Got Camo?

[Sebastian]

You should blend right in.

[Iceman]

Jim, way to follow through on a Really great idea no more lime?

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Iceman

Jim, way to follow through on a Really great idea no more lime?

Hey.... I'm no fool I didn't paint the topside.

One gripe I have about most camo jobs as they paint the topsides and make the yak hard for boaters to see. I've seen that pic before, very nice!!! For me, I wanted to keep my yak highly visible, so I just painted the parts the fish see.






I also think most camo jobs I have seen are little dark.


Here's my thinking. Fish don't see the water as we do, because they are looking up not down.

I look in the water and I see dark blue, I see squid in the water they look light in contrast to the dark water. Now to a fish a kayak is on the surface and they are looking up so the surface that looks light. Sky blue, or even kinda white. Squid or bait on the surface look dark to a fish as they see their shadow.

When trolling for tuna when are on top, or midday when there's a ton of light, tuna like bright colors. If the are deep, or when it's low light conditions at first light they like purples and even black as those collors make the sharpest shadow against the lighter surface of the water.

In a similar fashion Purple jigs are great for Mako's if your trolling on top but if you go to a downrigger and you want to use bright yellows, light pinks and and oranges. That's because Mako's hang on the thermocline down deep, and see surface baits as shadows that contrast to the light surface, but they see deep baits as contrasting to the surrounding dark water so light colors work better deep.

So I figured in this case I wanted my yak to look like a thin paddy on the surface. Light not dark, because I want it to blend in, not contrast.

Here's a composite of kelp images I used for the idea:



Kelp with light behind it is more yellow, the water is light sky blue, ripples in the water look darker blue.

The colors I used will also be distorted by the blue in the water, the bright yellow will look more yellow/green, and the red brown will look less red and more copper brown in the water. The colors came out a little different then what I expected, but I think it's close enough. At least that's my thinking right now. At any rate it should be better then the bright green boat.

As to the pattern I wanted it to be more jumbled up than just an actual image of kelp, as patterns work better for camo, as they break up the silhouette, at least that's what the experts on camouflaging say.

The idea is if you hide behind a bush then move the bush the animal sees a moving bush, if you have a pattern with bush elements as well as landscape elements, parts of other things, the pattern itself keeps blending to the eye as it moves. At least that is the idea.

I doubt this will make a serious difference, though it may help when fishing right in the kelp.

I also figure it will keep whites off my butt as I hear they hate eating their veggies

Jim

[Iceman]

Ahhhhh functional.....cool.

[GregAndrew]

Another pretty darn good idea. I would love to see a shot of it from below in the water. I wonder what it would look like with the above waterline parts of the hull left original too? Would the ripples from the hull break up the (in my case) bright orange hull? Anyone have any pics of a yak from below with a little ripple going on?

[MarkT]

Looks good Jim, there's a reason many fish are dark on the top and light on the bottom... fighter planes are often painted that way too for the same reason.

[Tman]

When I saw the first pic, I thought, hmm...good thing the dumpster is close...

The end result is nice, I still think a bit too light...just my opinion. Did like Andy's darker camo, I think darker is more useful, rare around here to get consistently clear blue water.

After all, the bluer the water, the less life. (Bet that will boggle some minds...)

I use to get the esqueeed stickers and bait fish stickers at the Hall show, buy a whole sheet, and put them on the bottom...thought it was a great concept, helped me to get feesh, could've been the false confidence...oh well, can't find them anymore.

Anybody has a connection, I would love some of them, the real kind.

Originally Posted by Jim Day

I also figure it will keep whites off my butt as I hear they hate eating their veggies

Jim

GW's need love too!

Pretty artistic though, if I tried something like that, would end up painting the whole dang thing black.

May try that (ahem, pay somebody) on my next yak.