The deal with glow colors is like anything else. It only matters when it matters, but when it matters it usually matters a lot!
I have yet to see a glow charger that clips onto a rod that is a real UV light. The ones that used to come on the genz rods were just a plain old white LED with almost no UV wavelength light. They barely charged a conventional glow jig
You would be amazed how often glow will out produce standard colors in the ice fishing environment. Unless you are fishing very thin, gin clear, sunny conditions, glow baits are noticeably brighter under water.
Here is a key point for you folks. When I'm talking glow, my brain is visualizing Jumbo Wedgee tails, Nuggies, Micro Nuggies and other soft plastics attached to various jig heads that may or may not be glowing. Why? Because it is far easier to change colors on soft plastics than to retie a new jig. I like to use more subtle jig heads and fire up the presentation with the soft plastic. If I have to fish with meat, then I'll go higher contrast on the jig head. But I have to stop here about plastics or they will take over this thread. If you follow the blog on my website, you can read my mini articles on all of these topics. Better yet, follow us on facebook as a fan and you'll get an update when I blog. enough blatant advertising -back to the topic
To get back to the issue of glows. Will they spook fish? Yep, some times the fish will not like a brightly glowing bait. But that's where your glow blue and glow purple come in. You don't need a camera to figure this out, just look at your flasher. If fish are coming in right after you charge up, but don't hit....and if they start hitting 5 or 10 minutes later when the glow is diminished...glow blues and purples are very subtle, but glow a loooong time. You have to use a UV light to get these buggars to glow correctly. We experimented with tons of colors, like turquoise, canary yellow, orange before we settled on the Red, Blue and purple for the Little Atom Atomic glow colors. I still have a stash of those wild colored prototypes, just in case, some day...but they didn't seem to work as well as the colors that made the final cut. That old original glow, with it's super bright but quickly fading greenish glow still catches a ton of fish for us, from coast to coast.
Here's another point. The pigment used in glow Red soft plastics is actually bright white in its uncharged state. It's even brighter white than a basic white plastic, soooo when you're fishing these baits and glow dies down, you're left with a bright white soft plastic and that's not a bad thing! The standard glow green is kind of a creamy translucent color, it will catch fish too when it's uncharged. Glow blue and glow purple are just kind of muted gray translucent when uncharged. I usually only use them under heavy snow cover, water over 20' and at night of course.
I know I got off subject, but hope I was helpful. My partner (Chuck Mason) and I will be doing a seminar for the NAIFC Hamlin Lake, MI tournament at the end of the month. You folks are sure welcome to stop in. Heck, come on out and fish the event with us. You'll be amazed how much you can learn from all these guys. I learn something new every tournament. If I could only remember what I learned and had the real brains to apply it at the right time, we'd be unbeatable
lol
Gotta get to bed, going fishing in the AM. laid off from my day job this week
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