Non UV Spoons

[jdh]

Non UV Spoons

I'm going through all my tackle and I've been using a UV/blacklight flashlight to pull out the non or minimal uv reflective spoons.  Most of these are silver/gold reflective, but some are plain pain colors like white or purple and don't reflect uv.  I'm just wondering if you can tell me what conditions you would choose to run these spoons?

I've included a picture of a couple of these spoons.  I've got a bunch though from all different brands.

-JDH

[GoldenBeaver]

Orange/ Gold I'd run anytime you are fishing steelhead up high..the others it's kind of a toss up the white/black dots I like in overcast conditions

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[jdh]

Thanks for the response Kurt.  I'm hoping a few more people chime in on this.  Almost all spoons & flashers have a large amount of uv reflective colors such as green/yellow/orange/pink.  With the blacklight these guys shine so bright!  When I shine the light on the non-uv lures you can barely even see what color they are.  I'll post some pictures later.  I'd like to know when people would choose intentionally to run non-uv lures over the uv.

-JDH

[GoldenBeaver]

I run a lot of uv. Over the past couple seasons it has by far out produced glow baits in low light conditions

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[Dr Hook]

I basically treat my UV lures as different shades of whatever color they are.  Just like some days they'll hit blue whether its UV or not, some days they'll only hit the UV.  I haven't done much head to head comparison, as I don't have much control over light conditions, waves, etc.

What we see with the black light is far different from what the fish sees in the UV spectrum.  Any metallic surface will reflect UV.  It's why you see people tanning with silvered cardboard.  Though your chrome spoons will reflect better than the metallic green/yellow or copper.

[jdh]

Thanks Dr Hook.  I guess I didn't think about them all "reflecting" ultraviolet light.  I suppose my question then come down to UV-fluorescent.  I've attached 2 pictures below that show what I'm talking about - and they show three types general color patterns:

1 UV-fluorescent coating (first picture far left, second picture right & left)

(2) UV-fluorescent colors (first picture dots on spoon 1 & edge of spoon 4, second picture center

(3) Not UV-fluorescent (first picture spoon 2 & 3)

[FishKnocker]

Hi JDH - I thought maybe the gold & silver spoons reflected light more so than nickel plated spoons?  Non-UV, but very flashy, maybe good to run during bright days?  The pic is a std chartreuse Mister Twister tail under black light - really lights up, is this considered UV or fluorescent or are they the same?  On same topic, notice many glow spoons seem to light up nice under blacklight too, so some UV properties here too?  Thanks for starting this one, hoping for more to weigh in too!

Fishknocker

[FishKnocker]

Hi JDH, one more thought, from your spoon pic w/ the ladderbacks, fluorescent,non UV, shows up very bright under blacklight - was wondering what this would look like down deep (what the salmon see?)  Does anyone remember running fluorescent painted spoons before UV was available?  sounds like a fun field testing challenge -

[jdh]

Nickle plated is supposed to shine "black" in the water I thought.  Silver & gold are supposed to be the right way to go.  Mister Twister looks UV flourescent?  The spoons are kind of easy to figure out because you can see the clear coat coating really shine up instead of the painted colors.  I think the ladderback non-uv would show up as just the ladderback, but the UV ladderback might show up with a larger profile.

I'm going to take pictures of the actual spoons that have got me lots of fish and see if there's any patterns I can follow.

-JDH