Well guys, I think I have an answer!! This is from a friend of mine over at Stripersonline.com. By the way if you fish the east coast, its a great website.
From Stripersonline.com:
An interesting museum exhibit that was never forgotten, despite not having seen it in 45 years or so...
A paper plate is colored in pie-shaped slices...one for each color of the rainbow.
The colors in the rainbow are:
RED (Lowest frequency)
ORANGE
YELLOW
GREEN
BLUE
INDIGO
VIOLET (Highest frequency)
"INFRA" means "below" while "ULTRA" means "above".
Spin the plate, and illuminate it with say...red light. You only see the red "slice". Everything else is black.
But if you spin the plate and illuminate it with WHITE light, the plate appears WHITE. In other words, when all the colors in the rainbow are mixed, the result is WHITE light. BLACK, in Physics/Optics is THE ABSENCE OF COLOR. (Remember, this is mixing LIGHT, not PAINT).
Regardless of the spectrum that FISHES eyes respond to (an area research seems to have passed by), it is obvious that MONOCHROMATIC light is less intrusive than "all colors" which is what WHITE/DAYLIGHT is.
I would think that fish would respond least to something on one end or another of OUR visible spectrum. Next time you're at the "hog trough" why not bring a RED light, and a VIOLET light, and do some experimenting of your own? Perhaps your buddy used BLUE because it was too hard to get VIOLET?
The ORDER of the colors in the spectrum does not change, but another animals eyes might respond HIGHER or LOWER than ours. For example, it is believed Wolves "see" heat energy far below RED (below infrared). WE can only FEEL that energy (as heat), and we are not sensitive to it at all. Perhaps this explains why WOLVES are such supreme nocturnal predators. They "see" their quarry, even in total darkness! If fish "see" heat, like wolves, PERHAPS their visible spectrum is less sensitive at higher frequencies? The military developed "heat-vision" by study of wolves eyes, as much as photomultipliers!
So to answer the question ...sure could be!
Anyway, I kindof agree with what is being said. Although a colored or filtered light would be better because it limits the amount of different wavelenghts that go into the water, its really more about intensity than the individual color. Remember that whatever light you are using, you want to use a light only bright enough to tie your not and then turn the light back out. If possible, keep it out of the water by turning your back to your fishing location, etc.
Xrunner, you are right too, but that is typically for attracting baitfish. If your fishing on rod and reel from the surf for predetory species, then any lights that flash on and off will spook the fish.
So keep the lights small and any color but white and you should be good to go.
.... and I'm huge in heart, not in Stature!
Tom,
I have many fishing holes in Northern New Jersey. Drop me an email and maybe we can trade some NJ fishing secrets.