Does Color Matter?

[deep]

Feeling a little feisty tonight, so posting some food for thought for those who do not believe that color does matter. No discussion is necessary, I believe it does; that's cool. You don't, that's cool too.

 

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A friend and I were having a great evening catching bass, one on almost every cast, and it was getting dark. Earlier we tried several colors, but the fish would only bite a purple worm. I had different colored worms separated in shirt and pant pockets, and when I broke off a worm I would reach for the appropriate pocket and get a new one. After a period of time the bass stopped biting for me, but to my surprise my friend who was fishing only 4 feet from me kept catching fish. I shrugged my shoulders figuring the fish had just shut off in my angle of the spot. But after we got back to the dock and were loading the station wagon, I slid the rods in from the back with the rod tips pointed towards the front seat, I turned to say something to my partner and saw one purple and one black plastic worm dangling from the rods. Then it hit me what happened. In the darkness I had mistakenly tied on a black worm after busting off a purple worm, And the bass could tell the difference; they could distinguish colors in practically no light at all!

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I find the next passage very relevant to the UV stuff some companies have on their baits.

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Did you ever watch someone fish with a light meter? With every cloud shift or wind change, they lower a probe and say, "The meter says blue; Now it says green; Now the needle is between purple and red." With each new reading, the angler digs into his tackle box for a corresponding color. Switching colors may prove effective for small bass because a small bass is the size that will bite practically any color just out of curiosity, but constantly switching colors has no bearing on big bass fishing. Light meters indicate what colors are most visible under various light conditions, but meters can't tell you which color the big fish prefer.

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[1234567]

First passage from the best bass fishing book ever written in my opinion. I still read that book even though I've read it several times already. Yes deep I agree as well. Big bass imo seem to be more selective and dismiss baits presented wrong or just seem off to them.

[ww2farmer]

If I had that book, and read that, I would throw that book in the trash, that author has no clue.

[Inflatable Raft Bum]

But what do tou really think? LOL

THERES WHITE, and then there's all the other lesser colors.

[F14A-B]

Yea, I have long maintained color matters, at times, it's all the difference.

I don't use, nor ever have, light meters in fishing, only photography.

[Catt]

From my personal experience I've seen times when it made absolutely no difference what color I threw, I've seen times where if I was not throwing a specific color I wasn't getting bit, & I've seen times where I've had to continuily change color to continue getting bites.

[WRB]

Catt, you have more time on the water at night then anyone I know, a lot more time!

When I started night bass fishing my belief was color didn't matter as long as it was black. Black works at night. Then one night I couldn't get anything on black, picked up a crank rod with a white crankbait still rigged from the daytime and instantly started catching good size bass, this change my thinking. I still use black at night, but also use my daytime colors with success.

When Bill Murphy came out with his book, he relates a story where the only worm that worked one night during a tournament was a dark brown worm with blue blood vain. Fish long enough at night and color counts just like during the day...we it counts, it counts!

Tom

[AK-Jax86]

In my area yes yes it does

[Darren.]

For me, yes it does. I have had two

rods rigged with two colors of the same

worm - wacky rigged.

 

It wasn't a test, just happened to be the 

day, and I've had a number of these days

when I'd throw several colors at the same

spot, and only one would get hit.

 

I'm sure it is a day-to-day thing, as I've had

days when they'd hit anything I threw.

 

So if I'm not getting bit, I switch colors.

 

Whatevs...

[Catt]

The weirdest I've experienced was pink & chartreuse spinner baits

[PersicoTrotaVA]

Yes it does matter.

 

Here is a good example:

 

I was fishing with a green pumpkin rage blade swim jig and a black back chartreuse KVD squarebill.  As we moved into a certain section of the lake I noticed that red was reflecting off the water.  I immediately switched up to a red shad wacky rigged senko.  3 casts later I land a 3 lber.  Move up the shore and 4 or 5 casts later I land a 2 lber.  I continued down the shoreline just slaying them while my brother at the front of the boat was swearing up a storm because he couldn't get a hit on anything.  I said switch to anything with red in it.  He didn't and didn't get a bite for the rest of the day.  I had a good day hehe.

[Raul]

I'm with ww2farmer, but I think color matters to a point, as long as I'm fishing with the colors I like.

[primetime]

I usually consider color one of the least important choices as long as I stick with the basics, but I can say with 100% confidence that color DOES matter, maybe not all the time, maybe not most of the time, but when you notice that it matters, it REALLY matters...

 

Big fish get big because they are smart and cautious...I have read almost every book on bass and I would say the best theory on color I once read was to match the color of the water and weeds, rocks and underwater surroundings....Leeches, bugs, fry, baitfish, frogs all blend in with their surroundings to avoid predators, just like the bass blends in with weeds to avoid being eaten by birds when young, other fish, and Alligators and Humans later on, so they learn to avoid trolling motors left on, loud spashes, so the key is to think like the prey, and pick a color that blends in for protection, not threating, and then add some flake for contrast...Green pumpkin is not the best selling color for plastics by accident, and before that is was grape,  I have never had a day when green pumpkin would not work, but changing flake can matter, black blue vs. black red I have seen the difference only a few times, but it matters. Usually you would not know, but the one time I can say it mattered to the point they would not hit anything at all, only a pumpkinseed worm, when it first came out, and my brother and I talk about it till this day...roughly 30 fish on Pumpkinseed worms while other colors produced nothing...That was the only day in my life I ever outfished my brother until I was able to back boat him, but I had pumpkinseed culprits,we were bank fishing, and I caught 5-6 fish in a row, and he had nothing, but he refused to believe it was color, after a few more, we left 2 hours later when we were out of worms...2 days later, pumpkinseed nothing, Junebug back to normal again, never understood why....

 

Only exception to my rule is there are no absolutes, there is a local phosphate pit that I fish where Metholiante is by far the best color to throw in the spring and summer, and if that color is not on, Red shad.....otherwise, black and blue, junebug, when in doubt, throw green pumpkin, gp gold and purple is my favorite as of late....soon it will be watermelon/orange.

[Sam]

Yes, what Catt said.

 

Color matters.

[Maxximus Redneckus]

I have found color matters once in awhile and when it does it really matters but when it dont matter it dont which is around 98% of the time but that 2% is a b!#ch

[Master Bait'r]

I love how seemingly the simplest questions bring about the best and most in depth conversations sometimes. As simple as fishing probably seems to an onlooker, it's insane the amount of considerations that are included in every cast and retrieve. No aspect of any part of what you put out there "doesn't matter" and IMO that's what makes it so much fun.

[long island basser]

I believe 100 percent of the time, that color only matters some of the time, lol !!!

[Ozark_Basser]

I know for a fact it can make a difference between consistently catching one or many good fish in the crystal clear creeks where I grew up fishing.  Or at least I know for a fact that it can make a drastic difference with big creek smallies.  

 

I grew up creek fishing the Buffalo National River and Crooked Creek in NW Arkansas.  Both of these are blue ribbon smallmouth streams with crystal clear water that only gets deeper than 6 feet in the occasional swimming holes located throughout both.  The good thing about these streams is you can see the fish hit your lures (and reject them) a lot of the time.  

 

Well my grandfather has grown up around the same area, and even had to catch fish to eat when he was younger out of the same creeks I mentioned. Whenever I first learned to cast a baitcaster, my grandpa showed me a lure that he claimed to be "something special" that I needed to be throwing.  It was an old school Rebel F30S in the gold/black color.  I kind of thought it seemed a bit big at 5 1/2 in to be catching creek smallmouth, but knew it had to work because he had boxes of them stacked up in a shed.  I soon was introduced to the world of power fishing in a BIG way.

 

 I was catching 2-3 lb smallmouth constantly throughout the day.  My best day with this lure was something like 15 fish over 16 in with some being in the three pound range and my PB smallmouth at 4 lb.  Not too bad for creek fishing if you ask me.  I remember him telling me that it had to be gold and black. I thought it wouldn't matter so I tried out the silver and black for a while because they quit making the gold and black until recently.  The results weren't even comparable. I might catch one or two decent ones, but the gold and black was the only thing that would get me big bites consistently.  

 

I'm not just going off of my own observations either.  This has been tried and tested for years between everyone in my family and their friends as well.  One thing I did notice though was that the silver and black would catch largemouth, or "line-sides" as my grandfather calls them, just as consistent as the gold and black so I don't think color matters as much to largemouth as smallmouth, but I definitely think it matters to largemouths, but I think they can be less picky.  

[aavery2]

I believe that color matters.  I have been reading a book that talks about a test that was conducted to help determine how much ability bass have to detect color.  The test was done like this. " There were a series of targets connected to colored fishing line, bass were trained to strike certain colored fishing line in order to receive a reward of food.  Once the bass learned which color line resulted in a reward, the test was repeated with fishing line of smaller diameter.   Bass were able to quickly select the fishing line of the desired color down to four pound test line.  The test was repeated with different colored fishing line with a high degree of accuracy.  This test proved several things. Bass have highly developed color vision and were able to determine the differences between clear, purple, green, blue, yellow, and pink fishing lines."

 

If a bass can tell the difference in color between 4lb fishing line, my thought is that color may play an important part in catching more fish.

[Bluebasser86]

Color matters, but it isn't the most important factor. I've seen days where I outfished the guy in the front of the boat badly because I was using the same main color but with a different color flake in it. Last time I fished Grand Lake, it had to be purple or have purple in it somewhere. We tried different colors in the same areas and caught a few, but once we went back to a bait that was purple or had purple flake in it, we started to light them up again. Then there's those days you can grab whatever color is on top and the fish are feeding aggressively and it doesn't make a bit of difference.