bluegill colors

[scott000]

i realized recently that the bass around me feed on bluegill but i have been using perch type lures. I have an ugly crankbait and i was thinking i could turn it into a bluegill patterned medium runner. even if i couldnt what color lures best imitate bluegills?

[nboucher]

I wouldn't get too hung up on color, which may matter more to us anglers than to the bass. Bluegill is also the main baitfish around me, but bass hit perch and shad imitating baits as well. More important than color is how you work whatever bait you are using. When confronted with a properly worked bait, bass think "injured fish a good size for me to eat without too much effort" before they think "now is that a bluegill or a perch?"

This all applies to hard baits, not plastics. When it comes to hard baits, I think it's more important to have some flash than the precise color that matches the baitfish. Silver, gold, and Tennessee Shad colors are among the colors that have worked well for me, as well as bluegill. Others also favor crawfish-imitating colors.

[scott000]

I wouldn't get too hung up on color, which may matter more to us anglers than to the bass. Bluegill is also the main baitfish around me, but bass hit perch and shad imitating baits as well. More important than color is how you work whatever bait you are using. When confronted with a properly worked bait, bass think "injured fish a good size for me to eat without too much effort" before they think "now is that a bluegill or a perch?"

This all applies to hard baits, not plastics. When it comes to hard baits, I think it's more important to have some flash than the precise color that matches the baitfish. Silver, gold, and Tennessee Shad colors are among the colors that have worked well for me, as well as bluegill. Others also favor crawfish-imitating colors.

thanks. that probably is the case.

also are shallow or medium runners better for bass?

[Grey Wolf]

Shallow , medium , deep cranks are all great for bass. When to throw them is the question.

Time of year (spring , summer, fall , winter)

Water temps.

Do they want a fast or slow moving bait.

How deep they are.

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Rapala DT 4 or 8 in Bluegill

[Raul]

You are not going to believe it but rainbow trout pattern also imitates bluegill colors, specially during bluegill spawning saeson.

[GAMEOVER]

No reason not to believe it rainbow trout is a killer color for baits and probably one of the most underestimated colors around. Just think of it this way.. all the swimbait fans are using swimbait trouts most of the time so why cant it be a productive color in a lure form? They work good. I have a Rapala Countdown thats a bit old and still pulls in Bass its Rainbow Trout. Bass LOVE trout.. high protein lunker food.

[Shakes]

Yea. The Rapala DTSS-4 or 6 are great in the bluegill pattern.

To answer your question, the best colors to imitate bluegill are blue, green, and yellow.

[Guest avid]

Try this Norman,

Quietly pull your canoe into a likely bluegill spot.   Now sit quietly and let them get comfortable and swim around you at their leisure.

Look very carefully at the edges of the fins.  What color do you see?

CHARTRUESE.

I believe that color does matter.  

Try this.

catch a threadfin shad and hold it up to the light.  The silver will glimmer with a blueish hue.     #1 color for RatLtrap......chrome/blue

I think we as fisherman look at the prevailing color of the forage and try to match that.  My experience is to look for the subtelties and match that color.

I think if more folks gave that technique a try their might be a few more converts to the "color matters" column.

Good luck and have fun

avid

[nboucher]

Avid, I'm not convincedbut then again I ain't no bass. I still think color matters marginally at best. I really think that the biggest difference between catching and not catching is how the bait is worked; everything else runs a distant second. What do we know about bass's color vision anyway? (I ask this out of ignorance: I really want to know.)

Example: I just got back from a couple of hours on a local pond. Water and air temps were both in the high 40s. This pond is stained, tea-colored water;  on a sunny day I can't see my lure once it drops a foot down. Today I caught a three-and-a-half pounder on a black-and-blue jig with a green-pumpkin-and-black-flake GCYB double-tail hula grub trailer. I doubt the bass was reacting to those dark colors in stained water. Most likely I happened to be working it in the right way in the right place. Color also wouldn't explain all the bass I've caught on black-with-blue-flake senkos at that same stained-water pond.

When I fish cranks and other hardbaits in that kind of water, I use jazzed up colors: silver, orange, gold, blue, and yellow mostly. What I'm after is flash, something to get the fish's attention. I'd argue that bass just aren't that discriminating when it comes to color. I think it's a case where if you think a particular color works well for you, then you work that bait with more confidence.

That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.  

[Mattlures]

This one kinda looks like a bluegill

[Shakes]

I think color matters more than we all think. Yes, #1 has got to be retrieval, but #2 is color. A fish won't eat or chase what it doesn't see. Opinions vary I guess. In my personally experience, its hard to get fish to bite bright colors on bright days. Brighter days when the sun penetrates a little more, I try to go with the natural looking colors that I have. On cloudy days, I'll switch it to brighter colors.

[scott000]

for baitfish imitatoring lures like crankbaits, jerkbaits, and swimbaits i think color matters more but for worms, lizards, tubes and crayfish, pretty much anything goes. the greens (like watermelon and grn pumpkin), chartreuse, and black/red flake are my favorite but a junebug, regular pumpkin, and pearl probably work equaly well.

[Guest avid]

AHHHHHHHHH Norman,

I love a good natured argument.

That being said, I ask you to re-read your post.  I think you made an excellent case for why color does matter.

Blue/black jig

Black\blue senko........hmmmm do I see a pattern here?  

Then for your hardbaits you use bright "jazzed up" colors.  yellows, oranges etc,  not the colors you hear most people praising.  May I suggest that these work so well because your water is so darkly stained that the more natural colors preferred by most crankers would never be seen by your fish.

I admire your "stick to it" commitment, but in reply I must retort that.........

Avid has spoken  

[RoLo]

I'm not too big on mimicking the colors of baitfish but if I were, I'd sooner mimic the colors of a shad or shiner.

Rare is the lake that doesn't support a population of shad and/or shiners.

In accordance with the In-Fisherman, largemouth bass prefer to feed on shiners & shad over bluegills & baby bass.

That is to say, they'd rather swallow a spineless baitfish than a spiny baitfish.

Of course, largemouth bass are opportunistic predators, and during a beer party they're liable to binge on twist-off bottle caps :

Roger

[bassclown]

colors do matter. maybe not to the level some think but they do matter. success will be affected greatly if the fish can't see the lure. stained water has colors that are more successful than others and it works the same for clear waters.

[Chris]

Ahh the color game ;D A bluegill in different water clarity will be different colors. Different species of bluegill will be different also. Some will have a brown, greenpumpkin, dark purple, black, blue hue, green, tan, off yellow, off gray, back.

http://www.floridaconservation.org/fishing/Fishes/panfish.html

Does color matter? I feel that it does in clear and off color water. If you choose a dark color for off color water there is a reason why you picked that color over a clear lure. In clear water if you are fishing a green or natural color over a fluorescent blue pink polk-a-dotted lure there is a reason. There is a reason why some colors work better than others in different water. Sometimes it is color of baitfish other times some colors are easier to see than others or are more natural. I am by no means saying go buy a rainbow of colors but it does matter.