a single wavelength of light, and no shark had more than a single cone photoreceptor. In fact, in 10 of the 17 shark species they were unable to find any cones at all!

I wrote a long post about this a while back: http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/s...ead.php?t=9359

Usually when this is discussed someone inevitably get's their panties in a wad. At the risk of bunching some underwear: I'm going to say the same things I've been saying for decades.

Mako and the Great whites are not like other sharks. They are endotherms (warm blooded) and specifically adapted to hunting large prey. Generally animals that aggressively hunt have better vision than those that scavenge, and from what I've read even though their eyes are not built like ours Makos and Whites do have very sophisticated vision and much of their hunting behavior is based on visual cues.

From my personal experience I'd say that sharks are attracted by bright colors not because they see them as we do, but because in some situations they create high contrast, and I know sharks definitely key in on contrast when hunting.

With my mako lures (I designed and made them for years) the lures that dived deep got bit best if they were bright colors (orange red yellow pink) because the sharks were seeing them from the side not from underneath them. Bright warm colors created the highest contrast to the darker colder spectrum blue water. With surface lures the dark colors like purple or black got bit the best because they contrasted most with the whitish light blue color of the sea surface.

Bright colors may not be as likely to trigger a deep hunting type of attack from a deep shark looking up at the surface, but they are far more likely to trigger investigative behavior or scavenging behavior where a shark that is already swimming near the surface comes up and chews on your yak, just to see if it's something edible.

Think about this a minute a shark looking up sees your yak against a whiteish light blue back ground of water and sky, but a shark that sees you from the side sees your yak against a greenish or dark blue background.

Ultimately this is all about visibility, what get's seen due to high contrast is the most likely thing to get attacked or probed for scavenge.

Just my take, but that is my take.

Jim