basic color selection

[blanked]

i just relocated from the deep clear lakes of california to the shallow murky waters of southeast texas.  visibility here is less than 2 feet most of the time so to me using bright colors like charteuse, white, or bright orange would be the way to go.  but I hear over and over about using black, purple,

watermelon, colors that wouldnt seem to stand out in low visibility.  what am i missing here?

 

[DDbasser]

From some of the books and articles that I have read, the darker lures black, blue and red cast a darker sillouette in muddy or stained water.

I can't go into the depth that the book does but it makes sense when you read it.

The book I'm talking about is Advanced Bass Fishing by John Weiss.

I found my copy on e-bay for less than $7.00 and that included shipping. It's a hard bound 381 page bass encyclopedia.

I've had it for about 2 months and I have taken a lot of the things that I have read and tried them on the water and had good success with them.

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

best bet is to experiment with both.

Make sure you try to add sound or vibration wherever applicable.

[Brad_Coovert]

2 feet of visibilty is good water clarity IMO.

Basic plastic colors that catch fish about anywhere they swim:

Black

Junebug or Redbug

Red Shad

Watermelon

Green Pumpkin

Rootbeer/Green

Pearl/Silver Flake

Of course, I seldom listen to my own advice, so I have just a weeeeeeeeeeee bit more colors than that.   ;D

Brad

[OkobojiEagle]

Brad... I realize you carry many colors of plastic but I'm curious... can you rank (by percentage) the colors you most often use per time spent using that color vs. the others?  I'm probably only interested in your top ten or twelve colors and the percentages that they make up in your fishing.

[blanked]

these colors seem to be for both clear water and

low visibility water.  thats telling me that there is no diference in visibility for color selection as long as you choose what i would consider a color for clear water only.  sounds kind of strange???  

[Rebbasser]

Welcome to the forum!

I use this rule of thumb:

Clear water-natural colors like watermelon, watermelon red and green pumpkin.

Stained water-add some color like chartreuse.

Muddy water-depends n the cloud cover.  If it is cloudy-darker, more natural colors.  If it is sunny-bright colors.

[flechero]

Blanked-  there are several of us from texas on this forum so if you tell us what lakes you are fishing we can probably give you specifics to your lake.

I lived in east texas for a couple of years...  2 foot visibility is pretty clear by my standards.  There are a bunch of lizards (or newts, gekkos, chemilions, etc) native to east texas.  So consider the "rules of thumb" for water clarity and also look for what color lizards you see regularly...  My best colors out there may not be what most people would throw based on clarity of water but the fish saw the real thing enough to look for them.  (if it matters, I fish lizards year round, and almost never fish worms)

My most productive colors (zoom colors) were:

1  cotton candy (w/ or w/o chartruse)

2  watermelon seed

3  sour grape

4  red shad

5  black & blue

6  pumkinseed (w/o chartruse)

7  natural green/natural blue

8  watermelon red

9  black w/ blue fleck

10  salt & pepper

Zoom has some new colors out (since I left east texas) that look great but I haven't tried them out there.  

[blanked]

Conroe will be my home lake.  I like to spend a week during the spawn at a lake I dont normally go to and went to Toledo Bend in March.  I will try Rayburn next March and see which of those two I like more to continue going to for a week.  I wasnt impressed with the camping at Holly Park at Toledo

Bend

[texasbass1]

Blanked,

Welcome to the Greatest state in the USA. For a lot of our lakes 2 ft is normal visibility. The darker colors with a hint of chart usually work good here. I use Junebug, green pumpkin and watermelon quite a bit. In clearer water I will use those colors and throw in Electic Grape another color that is used down here a lot is Red Shad. If you want clear water you need to go over to Amistad. Great lake but you will find we have a lot of great lakes here.

[Brad_Coovert]

Man, I'd have a tough time assigning a percentage to colors, but I do know that watermelon and green pumpkin based colors make up about 2/3 of my plastic usage throughout the year.

Brad

[OkobojiEagle]

Brad... That's about what I'd expect... thanks for the confirmation.

[roadwarrior]

I'm in agreement with Brad_Coovert. I fish dark colors almost exclusively, especially soft plastics. The exception are a few hard baits that may be more colorful or a better representation of live baitfish. Even then silver, gold, white, chartreuse and maybe a splash of red or orange pretty much covers it all.

[Chris]

redshad green flake

black blue flake

black blue

black pearl blue

green pumpkin

watermelon

pumpkinseed

junebug

tequila green flake

black chartreuse

That's about all I throw.

[Matt Fly]

Blanked,

I spent 15 yrs in the navy out of San Diego.  Great fishing in the area, too bad you can't fish them in the dark, sunup to sun down only.  I did learn how to light line finesse fish in 40ft of clear water.  I concur with the others as green pmkn/watermelon is about 80% of my day time blue bird sky use.  Early morning or shaded areas I like watermelon candy until the sun gets up,  red flake, gold flake later,  2 ft vis. I like blood worm colors, red shad, plum colors, redbug,  anything purplish red.  Conroe during the spawn, wht-wht/chart. spinners, anything plastic during the spawn that  allows you to see your worm if possible(bed fishing).   Not all patterns are the same on the east texas lakes,  I have had a strong pattern on Toledo Bend and found that Sam Rayburn is on a totally different color even though the two have similar conditions.    Also the water clarity on those 2 lakes change as evident by the 3 fishing reports given uppper, middle and lower always being the clearest.

[blanked]

and what about spinnerbaits and crankbaites for colors  

[bassackwards]

at dick's I only find white and chartuese spinnerbaits.  however, there was two or three different.  only one looked decent as a spinnerbait.

anyone else find this?  I guess I would have to find some skirts to replace them.

[Raul]

Muddy waters ask for strong vibrating lures or noisy ones with dark or highly visible colors , big bladed spinnerbaits.

[fireandice]

I have to say that one reason that the spinnerbaits don't come in a super variety is probably for the fact that when you're fishing a spinnerbait, the light that's bouncing off of the blades is going to also be the same light (sunlight, moonlight) that is going to show that white or chart. color.  Whereas if you're fishing a black color scenario...say low light muddy unclear water, they're probably not going to see a spinners flash, so the dark color and the spinner are somewhat of an off combination.  Not saying that it won't catch fish.  But let's say you're fishing the dark scenario...then your dark color would play into the visibility for the fish and the vibe from the blade would be the attraction factor instead of the flash.  Anyway...just my opinion...don't really have anything to back it up other than what I've been taught about colors and spinners and light levels and such.   Hope this helps or makes some sense to someone other than me.  

[remaly]

Blanked-

Everybody has given pretty good advice to your situation, but to give a simple explanation: dark colors absorb more light and vice versa for translucent baits. So, dark baits in muddy water stand out more than bright color(chartruese)baits or natural colors.

Generally, muddy/stained water fish rely on their other senses(smell/sound) and they also need more time to locate your bait. Slow presentations have always worked for me. Black skirt spinnerbaits w/ dark blades slow rolled, black&blue jigs and anything junebug. If that doesn't work I will go to a Berkley 7" blue fleck worm. The dark purplish color along with the glitter absorbs as much light as any other dark colored. Insert a couple of small rattles or use a glass bead below your sinker. Use attractant as well.

[Chris]

Here are some things that has helped me in color selection. Light is filtered out more and more the deeper you go. Its the amount of light reflected off an object that gives you color. The things suspended in the water cause the water to be the color that it is. Its the suspended particles that also filter out the amount of light that can go to a given depth. The suspended particles also change the appearance of color. So if you have a yellow lure in blue water the bait may appear green. (just an example) When colors don't have enough light to reflect they appear dark or dull. Black contrasts against all colors. Black is also visible in minimal light conditions. Purple works well in greenish color water. Watermelon or green and blue can be seen at the deeper depths. They can still be identified as their original color even with less light penetration. Orange is great for a brown water color.  Orange reflects off of the brown color particles and can still be identified as orange and will not blend in. Chartreuse, green, orange, red, blue, yellow, and violets reflect the most light at twilight time (clear water). Try it yourself take your tackle box outside when the sun is setting and see which colors almost glow or you can still identify as the original color.