The Difference Between UV and Glow Fishing Gear

Credit: © Ead72 / Adobe Stock

While fishing out in the chuck on a sunny day with a slight algae bloom, we ran two different lures—a UV plug on one side, a straight glow plug on the other. Trolling at 160′, guess which rod got the bites? The UV. Later on, I dropped them down to 250′, and the glow plug got the bites. People on the boat didn’t really care what was happening because we were hooking fish and filling the cooler, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder why each lure fared the way it did. What, ultimately, is the difference between UV and glow lures?

Water depth and colour penetration

To answer that question, we have to start with the depth and colour chart. Typical colours will fade out or be absorbed by darker colours in different water columns due to the lack of visible light to help reflect the colour. Our water colour is usually green or blue. Remember the kids’ TV show Magic School Bus and the episode “What Makes a Rainbow?” When sunlight hits the water, it refracts into different colour light waves—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—and ultraviolet (UV) can travel down a certain depth before the light wave energy cannot go deeper. UV is not visible to naked eye, but we know it fades out past 40 m, based on marine studies. So how can we use this to our advantage for fishing? We can choose the colours and patterns we like to fish with that have UV-reflecting pigments or glow paint that helps light up the colours down deep.

Island Fisherman Magazine’s Depth/Colour Chart

What is the difference between UV and glow paint?

UV paint and materials will reflect the UV light wave spectrum which the fish can see. Fish hunt their food by catching the UV reflecting off natural bait or by the sound the bait makes swimming in the water. Glow paint is paint that absorbs UV light waves to charge up the glow pigment, them emits a glow in dark places where UV is not present. Remember glow-in-the-dark bowling or black light parties? That’s where you can see the difference between UV and glow. Your white shirt just looks like it is glowing from the black light, but it is reflecting visible UV (non-eye-damaging violet wavelengths). But glow-in-the-dark shirts still glow in dark places away from the black light, while your neon and white shirts don’t, because they haven’t got glow paint that emits light.

What about fluorescent?

Fluorescent (which is commonly called neon), pearlescent/metallic, and iridescent are the three types of paint that will reflect UV. Fluorescent paint is almost like glow in the dark, but it doesn’t stand out in the dark without UV light waves. Fluorescent paints only become bright and lively when UV light waves are shined on them. Pearlescent/metallic UV paint is pretty common in some fishing lures, like the Pink Pearl, Betty White, Pearl Blue, #340 plug (Mother of Pearl), and #JM1 plug.

Fishinator Pink Pearl

Fishinator Betty White Glo Bolts

Pearlescent paint has shiny particles in it that look like pearl or shimmering gold when UV light reflects off of them. Iridescent paint reflects any light waves, including UV. Iridescent paint will appear like it is changing colour in different angles, just like soap bubbles under sunlight. Iridescent paint is similar to pearlescent paint, but it has very fine particles with multiple reflective surfaces. We commonly see this in Tomic plugs with the iridescent inserts.

Iridescent Tomic Plug

Why do glow lures glow?

Glow paint lures just glow after charging up. Some glow lures glow longer and brighter than others. I find most lures charge up in a couple of seconds and glow for a maximum of 30 minutes. There are some, made with more expensive glow paint, that take a few minutes to charge up, but glow for a couple of hours. UV from the sun, an LED flashlight, or a UV LED flashlight can help charge up your glow lure before sending it down deep where there are no UV light waves.

UV-LED-Flashlight

So here’s the fishing tip after all this paint talk: On days where the water is filled with algae or murky, use UV lures. When the sunlight reflects off of the UV lure, it creates something shiny to catch the fish’s attention. If you are fishing deep or first/last light of the day, use glow lures you’ve charged up before putting them in the water. If you fish with teaser heads, put a thin strip of UV flash along the side of the bait from the teaser head. Finally, add some UV tape on your spoon or plugs to catch the fish’s attention.

If you’d like to fish your glow lures more effectively, read this article next: How to Fish Glow Lures Effectively.

Montagu Lee with Chinook

This article appeared in Island Fisherman magazine. Never miss another issue—subscribe today!