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Chartreuse paddle-tails like these four-inch Bloody Point Baits shad can be found just about anywhere people fish in saltwater.

The color chartreuse is a very common one in the world of fishing. Everyone’s probably heard the saying “if it ain’t chartreuse it ain’t no use,” and there’s no doubt that if you inspected the soft plastic jig tails in the tackleboxes of 100 different anglers, ninety-some would have chartreuse in there. But… why?

Chartreuse paddle-tails like these four-inch Bloody Point Baits shad can be found just about anywhere people fish.

Recently a science-guy named Mike Brupbacher wrote an article (If It Ain’t Chartreuse) which illuminated the matter for me. He created models showing the optics of light rays as they penetrate the water, and what colors are visible at which depths. Then, he researched the color response of a striped bass’s retina (which has been studied in depth; Horodsky, Brill, Warrant, Musick, and Latour, the Journal of Experimental Biology, 2010).

The bottom line? At or near the surface (down to one foot) virtually all colors in the spectrum are visible to the fish (or as the science guys say, “the effect on the color response of the fish’s retina is prominent”). But the deeper you go, the more other colors fade out. At 21 feet, blues and reds can’t persist yet chartreuse still does. Go deeper, and all the colors disappear – but even over 100 feet, chartreuse continues to be visible.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have a wide range of different colors and patterns in your tacklebox – not by a longshot. In the upper reaches of the water column using these different colors would clearly have more of an effect, but any angler worth his salt knows that different contrasts, patterns, and shades can produce different results at different depths from one day to the next. While that purple lure may not look “purple” down deep, for example, the colorless shade it produces could still be just what you need to trigger a strike. Still, the unique nature of how chartreuse maintains its coloration throughout the water column goes a long way in explaining why it’s such an all-around effective choice. So by all means, fill up that tacklebox with variety. Just make dang sure there’s plenty of chartreuse in there, too.