Jigs and mismatched trailers

[ajschn06]

I’ve always tried to match my jigs up with the closest color/shade trailer I could find.  I was on bass master website the other day and came across a really cool looking one, I believe it was PB+J with a lighter green pumpkin trailer.  Wish I could find the pick again but I can’t- any off the wall color mashups with jigs and trailers you’ve had success with?

[scaleface]

Black and brown or brown and black .

[Spankey]

I fish jigs on the lighter side. Primarily black or brown for the jig itself but trailers are blues, pumpkinseed, green pumpkin, blue flecks, orange/brown, black, Bama bug. Some times my trailers are a cut off piece of a Zoom 4” Curley tail or U tail worm. I trailer my buzzbaits with those worms also. I throw buzzbaits on the lighter side also. 
 

Admittedly I don’t know how to fish real heavy in the full scheme of things. 

[Jig Man]

I’ve had good luck at night using red jigs with white double tail grubs.

[WRB]

Have you ever used black jig, black skirt with black trailer everything identical? How about black, black high contrast blue neon, or chartreuse? Green, green, green isn’t that common without a contrasting color mixed in.

PB&J with black trailer or purple trailer or brown trailer or red trailer or green trailer or blue trailer etc, etc, all work. Why? Contrast often gets the basses attention and works better then everything matching.

Tom

[ajschn06]

29 minutes ago, WRB said:

Have you ever used black jig, black skirt with black trailer everything identical? How about black, black high contrast blue neon, or chartreuse? Green, green, green isn’t that common without a contrasting color mixed in.

PB&J with black trailer or purple trailer or brown trailer or red trailer or green trailer or blue trailer etc, etc, all work. Why? Contrast often gets the basses attention and works better then everything matching.

Tom

Yeah- contrast is what got me thinking.  Really the only jigs I've ever used are Black/Blue with a black/blue flake trailer or the California/Dirty 420 color with a California craw trailer.  So there are other colors mixed in, but I've never done much work with the contrasting trailers.  Why?  It's worked and I haven't felt the need to change.  My time on the water is limited, so I don't like to experiment too much...

 

I've messed with them at home, but when I threw a black trailer on a GP jig or vice versa I hated the look, so it never got in the water that way.  I tied up a dark gp/light gp/blue jig that I think shows good contrast with both a black trailer or a light GP trailer that I'm excited to try out.  The look of that brown/purple jig with a green trailer looks like something even I want to eat- so I'm going to have to get some of those going as well..

[Team9nine]

I always start with contrasting colors (jig vs trailer), sometimes more subtle differences and sometimes more bold. Each lake is a little different. A couple of the boldest I've had good success with is an all blue jig fished with an all chartreuse pork frog trailer, and a black blue jig with a chartreuse pepper trailer. Another fun one is an all pink jig with an all white trailer. I only match and blend when nothing else seems to work.

[Teal]

I dont get crazy with it...but nothing wrong with mixing it up.  I do like a white or smoky color paddle tail or grub, with a traditional color like brown or green pumpkin.  A sapphire blue trailer with a black jig is money too.  I throw a green pumpkin paca craw on my anything lol.  I let the fish tell me what they want,    I do like to match them up too... 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

I’ve been doing some reading regarding bass vision and colors. My take away has been that white, bright and light colors all look white to them, black and blue look the same to them. They see mostly red and green but red is the first to fade under water (30 Ft under crystal clear conditions with no ripple) typically at about 10’. I’m trying combos of red, green, black or blue and white. Brown is a shade of orange so I won’t rule that out especially in shallower settings. 

[BigAngus752]

Last season I was having a great day fishing a long, rip rap-covered causeway with a blk/blu football jig and a blk/blu Paca Slim trailer.  I was catching a lot of fish but the Pacas don't hold up well and I ran out of them.  I tried a blk/blu Rage Craw for a trailer and all my bites stopped dead.  I was seriously depressed.  I found I still had a bag of Paca Slims in watermelon red so I stuck one on the same blk/blu jig and I immediately started catching again.  Caught 4 or 5 more fish before the spot dried up.  I stopped thinking about color quite so much after that.  

[Bankbeater]

In clear water I'll stick to natural colors like greens and browns, but I do make sure there is a little contrast between the trailer and jig.

In murky water I'll fish with a black jig with a dark colored trailer, but I don't worry that much about contrast.

[Big Swimbait]

My most productive combo for a couple of years is a GP jig with a Sapphire Blue trailer.

[Luke Barnes]

4 hours ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

I’ve been doing some reading regarding bass vision and colors. My take away has been that white, bright and light colors all look white to them, black and blue look the same to them. They see mostly red and green but red is the first to fade under water (30 Ft under crystal clear conditions with no ripple) typically at about 10’. I’m trying combos of red, green, black or blue and white. Brown is a shade of orange so I won’t rule that out especially in shallower settings. 

Ive read this study as well. Dark no matter color looks dark. Lighter all blends to a lighter color, then red and green stand out. I wonder if that is why baby bass works??? Ive got some green and yellow swimbaits I never throw because they look like a bass, but if they are more distinguished from just shades it might be worth a revisit. 

[Bluebasser86]

Brown craw colors with a bright blue trailer.

[WRB]

TBeing a aerospace engineer by trade it’s my nature to study everything including bass fishing and colors.

There isn’t scientific proof that supports what or how bass see colors. Lots hypothesized conjuncture based on eye physical construction but nothing on brain interpolation of how color spectrum is interpreted.

We fall back on field trails, actual fishing experience to baseline experience verses the hypothetical. 

There could be anglers somewhere that has caught more giant bass using jigs with trailers then I have, not many.

If agree the oldest biggest bass are less likely to make a mistake and strike a lure in lieu of a living prey, then colors are critical or at a minimum relocate natural prey.

For prey to survive they must avoid being eaten by predators.  Evolution plays a major roll in survival. Critters must find each other to procreate, they do this by coloration. Critters must blind into their environment they do this by coloration. Coloration is very important.

70 years ago when I started fishing lures were offered in a wide variety of colors, mostly looking like something anglers thought looked like prey; frogs, fish, crawdads etc. There is amazing variety of colors in antique lures that continues to this day.

Back to my success. In the late 60’s we had jigs that were mostly made I’d deer hair and vinyl skirts, trailers were pork rind. Predominate colors that caught bass were black, brown, purple, red and white. Changing pork rind trailer and retrying jigs was a pita. I decided to tie jigs using Black back purple vain or center and brown belly to allow matching a pork trailer to one of the colors without retyping a jig. That decision changed my success in catching big bass. To this day I use those combinations successfully and caught hundreds of bass and  all my giant bass on combinations of those 3 colors.

Tom

 

 

[Boomstick]

I typically carry three colors of trailers, but most of them are a green pumpkin color. I will also have a brown and brown. I can use a green pumpkin trailer with green pumpkin or brown colored jigs and that ends up looking fairly natural even though it doesn't match exactly. Color is about the last thing I think of when I'm jig fishing, I'll just try to keep it natural and focus on more important things like where the fish are and which presentation is going to work for me today.

[Catt]

9 hours ago, Big Swimbait said:

My most productive combo for a couple of years is a GP jig with a Sapphire Blue trailer.

 

I've had success using a Ultravibe Speed Craw in Grn Pumpkin Blue/Blue Claws Texas Rigged. Which happens to be Okeechobee Craw colors.

 

I have excellent success with Junebug worms with blue tails & junebug craws with blue claws. 

 

Different than the traditional black-n-blue ?

[padon]

i almost always mix mine. in other words if im fishing a brownish jig i usually use black or gp trailer or with a black jig ill use a gp trialer. unless im in very clears water then i usually use all brown.