TIGHT LINES
A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
with Andrew Spencer
My father's fashion sense, a frequent topic of conversation in the Spencer household, is nothing if not an overt show of bravery. Dad doesn't seem to have the fashion-conscious gene that I was apparently blessed with, no doubt a gene I got from my mother. Case in point, when we're going out to dinner somewhere snazzy, Dad's guaranteed to show up wearing his bright green pants with the little blue whales embroidered on them and a yellow buttondown shirt. The shirt I can handle, but the pants. oh, the pants.

And his shoes, God help us all, are oftentimes not so much an overt display of bravery as they are the butt of jokes. Back in the '80s, there was an unfortunate couple of years when Dad insisted on wearing a pair of white leather shoes with horribly thick black athletic soles. Rumor has it that my mother, in one of her more lucid moments, secreted the offending shoes off to an unknown location. Regardless of who the responsible party was, the shoes are now, mercifully, no longer with us.

But recently Dad sort of hit the ugly outfit Powerball. Jill and I went up to meet the parents for dinner, and my father greeted us at the door in what can only be called a study in monochrome. Dad was sporting a pair of Nantucket Red slacks, which, in and of themselves, are actually quite fashionable. But when you pair them with a matching Nantucket Red shirt, things take on a less-than-pleasing timbre. There stood my father, doing his best impression of a Nantucket Red crayon, and I felt immediate and profound sympathy for the man. And intense fear for my own fashion future.

Who says fashion sense isn't inherited?

I was curious, though, as to how a man of otherwise pretty much superior intelligence could pull such a fashion gaffe, so I did a little research. Now I'm not a doctor - I don't even play one on TV - so I'm not making any kind of diagnosis here, but I'd like to suggest, Dad, that you might be a candidate for Dichromacy. People suffering from this affliction are unable to distinguish colors in the green-yellow-red spectrum to varying degrees. Long story short, it means that these guys can see red, but it can appear grey or black, or, in extreme cases, it can appear yellow or green. So, in Dad's defense, he might have thought that he was wearing his bright green whale pants with a yellow shirt. Work with me here, Dad. I'm trying the best I can.

There's a lot of talk on Nantucket about fashion and colors. Our friends at Vineyard Vines have made a pretty respectable living off colors, despite employing at least one admittedly colorblind young man. But the thing is, it's not just poor old Cameron who can't tell the difference between colors. That's right, kids. Bluefish are pretty much colorblind, too.

This year, the House of Spencer fashion will be featuring segues of various shades, and they're sure to be a hit with the trend-setters in Paris and New York.

Friends and neighbors, much as I hate to break the news to you, bluefish - like most fish - are colorblind. That said, bluefish can see color shadings, reflected light and movement.

I was fishing off the airport recently, and decided to try an experiment. For years, I've sworn by a redand white Ballistic Missile as the go-to bluefish plug. My tackle box was full of them. So on this trip, I thought I'd shake things up a little bit and introduce some new colors to my offerings. I cast out a pink Surface Tension that rivaled Dad's '80s sneakers in ugliness. Halfway back to the boat, the plug was the hit of the party, with fish chasing it out of the water and fighting each other over it. And it wasn't just a fluke; it was, after all, a bluefish (cue the rimshot). I cast the same plug out again and got identical results. Every subsequent cast, fish were all about the pink thing. And then I switched to the fluorescentgreen Ballistic Missile, and again the fish were going nuts for it.

Now comes the big question: Why do tackle companies produce all these colors for fish that are, by all accounts, unable to tell what colors they actually are? Just as I'm not a doctor, I'm also not a fishing tackle marketing guru, so all I can offer are theories. I'd suggest one theory is that we, as people, are drawn instinctively to certain colors, as in my hang-up with heretofore fishing only the red-and-white Ballistic Missile. But there's more to it than just that, kids.

Remember that fish can distinguish color shadings, and that can be an important consideration. There are times when even my red-and-white favorite doesn't do the trick, for whatever fish-minded reason,

and no matter how many

times you throw it, it's coming back empty-hooked. But then you tie on that hideous orange thing, and all of a sudden your luck changes. Again, no logic to my mind, but I'm not a fish. And yeah, in case you're keeping score at home, that list of things I'm not is growing by leaps and bounds.

So make sure you've got your bases covered and keep a wide variety of colors in the tackle box when you're heading out. You never know when only the silver-and-green swimmer is the magic bullet.

And if you see my father out in town, please don't compliment the yellow plaid pants. We're all trying to discourage them.

Tight lines. I