COLOR, FLASH, AND SCENT
In my area, a saying for catching salmon is, “color, flash, and scent.” The concept here is that a productive bait set-up activates more than one of a fish’s sensory systems. The pieces of a typical saltwater salmon rigging that accomplish this are a flasher, a lure, and odor.
Breaking this out, much like an arithmetic equation, we have flasher + lure + scent = sound + sight + smell. Or said another way, sound + sight + smell = bite. Uhm, how did you get that? OK, I never was good at math, but I’ll try and explain what I mean.
THE “SOUND” ATTRACTANT
Let’s start with sound, which is vibration. That is true for humans and fish. Humans hear because we pick up vibrations as they travel through the air. Fish hear because they sense vibrations transmitted through water. In addition to an internal ear, salmon use their lateral lines to hear or feel their prey.
The hearing and feeling systems in salmon are involved, so for this blog, we’ll stick with the basics. Little fish, or bait, give off vibrations (sound, touch), and salmon sense these signals and use them to seek out their food, or your lure.
The flasher in a salmon rigging is designed to produce a roll when trolled. This roll mimics a circling salmon going after bait fish and “tells” other salmon to join in on the action. The “come join me” message is transmitted as a result of the vibrations. Salmon nearby hear this sound and respond.
THE “COLOR” ATTRACTANT
Flashers have other design significance as well. They reflect light and color. Sunlight bounces off the surface of the flasher to send a visual signal to nearby fish. Salmon have acute eyesight, and they will take notice of a flash of light and color and investigate.
The art of color is vital to other pieces of your gear. How many times have we started with our favorite black and white skirted whatchamacallit only to find out later that the blue and green one produced the hits? Fish, as mentioned above, have keen eyesight, and the wise fishing enthusiast should have gear in several color choices. For example, my tackle box has the same model of an artificial herring lure in three different color phases: black and silver, blue and silver, and green and gold.
Contrast is an essential function of color. That is the contrast in the water your fishing and not necessarily the contrasting colors of your lure. Colors that stand out in the water your fishing (depth, time of day, murkiness, etc.) may have more to do with fish seeing your bait than the precise color combinations of your lure.
Much more can be said about color choice when gearing up, but this blog is intended as an introduction to the subject. The critical point here is that color matters when fishing.
THE “ODOR” ATTRACTANT
Salmon have an excellent sense of smell. Research has demonstrated salmon use odors when seeking out food. A salmon’s ability to detect minute concentrations of odor is exceptional, perhaps, even better than our ability to detect faint smells.
The fishing enthusiast should take advantage of a salmon’s food-odor seeking ability and add scent attractants to all their riggings. Scent Striker® allows you to do that. Scent Striker® is designed to hold an ample amount of your favorite odor-producing scent and distribute an odor trail that leads to your lure.
The adage, “color, flash, scent,” reminds us to set up our gear so that it stimulates as many of a salmon’s food-seeking sensory systems as possible. Your gear should produce sound, sight, and smell stimuli when fishing for salmon. Scent Striker® lets you quickly add odor attractants to all your gear.
Scent Striker® – fill the fish box!