When Color Matters?

[papajoe222]

I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching.  My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz.  He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours.  I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers. 

My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing.  Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?

 

[Mike L]

Depending on what I'm throwing. 

If its a moving bait (crank, trap, walking frog, spinnerbait, chatterbait) I'll change colors if I'm convinced I'm on fish, and then only after I experiment with different depths, weight and retrieves. 

 

For plastics I'll change styles and rof before I change colors.

 

For moving topwater's I rarely change colors thinking thats the reason I'm not getting bit.  I'll more times than not just give it up and change to a whole different presentation..

 

 

 

Mike

[CroakHunter]

I keep my color choices very simple. White, black, natural. Most of the time when I keep the same bait, but different color is when I underestimate the clarity of depth of the water I'm fishing. 

[IndianaFinesse]

I don't hardly ever change colors on the water, and when I do it's usually because I'm on a long run to a spot that has drastically different water clarity, since I've got time to kill anyways.  I think I've spent more time proving to myself that color doesn't matter by swapping between a few off the wall colors (for instance the other day I rotated between green pumpkin, bubble gum, chartreuse, and white straight tailed worms on a shaky head-all got bit with the same regularity), than actually switching colors in an attempt to get bit more.  

[davecon]

I think color makes more of a difference in deep water than shallow water. 

 

I proved this to myself over thirty years ago. Was fishing a new reservoir. Half mile offshore was a drop from 12 ft to 18 ft.. A tremendous amount of water was being pumped into the new reservoir that half mile away and there was a slight current. The bass were stacked up at that drop and I and my buddies routinely caught 30 or so a piece in a mornings fishing.

 

My preferred lure was a six inch light blue Creme worm with a pretty heavy sinker.

 

One day a small piece of debri had washed up to the lip of that drop off. If you could drag that worm through that little bit of debri, probably the size of a garbage can lid, you were almost guaranteed a fish. After catching four bass on four casts in that debri on the blue worm I switched to the exact same worm, only difference was color - purple this time. Made four casts, felt the debri all four times. No bites. Changed back to the blue worm - four casts, four fish. 

 

To to this day, if I am fishing deeper water I use blue. 

 

I know that to a lot of you guys 12/18 feet is not deep. I'm in west central Florida and by our standards that's pretty deep.

 

As far as normal fishing goes, with plastics I usually start out early in the mornings with black. When that slows down I switch to purple. When that slows down I go to junebug with a little bit of glitter or green pumpkin. For hard baits I normally use gold with a black back due to our dark tannin stained water. If I'm in clear water, which doesn't happen often, I go with silver with a black back.

 

For what it's worth, that's my approach after about 50 years of this crazy nonsense we call fishing.

[r83srock]

I too keep things pretty simple with colors. Usually I have two or three colors of each bait I throw. Jigs I’ll usua keep black, black and blue, and green pumpkin, and I’ll keep the same with trailers. I’ll mix and match those at times. When I’m pre fishing I’ll load a couple extra 3700 size boxes with baits I don’t usually throw, or might throw on that particular type of water, in various colors I want to try, but by game day I’ve got my selection of baits and colors narrowed down to the chosen few.

[TOXIC]

As a general rule.....match the hatch......If you can duplicate what the fish are feeding on then you have a good starting point for color.  I have a good friend who was in the Elite Series and he told me point blank fishermen get too hung up on color.  Keep it simple and hone in on "hues" more than specific colors.  

 

All that being said.....I don't know why the Smallmouth in Lake St Clair eat bubblegum colored baits, but they do.  

[the reel ess]

10 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching.  My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz.  He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours.  I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers. 

My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing.  Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?

 

I'll switch to what's working. I had that exact experience. It was my friend's gold/black Trap vs every other color I had in my box-I didn't have a gold. I tried bluegill, chrome, craw and TN shad. He skunked me, at least on that bait. I bought a couple gold/black ones and caught fish. I haven't thrown another color since at this place, though I did buy some Cordell Spots and an H2O Express knockoff to try, all in the same pattern. So far, the Spot is the best. It's also the darkest shade of metallic gold. There are shiners in this lake. I've caught some of my biggest bass there on this bait as well as some crappie.

[Catt]

Was it color?

Was it because you unknowingly changed rhythm? 

Was it because you were now putting it in the strike zone?

 

How do we really know it was color change? ?

[Team9nine]

11 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching.  My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz.  He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours.  I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers. 

My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing.  Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?

 

 

98% of the time, I don't change color. As for the remaining 2 percent, 1% of the time is if I'm getting my arse whooped on the water and I can't come up with any other reason why  The other 1% is if I just want to play around and prove to myself that changing colors makes no difference in the bite as @IndianaFinesse alluded to.

[Troy85]

Usually changing color's is my last ditch attempt, after I'm out of other ideas.  My brother throws all sorts of goofy colors and still catches fish.  He loves to throw rainbow trout colored Senkos, this is definitely not rainbow trout territory......lol doesn't seem to bother the bass tho, they eat it up.

[scaleface]

I was paralleled casting the banks one fall day and the leaves were changing . I started out throwing a bluegill colored crankbait and kept casting it in the trees because the lure was camouflaged against the background  . I  switched to  a white crankbait  , began casting much better and had a productive day .  Color made a difference that time .

 

I do think color makes a difference along with sound and action .  Many times  a color switch has  made a difference when bass were not taking the lure good , being barely caught on the rear hook or foul hooked  . I just keep   tweeking until I'm satisfied  .

[deep]

It matters when it matters.

 

For juvenile/ small adult NLMBs- which is pretty much all I fish for lately- that's probably not very often. I do still fish my favorite colors and patterns though lol.

 

P.S. Might sound funny, but my favorite colors are not a function of water clarity or weather conditions or any of that stuff. My favorite colors depend on the reservoir I'm at. Iaconelli wrote a recent bassmaster blog post about this, and I agree.

[Choporoz]

I suspect that color might matter sometimes.  However, I haven't ever proved it to myself with any certainty.  There are just so many other ways to mix up presentation, that I never get around to really testing color. 

[Brett's_daddy]

To me color really only matters for submerged baits. Topwater baits not so much as the fish are generally only looking at the belly of the bait from below the water's surface. I would think anything like crank baits, jerk baits or senko/craw baits where the fish gets a good look at the entire bait color would matter more but then again sometimes it's just instinct and the fish would bite anything that comes near it's mouth whether it looks like a baitfish or is bright pink with purple polka-dots.

[the reel ess]

Fact is, I don't have every color of every bait. I usually buy a couple colors of each bait I have a lot of confidence in and go with those. But nowadays, gold/black or some version with metallic gold is a confidence color for me. I used to only buy cranks in shad, chrome or firetiger. If I was in a situation where someone was skunking me with a bait and they didn't offer to loan me one exactly like it, I'd probably try a different color, then a different bait altogether.

[bigbill]

I started bass fishing late in life. I was one of those trout guys in the spring and fished for bass once or twice a year. Ok I had to catch up on my bass fishing knowledge. I had no time to waist. I read anything about bass fishing. I found Dr. Loren Hills ten year research at OK university into bass seeing different colors very interesting. He talked to Bill Dance too. Bill showed the drs. Color c lector / combo c lector on one of his shows. Bill also said while one color may catch a few fish, the right color could load the boat.

 

On certain days most colors will work, other days one color will work. I found the one day a red color would work when no other color worked, this worked for brown and green too. I used the combo c lector in the same spot on different days. Just a test.

 

Now one day I used just about every color in my tackle box. Nothing hit. I threw everything again with different presentations. Nothing again. The bass are there, this is a hot spot. I put on a chartruece firetiger color and caught fish. This taught me we can have different water conditions in the water column too. As the conditions on top may look clear as we go deeper it could be stained to muddy depending how much sun lite it gets too.

 

I got to the point I throw a ritual of different baits and colors till I get one that works. I'm fishing from shore and don't like to waste time by staying with one bait that's not working. I also skip fan cast, I don't put two casts side by side so I don't spook fish. I cast at both ends of the radious. Skipping by near my last cast.

 

Dont limit yourself to one bait and color. Vary your presentations, if I have a slow day I practice with different presentations with different baits. When we get it right a bass will interrupt us.

 

Go fishing and enjoy it. Focus on what your doing.

 

when you watch fishing videos or tv shows listen to them but watch how they handle the rod n reel. Watch there line speed. Watch what there doing with a certain bait. Then go out and practice it.

 

read the articles here and watch the videos here. We have all winter to brush up on our skills or learn new skills. It's up to you how good of a bass fisherman you want to be. Skill catches bass not luck.

 

[bigbill]

The light conditions and changing light conditions can make a difference in what color to use too. The sun was shining in the late afternoon. I'm catching bass after bass, the bite is on. I fishing a swamp with stumps and about an acre of open water the rest is stumps and weeds. I using a joesfly 1/4oz bass size in blackgnat. That's a silver blade with a black bucktail. As the sun started going down, as it got near dusk the bite slowed down. I switched to joesfly 1/4oz bass size in firetiger Apache and landed a few more bass.

what causes this change is the basses eyes adjusts to the change in the light conditions. Even our eyes are hard to see at the dusk conditions. The basses eyes do adjust faster to the low light conditions than the baitfishes eyes. This causes this bass feeding frenzy in the morning twilight and at the evening in the dusk. The noon time turn on is caused by the Plants give off plankton in sun light at noon is what the bait fish feeds on and they get dumb out of hiding so the bass feeds on them.

 

i have heard from other bass Night fisherman that after the bass shut down in the evening after dusk conditions go to darkness they turn on again around 10:00 pm at night, I haven't proved this yet. They were throwing inline spinners at 10pm.

[smalljaw67]

When I'm fishing lake largemouth my color choices aren't many, green pumpkin and watermelon for clear to light stained water, black for dirty water, and sometimes brown instead of watermelon if I'm fishing rocks in high visibility water. For the river smallmouth I pursue, color is really important. I can introduce you to a gentleman from Florida who I took out for 3 days of smallmouth fish who caught all of 9 fish while I boated 104 , yeah, it sounds like a story but true, he refused to believe that the smallies in clear water were really keyed in on color opting instead to just throw downsized baits. The color was smoke purple, and it didn't matter if it was a tube or a swimbait, those were the only two baits I use, my friend from Florida didn't have anything that color and wouldn't take my baits, and he insisted that eventually they would eat a different color, the short story was they didn't. Now, this doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to place color a few rungs higher than the bottom, and that is another thing I found. When it comes to smallmouth, color factors way more than largemouth, at least in every body of water I ever fished for them in, you may be able to catch them on several different colors but you will quickly notice that certain colors will get bit more often or by larger fish on average, and I've had a lot of days in which the bait had to have glitter. Black wouldn't buy me a strike during a small club tournament but black neon was getting hit so hard I had to change baits every 2 fish. For the most part I'm with the general consensus on color and that it is the least important element with location and presentation being on top but in clear water fishing smallmouth, color is much more important that some would like to believe.

[Turkey sandwich]

5 minutes ago, smalljaw67 said:

When I'm fishing lake largemouth my color choices aren't many, green pumpkin and watermelon for clear to light stained water, black for dirty water, and sometimes brown instead of watermelon if I'm fishing rocks in high visibility water. For the river smallmouth I pursue, color is really important. I can introduce you to a gentleman from Florida who I took out for 3 days of smallmouth fish who caught all of 9 fish while I boated 104 , yeah, it sounds like a story but true, he refused to believe that the smallies in clear water were really keyed in on color opting instead to just throw downsized baits. The color was smoke purple, and it didn't matter if it was a tube or a swimbait, those were the only two baits I use, my friend from Florida didn't have anything that color and wouldn't take my baits, and he insisted that eventually they would eat a different color, the short story was they didn't. Now, this doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to place color a few rungs higher than the bottom, and that is another thing I found. When it comes to smallmouth, color factors way more than largemouth, at least in every body of water I ever fished for them in, you may be able to catch them on several different colors but you will quickly notice that certain colors will get bit more often or by larger fish on average, and I've had a lot of days in which the bait had to have glitter. Black wouldn't buy me a strike during a small club tournament but black neon was getting hit so hard I had to change baits every 2 fish. For the most part I'm with the general consensus on color and that it is the least important element with location and presentation being on top but in clear water fishing smallmouth, color is much more important that some would like to believe.

 

Agreed. A simple way to cover a lot of bases without going nuts is to keep at least 1 jar of dip'n'dye/JJ's around (if you only have one, make it chartreuse).  It's amazing how some days they want glitter/sparkle and others white with chartreuse to accent and another will only bite watermelon or pumpkin under virtually the same conditions.  That said, even when smallmouth get particular, the basic color rules regarding clarity and sunlight hold up. 

[BassNJake]

I've had days where they wont eat a senko until I dip it in Spike-it.

There are days that switching from a 5 inch senko to a 4 inch or vise versa made all the difference.

Or going from a 1/2 ounce jig to a 1/4 ounce one.

At a lake in Ohio the fish prefer an Xcalibur rattle bait, I can't get a bite on that lure at the lake in TN I fish.

but tie on a red eye shad and it's on.

 

I will change colors when they are not taking the bait completely.

This is only done after changing my retrieve and switching sizes.

My experience is changing the rate of fall will draw more strikes than changing the color.

Other times it is the opposite which is pretty much how fishing goes.

 

Like others have said I have tried rotating colors when I'm catching fish and noticed no difference.

I think the color issue comes more into play when they are not eating it.

I get a couple bites and I dont hook up, I know I'm around the fish just got to make little adjustments to get them to take it better.

[scaleface]

I was a non boater in a tourney and got smoked . This was  in the late 70's . The boater was using a chartreuse spinnerbait with chartreuse blades . I didnt have anything like it . There was a ten fish limit in those days . First day he got  me ten to zero . Second day ten fish to two . He won the tourney . It may have been color , it may have been vibration or a combination . These were open water fish on a shallow flat and all he was doing was casting and reeling .

[king fisher]

I would change the color of the lure rather than the lure itself, when like your example, I'm getting out fished  with the same lure, and I'm sure my retrieve and depth are the same.  The other time would be if the prey the bass are feeding on have some different color or flash that could be what the fish could be reacting to.  The flash of gold instead of silver, bright orange claws on a crayfish, or any other significant color of the prey.  I wouldn't bother changing colors if the prey is similar colored as the lure I'm fishing.  You might only have to add a small amount of a key color, or change from a metallic color with flash, to a dull color with no flash.  I have seen times when a fish would hit anything with red,same with the flash of gold.  I do believe most of the time a certain retrieve or action is what the fish are keying in on, but there are time, when it is the only thing they are keying in on.

[Deleted account]

I'm in the color doesn't matter camp, but will be the first to admit that when it matters, it matters a lot. Clear (like really clear) water, and when fish are keyed on a particular forage (or worse the combination of the two) is when I get particular about color, if there are no clouds or wind (like last week in the Saint Lawrence), then it makes it even more so, but as a general rule, I'm either throwing bright, dull, or forage, with no specific one color in mind.

[WRB]

I  don't know what colors bass prefer, I do know what colors I prefer, the problem is we don't agree!

Tom