Color Selection

[SMLangler]

How do you guys decide what lure color to use in certain situations? Factors such as water clarity, baitfish for that area, etc. Im looking for advice on what colors to buy for the new season.

[lmoore]

I used to buy all sorts of colors. Anymore, I typically have 2-3. I'm crankbaits, that's a natural shad for clear, sexy shad for lightly stained, and a chartreuse for stained. When matching bait, I worry more about size.

[Felix77]

It can vary by technique ...

 

For plastics I stick with 3 basic colors

Watermelon - Clear/Stained

Green Pumpkin - Stained (all purpose)

Black/Blue - Stained/Murky

 

The sunnier (blue skies) it is the more I work my way up the chart.

The greyer the skies the lower down the chart I go.

 

So as an example.  At sunrise I go with Black/Blue.  As the sun rises I move up the chart.  If the water is clear I throw Watermelon at the brightest part of the day.

 

Hope that helps

 

BTW - For cranks I am the exact same.  Sexy Ghost Minnow (clear), Sexy Shad (Stained), Chartreuse/Black Back for stained/muddy.

[WRB]

Wht area in the country do you live and fish in? And what type of bass do you fish for?

Smallmouth bass prefer different colors than largemouth bass for example. Shad colors are good where shad are available for bass to eat and shad are not available where the water freezes during the winter.

Tom

[SMLangler]

I live in VA. I fish on Smith mountain lake a lot for large mouth

[WRB]

Never had a chance to fish Smith Moiutain lake. I would classify this reservoir as a highland lake with multi-species, largemouth bass not being the prime predator. The bait fish are both dermasil and palegic, meaning fish that live near shore and off shore. The water is fairly clear with good depth of light. Put all this together and you have a wide spectrum of color choices!

To give you my best guess I need to know a few more details; what types of lures and what depth do you fish most often? Are you targeting bass between 2 to 4 lbs or larger bass?

Tom

[Jesse Stern]

Color selection is important.... I speak about this on my site www.swoledaddy.com !! Fishing is a rigorious sport and when you get a chance take a child with you to enjoy the outdoors.

 

If you can .... there is a donation feed on the swoledaddy website to help take children and disabled veterans out hunting and fishing. Thank you .... Big Swole

[Rangerphil]

If you like to crank a rapala DT fat 03 in helenskie shad color will put some pigs in the boat on that lake during the prespawn spawn phase periods.

[Fishes in trees]

Color selection is simple.  Ask yourself this question:  "Is there a chance that sooner or later this color might catch me a fish?"  If the answer is yes, then you owe it to yourself to buy a couple of bags.  Don't buy just one, because that style/color of plastic might get discontinued and then where would you be?

 

On a more serious note, the 2013 In-fisherman Bass Guide had a really interesting article on color selection.  It explored the attitudes of guys who think different color shades are important compared to guys who favor a few basic colors, and it attempted to offer scientific reasoning behind both choices.  I'm more or less in the lots of colors camp, but it gave me new stuff to think about concerning color.

[Jake P]

Color selection is important.... I speak about this on my site www.swoledaddy.com !! Fishing is a rigorious sport and when you get a chance take a child with you to enjoy the outdoors.

If you can .... there is a donation feed on the swoledaddy website to help take children and disabled veterans out hunting and fishing. Thank you .... Big Swole

nice knowin ya.

[SMLangler]

This is to I Love Bass Fishing!. I am very limited on what i can fish because i do not own a boat. I really like flipping big creature baits into cover when i can get on a boat, but when i fish from the bank i normally throw a spinner bait or other reaction baits.

[Hyrule Bass]

This is to I Love Bass Fishing!. I am very limited on what i can fish because i do not own a boat. I really like flipping big creature baits into cover when i can get on a boat, but when i fish from the bank i normally throw a spinner bait or other reaction baits.

 

i recently wrote a couple posts about bank fishing specifically at SML. best and first thing you can do is learn the water and structure around the areas you have access to from the bank. as for colors there, ive had success on baby bass, pearl/white, and almost any light green color with black flake in it just to name a few. go to the Southeastern section of the forum and look for threads on SML as well.

 

the water was really low there this past fall/winter, as low as ive ever seen it. last time i went was in october, i took some pictures of stuff that was previously underwater for my reference. it seems the water is back up to normal now though so that possibility is out....

[Bankbeater]

I try and stick to natural colors as much as possible.  Greens, browns, blacks, and blues.

[WRB]

This is to I Love Bass Fishing!. I am very limited on what i can fish because i do not own a boat. I really like flipping big creature baits into cover when i can get on a boat, but when i fish from the bank i normally throw a spinner bait or other reaction baits.

So this tells me you target mostly water depths between the surface and 10', that restricts you to the bank, from shore or a boat. This also restricts you to targeting active feeding bass with the reaction baits and neutral or active bass in heavier cover when pitching larger soft plastics.

Your question was about colors; shad that are pelagic during bright sunlight periods use the shore brush to hide in at night, leaving in the morning and return at dusk. Bluegill are always near the shoreline, crappie when spawning, baby bass and other young of the year fish during the summer, crawdads, frogs, worms, etc.

If you add planted trout, blue back herring, threadfin shad during daytime and look outside in main lake or major creek arms the color selection broadens.

Everyone on this lake more than likely fishes with green pumpkin red flake soft plastics and pearl white with light blue and chartreuse spinner baits and crank baits. Since the shoreline bass have seen these lures all the life your odds of catching them on the same thing everyone else is using is lowered.

Instead of green pumpkin soft plastic try purple as the base color with green and red flakes. Reaction lures you still need pearl white but as a highlight color or belly color with light green, blue and chartreuse in the mix.

Crankbaits red and browns should work.

Because the shad hide in brush dawn and dusk I would also use a pearl white weedless frog to fish in the brush. Everyone else uses frog colored frogs and the bass in this lake are looking for shad, not frogs!

So you now have bluegill colors, crawdad colors and shad colors that work well in shallower water.

If you decide to try swimbaits, then choose colors close to rainbow trout, blueback herring and shad.

Good luck.

Tom

[Hyrule Bass]

WRB, along with the shad, there are also alewife in the lake too. How would that change things for you?

[WRB]

WRB, along with the shad, there are also alewife in the lake too. How would that change things for you?

In the first place I wouldn't be pounding the bank, about the only time I do that is when the majority of adult size bass are up next to shore; dusk, dawn and at night and during the spawning cycles.

Alewifes are pelagic fish so I would spend a lot of time fishing deeper structure 10' to 30' with jigs, worms, swimbaits and spoons. Need to check out the color of the Smith Mountain alewife, blue/green/gold, similar to hitch? I would add longer thin body baits like a Scrounger jig with a soft plastic trailer in alewife color scheme, like to fish 3/4 oz Scrounger with 6" Sluggo for a trailer, jigs and structure spoons on deeper structure.

Tom