Optical pulse propagation in water is experimentally investigated using an evolutionary algorithm (EA) to control the shape of an optical pulse. The transmission efficiency (ratio of output to input optical power) is maximized by searching the combined amplitude and phase space governing an optical pulse shaper. The transmission efficiency of each tested pulse is physically determined by experiment during the course of the optimization. Combining the EA with an experiment in this manner is a powerful means of improving some figure of merit because no analytical or computational model is required-we optimize directly given the physics of the experiment. In addition, the EA is capable of efficiently searching a large parameter space. Here, we demonstrate improved linear optical pulse propagation near 800nm. Our results demonstrate a pulse with a dramatically narrower bandwidth that coincides with a local absorption minimum (near 800 nm) implying that the transmission efficiency is dominated by water's absorption spectrum.