Why do dark colored plastics catch fish in clear water?

[WRB]

5 hours ago, Catt said:

From the original post "So for the past few years I have been fishing on a super clear lake that doesn't allow gas powered engines.  It's not a very deep lake- it's mostly about 8-10 feet, but there's only one small section that 25 feet deep."

 

The coloration of bass caught in clear water will have a darker more pronounced colors than bass caught in off colored water.

 

Would it not stand to reason the bait in clear water would be darker also?

 

Title of the original thread "Why do dark colored plastics catch fish in clear water?"

During the winter our bass go deep to 30'-50' or more in some lakes, the bass are very pale light olive color backs, no pronounced dark lateral line, the Shad also change to light silver/pearl white with light gray backs. The water clarity is clear about 10' to 20' you can see the bottom.

During the summer the same lakes with similar water clarity the bass are darker green coloration, with bright highlites, pronounced dark lateral line, usually in water 3' to 30'.

The Shad are also bright colors with purple/gray backs, chartreuse highlites and pearl white  /silver sides. 

The high % colors tend to be black and dark grape soft plastics work better in the winter, summer nights and in weed cover areas. Translucent smoke and cinnamon with none purple or blue highlites work better during the summer in sparse cover or rocky areas.

It seems when the baitfish get brighter the bass tend to be brighter coloration, the bass using weed cover areas become very dark coloration in the same lakes. 

I always have my black/purple/brown hair jig with pork trailers tied on year around regardless of water clarity or lighting because it puts big bass in the boat for me and doesn't look like any prey our lakes have!

Tom

[fissure_man]

Too many points to pick just one to respond to ...  So I'll add another:

 

Bass coexist with their prey in the same environment.  How often do you think a bass sees a potential prey fish swim by and decides not to attempt to eat it, only to slam the next gaudy, chartreuse buzzbait that cruises overhead?

 

In that scenario, if the angler had chosen to offer a lure that more closely "matched the hatch," would the odds of a bite be decreased?   The actual "hatch" swam by, and was turned down!

 

[WRB]

Big mistake thinking bass are always active looking for prey sources to attack and eat. Bass are only active about 20% of the time and go through stages of inactivity from very inactive to neutrally active. The prey fish that live and coexist with bass learn to recognize the difference of a active bass and a inactive or they don't survive. When you see baitfish swimming lazy or in no hurry the bass in that area are inactive, panicked bait bass are active. The spinnerbait looks like a panicked bait and can switch the neutral bass into active feeder quickly. 

This has nothing to do with dark color in clear water, everything to do with bass behavior.

Tom

[fissure_man]

12 hours ago, WRB said:

Big mistake thinking bass are always active looking for prey sources to attack and eat.

 

That’s not what I’m suggesting at all, the example I gave is a scenario with a “less active” bass.

 

I think sometimes we reach a little too far or we’re a little too confident in our explanations of “why” a bass bites a lure (or doesn’t).  With so many unknowns, one can come up with a plausible explanation for anything:

 

Inactive bass hits buzzbait: “Bass thought the buzzer was a panicked baitfish, switched on his hunting instinct!”

 

Inactive bass doesn’t hit buzzbait: “Well, that bass was inactive, in no mood to chase down a buzzbait.”

 

Bass hits silver crankbait: “Tricked him!  My crank looks just like all those shad!”

 

Bass hits firetiger crankbait: “That bait stands out, bass couldn’t miss it!”

 

Bass hits dark lure in clear water: “Baitfish are darker in clear water, no-brainer!”

 

…

 

Maybe these are based in truth, or maybe not.  “Going fishing” is not a controlled enough experiment to prove out many of these ideas.  Not performing effective experiments makes many of these theories self-fulfilling, ie: angler reads online that watermelon is a good choice in clear water, angler uses watermelon lure in clear water, angler catches fish, angler concludes that watermelon is a good color for clear water, angler passes on his knowledge to the next guy.  Maybe junebug would’ve worked just as well that day?

 

For all the drama early in this thread about how speculation around bass perception is unscientific, there sure is a lot of speculation going on! (I like it though )

 

[Team9nine]

13 minutes ago, fissure_man said:

I think sometimes we reach a little too far or we’re a little too confident in our explanations of “why” a bass bites a lure (or doesn’t).  With so many unknowns, one can come up with a plausible explanation for anything.

 

…

“Going fishing” is not a controlled enough experiment to prove out many of these ideas.  Not performing effective experiments makes many of these theories self-fulfilling...

 

 

I think that about sums it up for me ? I like anecdotal evidence and "experience" as much as anyone. Just realize there can be limitations to that line of reasoning.

 

-T9

[WRB]

Nothing like constantly catching (big) bass to support theories!

Tom

[fissure_man]

Nothing like the results of flawed experiments to prop up false conclusions!

 

(in any field)

[Team9nine]

36 minutes ago, WRB said:

Nothing like constantly catching (big) bass to support theories!

Tom

 

I agree, and I enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions on the subject. Just copied a whole series of your posts last week for my archives. Just realize you're one successful big bass angler out of many, and those others all have their theories, too...and when combined, you all don't create one happy Grand Unified Theory of big bass angling.

 

-T9

[WRB]

19 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

I agree, and I enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions on the subject. Just copied a whole series of your posts last week for my archives. Just realize you're one successful big bass angler out of many, and those others all have their theories, too...and when combined, you all don't create one happy Grand Unified Theory of big bass angling.

 

-T9

True, trophy bass anglers are no different than any other angler dedicated to catching the top 1% of the fish population. Trophy bass anglers come in 3 basic groups today; live bait anglers, large size swimbait anglers and general bass lure anglers, I fall in the general lure category, relying on primarily a combination hair jigs with pork rind trailer and large swimbaits. Stopped using live baits in '71.

Growing up and fishing the same deep structure lakes that Bill Murphy did my opinions on bass behavior are similar.

Tom

[Paul Roberts]

20 hours ago, RichF said:

Let's make this simple guys....bass are going to bite whatever you throw as long as what you throw is placed close to them and they're hungry and/or ticked.  

It's always nice to make it simple. But, hungry bass don't always bite what we're offering.

 

20 hours ago, WRB said:

 I always have my black/purple/brown hair jig with pork trailers tied on year around regardless of water clarity or lighting because it puts big bass in the boat for me and doesn't look like any prey our lakes have!

Tom

Match the hatch is a tall order IME. I have quite a bit of experience here as a a long-time trout FFer too. It ain't what we're all thinking a lot of the time. Keeps the lure, and fly-tying, industry crankin' though. Glad, cuz I like collecting cool stuff.

 

34 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

I agree, and I enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions on the subject. Just copied a whole series of your posts last week for my archives. Just realize you're one successful big bass angler out of many, and those others all have their theories, too...and when combined, you all don't create one happy Grand Unified Theory of big bass angling.

 

-T9

Reminds me of all the moon theories out there. What's telling is the variety of moon theories presented by... really top-notch long-time experienced anglers and guides (Doug Hannon, Bill Murphy, Pete Maina, JA Knight, IF staff,...). If you consider them all, every facet of the lunar month is covered. They can't all be right. I especially liked T9's assessment of the Texas ShareLunker data. I ran stats on it and found that 50% of those big bass were caught on 50% of touted key periods in the lunar month (full and new). T9 ran those numbers another way, and found that the largest percentage of big bass catches occurred... on weekends. Do I remember that right Brian?

 

Angling is one lousy sampling method as far as ascertaining those why's. But, luckily we also have observations from many fields and a lot of technology that can shed considerable light (keeping on topic ) on probable why's. In the natural sciences there are probability distributions around everything, and what they measure is the diversity inherent in living beings and systems.

 

[king fisher]

I do agree that it would be very difficult or impossible to preform a scientific experiment that would determine why a bass hit or not hit a cetain lure.  There are way to many variables to prove beyond any doubt that color had any effect.  As  said before my experience with bass is limited, so I don't have any examples of color being the deciding factor when it come to bass.  As far as other species of game fish, I have many examples where I have had the good fortune to be able to catch fish on almost every cast in clear water where I could watch their reactions to my lure for many days in a row.  I tried my best to limit variables, to the point that I am satisfied with the conclusion that color was the biggest factor in catching that species of fish in that spot on that day. Size, retrieve, and lure action, within reason, didn't seem to make a difference.  Why they liked that color, I could only guess. ( If anyone wants to here details on these fishing experiences, and why I came to these conclusions, send me a personal message.  I'm not going to post any more on this topic because I'm sure many people are getting tired of my posts.)  Most of the time matching the color of the prey was my theory, but obviously it could have been some other reason.  As far as why the originator of this post caught fish in clear water on dark baits, I would guess it was because the bass were used to eating dark baits.  I wouldn't say bait is dark in clear water, and not in dark water.  I have no clue to why some bait is dark while others are light.  I only would guess the bass in this lake at this time were eating  dark prey, therefore liked dark lures.  It could be the dark lures were more visible, I couldn't say.  Because bass do have eyes that can see color, it would only make sense to me, that they use this ability to find prey, determine what they can or can't eat, and ovoid predators.  Obviously they use all of their senses for the same reasons.  It also makes sense to me, which factor is more important would change due to changes in water conditions, type of prey, past experience, age , size of fish, and thousands of other factors.  Many very experience fisherman on this site have never observed a time when they think color mattered to the fish.  They are lucky, they can save lots of money.   

[Ratherbfishing]

Color and hue and value don't matter at all-until they do.  Which is why, when a buddy and I are fishing together, I usually use something different than him/her until we can figure out if it does matter or not.

[RichF]

2 hours ago, fissure_man said:

 

That’s not what I’m suggesting at all, the example I gave is a scenario with a “less active” bass.

 

I think sometimes we reach a little too far or we’re a little too confident in our explanations of “why” a bass bites a lure (or doesn’t).  With so many unknowns, one can come up with a plausible explanation for anything:

 

Inactive bass hits buzzbait: “Bass thought the buzzer was a panicked baitfish, switched on his hunting instinct!”

 

Inactive bass doesn’t hit buzzbait: “Well, that bass was inactive, in no mood to chase down a buzzbait.”

 

Bass hits silver crankbait: “Tricked him!  My crank looks just like all those shad!”

 

Bass hits firetiger crankbait: “That bait stands out, bass couldn’t miss it!”

 

Bass hits dark lure in clear water: “Baitfish are darker in clear water, no-brainer!”

 

…

 

Maybe these are based in truth, or maybe not.  “Going fishing” is not a controlled enough experiment to prove out many of these ideas.  Not performing effective experiments makes many of these theories self-fulfilling, ie: angler reads online that watermelon is a good choice in clear water, angler uses watermelon lure in clear water, angler catches fish, angler concludes that watermelon is a good color for clear water, angler passes on his knowledge to the next guy.  Maybe junebug would’ve worked just as well that day?

 

For all the drama early in this thread about how speculation around bass perception is unscientific, there sure is a lot of speculation going on! (I like it though )

 

 

This, this, and more this!

 

 

As for the original post...maybe @Geebo, you're just a better fisherman than your friends.  Maybe you're putting your baits in better places and working them with more precision.  Maybe you're better at actually distinguishing strikes and setting the hook when it needs to be set.  Or....(after re-reading your original post)...maybe you're just using the right baits!  I don't see any indication that you and your friends are all using the same exact baits, differing only in color.  The actual difference could be: you're using a black jig while friend A is using a watermelon senko and friend B is using a white spinnerbait.  

 

It sounds like you're catching them pretty good with what you're doing/using.  As far as new suggestions, keep using the darker colors since you've gained confidence in them, just change up techniques.  If you're throwing a lot of soft plastics, rotate between weightless, texas rigged w/ a weight, carolina rig, or swing/wobble head depending on the depth and cover.  Go to the deep hole and drop shot or drag a big football jig down there.  The possibilities are endless!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Team9nine]

45 minutes ago, Paul Roberts said:

 

Reminds me of all the moon theories out there. What's telling is the variety of moon theories presented by... really top-notch long-time experienced anglers and guides (Doug Hannon, Bill Murphy, Pete Maina, JA Knight, IF staff,...). If you consider them all, every facet of the lunar month is covered. They can't all be right. I especially liked T9's assessment of the Texas ShareLunker data. I ran stats on it and found that 50% of those big bass were caught on 50% of touted key periods in the lunar month (full and new). T9 ran those numbers another way, and found that the largest percentage of big bass catches occurred... on weekends. Do I remember that right Brian?

 

Yep. When I analyzed the lunar data, no single day in the entire lunar cycle had less than 10 ShareLunkers caught, but none had more than 16 either. Every lunar day was within just a few fish of any other day and the chart looked like a series of gently rolling hills. The New, Full and last Quarter phases all appeared identical with no significant differences (statistically speaking).

 

When analyzed by day caught,   A Texas study showed Saturday was the day anglers fished most frequently, followed by Sunday and then Friday. Not surprisingly, the greatest number of ShareLunkers were caught on those 3 days in exact order of frequency. Tuesday had the fewest lunkers caught, but it was also the least fished day, so catches of giant bass were basically in direct proportion to effort.

 

-T9

[king fisher]

1 minute ago, Team9nine said:

 

Yep. When I analyzed the lunar data, no single day in the entire lunar cycle had less than 10 ShareLunkers caught, but none had more than 16 either. Every lunar day was within just a few fish of any other day and the chart looked like a series of gently rolling hills. The New, Full and last Quarter phases all appeared identical with no significant differences (statistically speaking).

 

When analyzed by day caught,   A Texas study showed Saturday was the day anglers fished most frequently, followed by Sunday and then Friday. Not surprisingly, the greatest number of ShareLunkers were caught on those 3 days in exact order of frequency. Tuesday had the fewest lunkers caught, but it was also the least fished day, so catches of giant bass were basically in direct proportion to effort.

 

-T9

I agree.  I do not believe Lunar cycles have much of an effect.  Many saltwater anglers I know are crazy over moon phase.  All of the local people I hire as deck hands do not like the full moon.  Every time we have a bad day fishing any where near the full moon.  They blame it on the moon.  If it is a good day of fishing they never give the moon credit, unless it is a new moon.  Theory .    My theory is the fish have to eat every day, full moon or not.  I couldn't believe all the fish in the whole ocean go hungry because of the moon phase.  I started calling everyone one I knew every time a had a good day or a bad day of fishing.  What I found was, every day some boats had great fishing and some had poor regardless of moon phase.  A day I got skunked on a full moon, a friend went one hundred miles south and had the best day of fishing in his career.  I'm sure the moon has some effect, but it is too complicated for me to make any kind of prediction.  Not saying others don't have more knowledge on the effect of the moon than I do. Lakes are smaller, and maybe most of the fish in a lake go on and off a bite at the same time, and the moon has a big effect.  I don't have the experience to say.  I do believe it has little effect, but I could be wrong.   I will keep changing colors both when fishing is slow and when it is fast in all moon phases. Love to experiment. 

[WRB]

If you take a look my Cosmic Clock and Bass Behavior chart and read the instruction page you will get an insight into how I think or what thoughts I had 43 years ago. The methods used for coming up with this data we observation, catching lots of big bass and using a Dark analog thermometer to read both the bass body temperature and the water temp at the depth and location those bass were caught, so the temps  are not random. The active periods around the new and full moon were also based on the bass caught, the vast majority of the big bass I catch are pre spawn so the moon phase data reflects the spawn cycle. Would I change the data that was used to make the Cosmic back in 1974...maybe add more on weather and lure color preferences used to catch hundreds of big during the past 40+ years.

Tom

 

                                        

[Catt]

Most anglers relate moon phase to night fishing but close to 50 yrs of night fishing & detailed records kept shows preference for moon phase. Even my day time records show no preference to moon phase.

 

Pre-spawn/spawn is not normal assessment

 

That's a dumb Cajun's experience

[RoLo]

6 hours ago, Team9nine said:

 

Yep. When I analyzed the lunar data, no single day in the entire lunar cycle had less than 10 ShareLunkers caught, but none had more than 16 either. Every lunar day was within just a few fish of any other day and the chart looked like a series of gently rolling hills. The New, Full and last Quarter phases all appeared identical with no significant differences (statistically speaking).

 

When analyzed by day caught,   A Texas study showed Saturday was the day anglers fished most frequently, followed by Sunday and then Friday. Not surprisingly, the greatest number of ShareLunkers were caught on those 3 days in exact order of frequency. Tuesday had the fewest lunkers caught, but it was also the least fished day, so catches of giant bass were basically in direct proportion to effort.

 

-T9

 

Hannon would roll-over in his grave 

 

Roger

[Team9nine]

40 minutes ago, RoLo said:

 

Hannon would roll-over in his grave 

 

Roger

 

I know...and I even have two of his books  but it was a solid, publicly available data set spanning 20 years and 423 bass over 13 pounds back when I analyzed it. Even larger now.

 

-T9

[RoLo]

7 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

I know...and I even have two of his books  but it was a solid, publicly available data set spanning 20 years and 423 bass over 13 pounds back when I analyzed it. Even larger now.

 

-T9

 

Let me guess:  "Catch Bass" & "Big Bass Magic"  

The chapter begins on page 121 "There's Magic In The Moon"

 

When I was still living in Jersey, I spent a few years taking scrupulous lunar notes.

I got within a hair's breadth of buying in, then everything fell apart in my hands.

 

Roger

 

[Team9nine]

1 minute ago, RoLo said:

 

Let me guess:  "Catch Bass" & "Big Bass Magic"  

The chapter begins on page 121 "There's Magic In The Moon"

 

When I was still living in Jersey, I spent a few years taking scrupulous lunar notes.

I got within a hair's breadth of buying in, then everything fell apart in my hands.

 

Roger

 

 

Maybe I have three then, because I also have "Doug Hannon's Field Guide for Bass Fishing" 

 

-T9

[RoLo]

7 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

Maybe I have three then, because I also have "Doug Hannon's Field Guide for Bass Fishing" 

 

-T9

 

You Win! 

 

Not for nothing, but I seen Doug shortly before his death.

He was fishing the Kissimmee River (not the lake).

It was hard to miss his tow car with the "Snake Lure" wrapper.

 

Roger

[WRB]

The late Doug Hannon was making a living in the fishing industry and could fish 7 days a week making his data a lot more detailed. Fishing for me is a hobby, arepspace engineer was my career and could only fish during the week by taking time off. When you take time off to fish you want to choose high percentage days and use high percentage lures. Being a curious person by nature my goal was to determine the high percentage time and location to catch big bass. Trail and error is a good teacher only if you learn from it.

I believe pre spawn is the time to catch the biggest bass in the lake. I choose to believe the 5 day full moon phase to be a high percentage time, so I spend a majority of my time trophy bass at that time, couldn't take off all month only a few days. I choose to use hair jigs with pork rind trailers, big dark colored soft plastic worms and later years big swimbaits because of success catching giant bass. 

The only bass anglers who caught more or bigger bass were a few live bait anglers. I like to be able to move around and not anchor on 1 spot all day. Very few, if any, bass anglers caught more 15 lb+ bass than I have, so it worked for me. Would I have equaled my catches fishing any random days...??? I am retired now and still plan my pre spawn time the same as way I always did.

Tom

[king fisher]

14 minutes ago, WRB said:

The late Doug Hannon was making a living in the fishing industry and could fish 7 days a week making his data a lot more detailed. Fishing for me is a hobby, arepspace engineer was my career and could only fish during the week by taking time off. When you take time off to fish you want to choose high percentage days and use high percentage lures. Being a curious person by nature my goal was to determine the high percentage time and location to catch big bass. Trail and error is a good teacher only if you learn from it.

I believe pre spawn is the time to catch the biggest bass in the lake. I choose to believe the 5 day full moon phase to be a high percentage time, so I spend a majority of my time trophy bass at that time, couldn't take off all month only a few days. I choose to use hair jigs with pork rind trailers, big dark colored soft plastic worms and later years big swimbaits because of success catching giant bass. 

The only bass anglers who caught more or bigger bass were a few live bait anglers. I like to be able to move around and not anchor on 1 spot all day. Very few, if any, bass anglers caught more 15 lb+ bass than I have, so it worked for me. Would I have equaled my catches fishing any random days...??? I am retired now and still plan my pre spawn time the same as way I always did.

Tom

Hard to argue with that kind of success over that many years.  Most of my experience has been with other sport fish.  Big bass don't have to feed every day, so It wouldn't surprise me, if they were more active on a specific moon phase.

Where would you rate moon phase importance compared to water temperature, barometric pressure, rain, sun, wind, and water conditions?  Just curious, what would you consider the perfect day at you favorite lake. 

[Catt]

@WRB Hannon married money & didn't have to work, made fishing a lot easier.

 

I do believe moon phase plays a roll in pre-spawn/spawn but rest of the year not so much.

 

I don't know if @Paul Roberts or @Team9nine noticed but the bulk of the ShareLunker bass were caught during that time frame.