Flash in muddy water

[GTN-NY]

What gives off more flash in muddy water? Gold or silver?

 

i’m fishing in the creek after some rain so the water is high and muddy

[DitchPanda]

I've always used gold in muddy water or overcast days. Silver in cleaner water especially on sunny days.

[A-Jay]

I'm going with neither. 

Might be more about vibration and or profile

Sort of like asking which color is more visible in total darkness.  

And don't give that hogwash about red. 

A-Jay

[Smokinal]

4 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

I'm going with neither. 

Might be more about vibration and or profile

Sort of like asking which color is more visible in total darkness.  

And don't give that hogwash about red. 

A-Jay

Agreed

I've always gone with a bait that produces more vibration. Bladed jig, Colorado bladed spinnerbaits, aggressive trailers on jigs etc...  Although I will say I gravitate towards Blk/Blue with those same baits.

And I guess I'd have a hard time arguing FireTiger in muddy water.

[DitchPanda]

10 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

I'm going with neither. 

Might be more about vibration and or profile

Sort of like asking which color is more visible in total darkness.  

And don't give that hogwash about red. 

A-Jay

Actually he may be right! Think spinner bait, lipless and bladed jig...I think one of those would produce.

One thing I will say about high water..if you can find run ins as in a place where water is dumping into the body of water your fishing is definitely try there. I've caught bass in 2 feet of water in spring and fall with water temps in the low 40s when I had water pouring into a pond/lake.

I do think that colors like red and gold do produce well in off color water..but pure mud A-Jay is right. Honestly the best color for muddy water may be white...it stands out since it's so contrasting.

[GetFishorDieTryin]

I lean towards gold 80% of the time I'm fishing a spinner bait but when the water is really muddy Ive found that a hammered copper blade is as good or better then a gold blade.  

[GTN-NY]

Silver blades and chartreuse definitely haven’t paid off yet. I’ve got maybe 6 inches from the surface of visibility 

[A-Jay]

Admittedly I do not fish a ton of 'muddy' water, avoid it when I can honestly.  However when I do fish it, my success almost always finds fish snuggled up to hard bottom cover, or in the absense of cover, very close to or on the bottom. 

Baits often need to hit fatties on the head. 

Places here that never get 'muddy', usually post frontal after rain, can be tough sledding unless I can find cleaner water.   Lakes that seem to flucuate in and out of different stages of 'mudness' I am looking for the dirtiest areas.   Super high, like flood waters, I rarely deal with. 

A-Jay

 

[gim]

Perhaps instead of worrying so much about blade color, try a blade with a larger profile that gives off more “thump.”  The willow leaf blades are easier to move faster but give off less vibration whereas a Colorado or Oklahoma style blade will create more resistance.

 

If the water is that stained, the blade color probably makes minimal difference. The fish are honing in more in the noise using their lateral line.

[DomQ]

I go with gold sometimes but mostly black and blue spinnerbaits or chatterbaits with black blades. Bright fore tiger patterns have produced for me before so thats another option. If the water is fairly deep ill really try letting my lures sink till I hit bottom and then try different depths.

[Dens228]

I tend to worry more about skirt color when I'm grabbing a bladed bait.   Most of my spinnerbaits are silver blades, the ones that are copper are one copper one silver.   In all honesty when it comes to chatterbaits I can tell you what color head/skirts I have but saying what color the blade is would be purely a guess. 

[Catt]

[Born 2 fish]

I always use black in muddy water a  black chatter bait or black Colorado blade spinner bait can be deadly.

[scaleface]

I have fished a lot of muddy water . I  dont think blade flash makes that much of a difference . The two spinnerbaits I have done the best with was a Blakemore C.C. spinner that featured a large hammered copper  Colorado and the Strike King Spin Dance with silver turtle back blades .

[jimmyjoe]

4 hours ago, A-Jay said:

success almost always finds fish snuggled up to hard bottom cover, or in the absence of cover, very close to or on the bottom. 

Baits often need to hit fatties on the head. 

 

   ^^^  This  ^^^.

   Here, only shad and mooneye are really light in muddy water, and that's only really up-close. For everything that's out of sight (so to speak) the stimulus is either sound or water displacement. And like A-Jay said, you better be right on target.        jj

 

   For water displacement, that's where the 1 ounce Dardevle comes into play.  ?  

[GreenPig]

Colorado blades, rattles, more noise & vibration a little slower works here when it muds up. When it's really muddy I've never found one color works much better than another.

[MIbassyaker]

90% of the received wisdom about about blade color in various conditions doesn't make sense to me, and never has.  The lower the visibility, and the poorer the lighting conditions, the less color should matter across the board.

[jimmyjoe]

14 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

90% of the received wisdom about about blade color in various conditions doesn't make sense to me, and never has.  The lower the visibility, and the poorer the lighting conditions, the less color should matter across the board.

 

   In the first place, I personally don't think it's color per se; I think it's contrast. And secondly, I think you're correct. Under low-visibility conditions, color matters less and less and noise and water displacement more and more. The problem is that one person looks at their local lake and says, "Man! That's mud!" Some one else comes up beside them from another part of the country and says, "Meh. Not bad. Let's try silver."  ??

   Lastly, fishermen tend to throw what works ...... or more precisely, what worked. Habits are hard to break. If they threw a shiny spinnerbait in muddy water and caught 3 bass, then shiny spinnerbaits are the thing to throw in muddy water ..... end of subject. In reality, it was (probably) the thump that caught the bass, and a darker spinnerbait with the same thump might have caught them 6 fish, not 3.

   You'll never convince them of that, though.

   And lastly, about "received wisdom". Always trust what you see, not what someone else says. Experiment with change-ups yourself, and believe what happens right in front of you. Don't be one of those creatures of habit that I mentioned; you'll never find answers that you trust, answers that are right for where you fish.

   Good luck!     jj

[Boomstick]

If the water really is all that muddy, I don't think the colors of the spinnerbait or blades matters that much. Maybe you'll get one less short strike using a black spinnerbait with a gold blade. If the water is stained with some visibility, gold blades and a chartreuse spinnerbait would be the way to go so they can see it from a little further away.

[Mbirdsley]

My rule of thumb has always been whether the water was muddy or not. That I’ve always done best with throwing silver colored stuff on sunny days.  Gold flashy colored stuff on cloudy days.  Some days none of it matters 

[FishTank]

I was fishing a lot of muddy water at the beginning of last year and I tried all the recommended baits and no luck.  I found using a 1/2oz yellowish colored Megabass Dark Sleeper was the trick and more than anything, whatever gave off a lot of water disturbance. 

[Silas]

I remember a fishing trip in South Louisiana with a friend of mine. We were going to fish "Turtle Bayou."  Said he caught a lot of fish there. A 40 minute boat ride later he pulled up into the muddiest bayou I'd ever seen, and seeing the disgusted look on my face, reached into his ROD box which was stocked full of unopened baits 

 

  He pulled out a 12bait card of identical spinner baits. 

He called it the "CLOWN" bait. 

 

    On blade, a large Colorado, colored ORANGE AND YELLOW on one side and CHARTREUSE on the other.

 

A short arm on the blade.  The head was ROUND, painted orange and yellow, and the skirt was  plastic in orange and black ( like those on a Snagless Sally. 

 

   We caught about 30 bass in shallow water----2-4 feet deep. 

He gave me a card, and over the years, I used up all of them. 

 

      Now I can't remember the name of the spinnerbaits. 

 

But im lookin!!!

[Bluebasser86]

Copper, gold, and painted blades are where it's at in dirty water.

[DSTN]

Generally agree with what others have said about vibration and blade colors. My best bait in dirty water has been a white chatterbait with white trailer. Next best have been a white/chartreuse spinnerbait with a big gold colorado blade and a fire tiger square bill. 

[Koz]

Half the lagoons I fish have perpetually stained water due to stormwater runoff so I fish them all the time. The color doesn’t matter. Chatterbaits, Colorado blade spinnerbaits, or anything that thumps gets their attention. Displacing water is what is important, not the color of the bait.