How a Tarpon sees your lure
Which lure colour a Tarpon can actually see, at your depth and in your water. 2 cone types, peak 530 nm. Ranked contrast for 54 colours.
Megalops atlanticus
Measured in the same family
No spectral measurement exists for this species. The cone peaks are a family-level substitution from other elopomorphs measured in the Munz & McFarland (1973) series. This is a coarser assumption than a same-genus one; the broad "which end of the spectrum" answer is reliable, the fine ranking between adjacent colours is not.
Spectral sensitivity
| Cone peaks | λmax | Chromophore |
|---|---|---|
| Short | 460 nm | A1 |
| Medium | 530 nm | A1 |
| Rod | 500 nm | A1 |
Rods do the work at dawn, dusk and night — which is when most people fish.
Lure table
Ranked by how much each colour stands out to a Tarpon in these conditions. — Coastal 1C, 5 m.
| Colour | Contrast | Seen from | Fish view | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | White | 98 | 5.9 m | Buy now | |
| 2 | Glow Glow finish — not modelled | 96 | 5.8 m | Buy now | |
| 3 | Silver holographic Metallic finish | 94 | 5.7 m | Buy now | |
| 4 | Chartreuse / white Fluorescent finish | 93 | 5.9 m | Buy now | |
| 5 | Sexy shad | 93 | 5.8 m | Buy now | |
| 6 | Bone | 93 | 5.6 m | Buy now | |
| 7 | Chrome Metallic finish | 90 | 5.5 m | Buy now | |
| 8 | Blue / white | 87 | 5.9 m | Buy now | |
| 9 | Chartreuse Fluorescent finish | 87 | 5.3 m | Buy now | |
| 10 | Pink / white Fluorescent finish | 86 | 5.9 m | Buy now | |
| Stands out least | |||||
| Purple | 36 | 2.7 m | |||
| Watermelon | 33 | 2.5 m | |||
| Green pumpkin | 33 | 2.4 m | |||
| Olive | 32 | 2.4 m | |||
Contrast quoted at 1.0 m viewing distance. · Light that survives best here: 500 nm
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Get these colours
The three that came out on top, searched on your own Amazon. The ranking above is worked out from the water and the fish, before any of these links exist.
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Gear this page implies
- A lure kit with a spread of colours See on Amazon
The point of knowing which colour wins is having it in the box.
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What this water lets through
Clean inshore water. Green now travels further than blue.
Water types
Target species
Questions people actually ask
Can a Tarpon see colour?
Yes, but only just. It has 2 cone types, peaking at 460 nm, 530 nm, so it has a single dimension of hue where a human has 2.
Where does this data come from?
No measurement exists for this species. The cone peaks are a family-level substitution — reliable for which end of the spectrum, not for fine ranking.
Sources
- Elopomorph pattern; Munz, F.W. & McFarland, W.N. (1973). Vision Research 13, 1829–1874.