Red Lures in Spring... but up North?

[papajoe222]

The lakes I fish are clear by anyone's standard, and I do well with them until the bass are on the beds. Later, in the summer, I'll break out a red crank, and get it down to where it's kicking up bottom on a slow retrieve. I don't believe the color matters as much then, but the red is much darker than most of the cranks I throw then.

[FishTank]

On 3/13/2025 at 1:34 PM, F14A-B said:

No red crawfish in Indiana. I’ve seen dark brown, green, creme colored with blue accents, the eggs they carry are orange very bright orange and rather large.. 

 

Let's just say I’ve never seen a red one..

Shhhh..... 🤫

 

Killed it on this guy today. Caught 9 total, 3 keepers on it

[F14A-B]

2 minutes ago, FishTank said:

Shhhh..... 🤫

 

Killed it on this guy today. Caught 9 total, 3 keepers on it

Sweet bait. Megabass?

[FishTank]

1 hour ago, F14A-B said:

Sweet bait. Megabass?

Yes. S Crank 1.5. 

[Jar11591]

In the northeast I fish red lures with varying degrees of success. I’ve fished red lures in spring to follow the conventional notion but I’ve never noticed any difference in the time of year. The last several years I’ve found myself throwing reds less and less. 

[Bird]

Around here Red is more appealing to smallmouth bass in the river.

Orange and brown early spring for LM, lakes.

I've seen YouTube videos of VERY red crawdads in the South but never seen the red variety around here. 

 

[Dwight Hottle]

This is one of my go to's in spring for big prespawn smallies on lake Erie. It's caught several six lb smallies.

 

[GetFishorDieTryin]

Used to fish with a buddy who only used a delta red rooster tail.  That rooster tail would consistently catch numbers and giants in the spring.  He would catch bigger fish then I was and I was using senkos.  After April that red color wasn't as effective, it would still do numbers, but the size wasn't there anymore and a senko would consistently catch bigger fish once again.  We used to keep an accurate track of the numbers and size on a excel chart.  I could write it off as a fluke year if the rooster tail just happened to be great 1 year, but this was over the course of 4 or 5 years, with consistent results.  We also found that a gold bait, would produce bigger than average fish around the latter part of April and May.

I fish red cranks and traps in the spring and have found that somedays the fish choke them and some days they just slap at them.  I've found orange to be effective in the spring as well.  My favorite color variation is PH customs Rayburn Flash, red back with an orange belly and fleck incorporated into the paintjob.  

Of course, if you only throw red or orange or purple you're going to catch fish on it.  Its just hard to say if red is the best color in the spring because no 2 days are ever the same.    

[scaleface]

I havent thrown a lot of red baits, when I do havent had a lot of luck. When the water is cold and muddy I use to catch a few on a black jig with orange trailer.

[Cdn Angler]

I'm in Canada and spring is mostly out of season for the spawn, but in general I've found red to be not terribly productive here. Mostly fairly clear water that I fish. The only red bait I've had luck on is a red Bill Lewis chrome rattletrap.