Tennessee Shad Crankbait color

[DBL000006]

Is this a good color (Tennessee Shad) to use in Dark Water? The water is Ceder water. The water is deep and dark..

[Bluebasser86]

Shad don't change color just because the water is darker or clearer. I fish the Bandit version of Tennessee shad in stained water all the time and it works very well. 

[scaleface]

This is the second time you mentioned ceder water . Whats that ?

 

I googled it and came up with Cedar  water and it resembles tea . 

[DBL000006]

53 minutes ago, scaleface said:

This is the second time you mentioned ceder water . Whats that ?

 

I googled it and came up with Cedar  water and it resembles tea . 

 

Meaning the water is dirty then? I moved near this lake. It's a good size lake. I'm buying like 6 or 7 Crankbaits for this lake. Just trying to decide on buying the right ones.

[Raul]

Ok buddy, don't pay too much attention to color, sight is only one of the senses bass uses to locate prey, when sight is hindered other, and ultimately more important, other senses take it's place, bass doesn't need to see the bait in order to strike it ( repeat it until you get bored and when you pull out a crank from your box and begin asking if that color works repeat it again ), when you fish water with poor visibility it's more important to select baits with high hydrodynamic signature ( fat ), with rattles ( bass can also locate silent cranks in low visibilty water ), with strong vibration, those attributes are by far much more important than the color of your bait.

 

How do I know ? Oh well I caught my first bass ever from a pond with water so muddy you could literally plow it with a Rapala Original Floating Minnow silver black back, the absolute "wrong" bait for those conditions and it caught the fish.

[scaleface]

 I have fished in the fall where decaying leaves  stained the water to something resembling  tea . Shad will work fine , i would also get sunfish , crawdad ,  fire tiger  and chrome .  

[DBL000006]

Here's my Crank bait selection. Let me know, if i should add or remove from the list?

 

 

Black Chartreuse

Blue Chartreuse

Chart. Sexy Shad

Firetiger

Sexy Shad

Red Crawdad 

Rootbeer Chartreuse 

Tennessee Shad

 

[scaleface]

Looks good to me .

[Spankey]

I like your list. Typical river colors for me. What the heck is a Tenn. shad? That color works out here so it might as well be a Pennsylvania shad.

 

I would not over think the colors too much. Have a variety of different actions and depth ranges of your CB's.

[smalljaw67]

7 minutes ago, Spankey said:

I like your list. Typical river colors for me. What the heck is a Tenn. shad? That color works out here so it might as well be a Pennsylvania shad.

 

I would not over think the colors too much. Have a variety of different actions and depth ranges of your CB's.

 

I think every lure manufacturer has a different version of the "shad" color but Tennessee Shad is slightly different. The 2 main differences with Tennessee Shad from other shad patterns is it tends to have either a red throat area or orange belly and the back color is usually gray and it extends down the sides further. That said, Tennessee Shad, Bluegill, and Perch patterns are natural colors that work well in stained or off color water.

[Spankey]

I know a few guys that get all hung up on Firetiger. They will throw it all day long because of how great it is suppose to be the magic color for the river. Sort of believe that if that color isn't working nothing will. I know for fact they really struggle at times because of this. Out my area we have been lacking normal amounts of rain the last few seasons. River is clearing up earlier, staying clearer longer. I've been throwing a lot more natural colors which include bluegill type patterns. No I didn't sell all my firetiger and chartreuse baits buy I won't throw one color just waiting for something to happen because it is the holy grail for smallmouths.

[Spankey]

Sorry for getting off your topic a bit. Something that just popped into my head about a few guys that have a boat full of stuff and limit themselves to a Firetiger CB's. I don't understand it.

[DBL000006]

Tennessee Shad color I'm buying, is from Bomber flat a in 3/8 oz.

[smalljaw67]

12 hours ago, Spankey said:

I know a few guys that get all hung up on Firetiger. They will throw it all day long because of how great it is suppose to be the magic color for the river. Sort of believe that if that color isn't working nothing will. I know for fact they really struggle at times because of this. Out my area we have been lacking normal amounts of rain the last few seasons. River is clearing up earlier, staying clearer longer. I've been throwing a lot more natural colors which include bluegill type patterns. No I didn't sell all my firetiger and chartreuse baits buy I won't throw one color just waiting for something to happen because it is the holy grail for smallmouths.

 

I fish the Susquehanna River a lot, natural colors work best with cranks when the river has at least 2' of visibility. If you can find some of the old Xcalibur XCS 100 and 200 square bills in the "real Craw" series, grab them, they are magnets for bigger smallmouth in the summer.