When did green pumpkin become a thing?

[Elkins45]

When I was fishing heavily in the late 80's I don't think green pumpkin even existed as a color choice for soft plastics. Now that I'm fishing again it seems to me like it's the most prevalent color. When did that happen?

 

FWIW I still catch way more fish on purple or blue than on green pumpkin.

[Big Swimbait]

I agree. For many years where I fished it was a purple worm. Sometimes purple/white tail. And the Mann's Blueberry jelly worm caught it's share as well. I guess in another 20 years it will be another color.

[Catt]

Like any other color or lure Joe Pro won a couple bucks on it, everyone jumped on board.

 

Green Pumpkin is my least productive color ?

[Tatsu Dave]

I don't use GP at all, tried when it became a thing and it wasn't a bass catcher for me. Rainbow Trout, Crime Scene and Junebug are my three constantly rigged colors. Pink belly on the RT, green flake and maroon color on the CS, and well junebug will always be a winner. I do use watermelon with red or gold sparkles and they have their moment. No one seems to use the RT and I usually clean up with it, only problem is its a hard color to find, GY senkos and Xzone true centers are my only sources anymore. Learned how good they worked back in the sluggo days

[Spankey]

That color has been around for quite awhile. I think before that by a bit. Pretty sure I’ve had it here in the N.E. through the early 80’s.  
 

Good color, great color but I also do better with browns, black, motor oil and camo colors. Zoom puts out a true brown finesse worm. I fell I can catch a bass anywhere with that worm. Within reason. 

[roadwarrior]

YOUR favorite color will work just fine.

 

[Teal]

It was available everywhere in the early 2000s when I started fishing for bass on my own... I dont know when but by 2008 everybody has some...funny how some colors fall out of favor... to this day I still have good success on pumpkin seed, it's just harder to find in a store

[Bluebasser86]

I'd guess right around the same time the Senko blew up.

[Mike L]

2 hours ago, Catt said:

Green Pumpkin is my least productive color ?

Ditto

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

[Spankey]

1 hour ago, Teal said:

It was available everywhere in the early 2000s when I started fishing for bass on my own... I dont know when but by 2008 everybody has some...funny how some colors fall out of favor... to this day I still have good success on pumpkin seed, it's just harder to find in a store

A lot of stuff is harder to find these days on a local scale. I just associate it with corporate buying. (Pre Corona Virus, this is a different story)

 

Like most of you guys I really do not have to buy anything. I do like playing with colors sometimes. I like to try colors even if only slightly lighter or darker or if something has a flake color in it. Usually productive and I believe it’s gonna work or I wouldn’t buy it. 

[jbsoonerfan]

Most people catch more fish on the color they throw most of the time.

 

 

FWIW, mine is a variation of GP in some form or fashion.

[FryDog62]

I think a combination of couple things... studies came out re: which colors bass actually see and Green was dominant.  Number two... yes, a few guys won some prominent tournaments with it early on.
 

And there you have it... although I rarely use it myself...  seems too plain or blends in too much.  Of course I haven’t won a lot of money with anything else either

[J Francho]

Green Pumpkin with some colored flake, usually red or black produces well during algae blooms.  I'm not sure why, since it basically matches the water.  I usually have a couple packs of it, but it's far from my favorite color to throw.  Most common baits I get in this color are senkos, flukes, and paddle tails.  I might have some craw trailers, but more often I go for something brown as a different color from my usual black or blue.

[moguy1973]

This is probably why.

 

 

But then again, crayfish can come in a multitude of colors, and that's probably why other colors work at different lakes and is why they always talk about "Match the hatch", even though that is more or less a fly fishing term.

[Catt]

1 hour ago, FryDog62 said:

... studies came out re: which colors bass actually see and Green was dominant

 

Who talked to which bass? ?

[Mobasser]

I made a post about green pumpkin not working well for me. I don't carry it anymore. I catch many more fish on purple, grape, black or blue. I'm not sure why, but green pumpkin hasn't been productive for me.

[GetFishorDieTryin]

3 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

I think a combination of couple things... studies came out re: which colors bass actually see and Green was dominant.  Number two... yes, a few guys won some prominent tournaments with it early on.
 

And there you have it... although I rarely use it myself...  seems too plain or blends in too much.  Of course I haven’t won a lot of money with anything else either

The study I read said Blue was the easiest color for them to see, even at depth.  It also concluded that LMB may not be able to distinguish the difference between White and Chartreuse.  The tests they used seemed logical to me, but at the same time Ive seen a Watermelon Brush Hog dipped in spike it out fish a Watermelon Brush Hog that wasn't dipped by a considerable margin.    

[WRB]

If you fished in the 70's-80's green pumpkin was called motor oil and green weenie variants. Pumpkin seed was Amber w/black flake etc. The green pumpkin color varies by each lure company from Amber to green with every shade inbetween. Watermelon w/ red flake preceded Green Pumpkin.

Tom

[J Francho]

Motor oil looks brown out of the water, and green under the water, to me.  Take that with a grain of salt, though - I'm blue colorblind.

[Jim Wrigley]

I think some of it is a regional thing depending on water.  Tannic waters of Florida seem to do better with darker colors like junebug.  Clearer waters around me in East Tennessee definitely have better luck with a green pumpkin or watermelon variant.  Unless fishing on a moonless night then junebug is better.  I also think that the nation’s waters as a whole are clearer than they were forty years ago and that tends to support lighter colored baits as well.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  

[kayaking_kev]

If you watch Roland Martin on Youtube at all, he is always talking about #297 Senkos Green Pumpkin with Black specs. He convinced me to buy some, but I throw a lot of Black/Blue, Junebug, and Black also.

[TOXIC]

I have been throwing Senkos for over 35 years and even developed a couple of colors for Yamamoto.  Here’s my take......297 (green pumpkin/black flake) has proven to catch fish in the most water conditions.  I’ve caught them in tannic Florida water, gin clear lake st Clair, muddy Potomac water and all shades in between.  I’ve literally thrown it coast to coast, north to south and in every water condition and have caught fish on it. That being said, I have also found other colors that work better in certain conditions and there are some bodies of water that have better color choices specific to them.  297 is Yamamoto’s #1 selling color and it’s not just because Roland uses it or somebody won a TX with it.  It’s because it takes a lot of the guesswork out of color choice if you are in a new place or maybe not as experienced analyzing color choices.  

[lo n slo]

we once fished a live bait tournament up the road near Dobson, NC. we bought us some “spring lizards”, looked to be similar to this photo. the bass ate them up. so later on, we got to looking around and found some plastic lizards at a tackle shop nearby, made by a company called Diamond Back. man, did they work! this was way before the green pumpkin craze. that company is out of business now but the next best thing for me are the green pumpkin Zoom lizards. who knew?

 

[Luke Barnes]

Ive never been a fan of GP. Most places I fish it's the exact same color as the water. The only thing ive bought in GP was some paddletails to try to mimic bluegill colors on swim jigs and chatterbaits. But craws, worms, Ned type lures, I go black/blue or some kind of red or brown. Personal preference I guess. 

[Munkin]

Green Pumkin is my #1 soft plastic color followed by black.

 

Swindel wrote something about GP was made by accident. Said someone at Zoom was trying to make pumkinseed and mixed in the wrong color. Ed just set the baits out and gave them away since they were a mistake. Well someone started catching fish on them and now they are one of the most popular colors.

 

Allen