Color Selection

[Raul]

Ok, I agree, sometimes color is a deciding factor, but you can 't always go out thinking that if you don 't have color X you won 't catch a cold. Your story is an example, I have another few others where color mattered everything, but you don 't have to go around purchasing every color available, you only need a few. Sure, you can purchase a rainbow of colors if that 's what you like and you can go even further, you can purchase a particular color from a particular brand that nobody else has, for ex, when it comes to cotton candy for me it 's Culprit 's cotton candy and no other, and what 's so special about it ? well, I like that milky strawberry yougurt like cotton candy, but let me tell you, I can 't even remember when was the last time I fished with it.

Color preference and variation can change and it 's ruled by a bunch of factors like hour the day, cloud cover, light penetration, water color, right now you are murdering them with X color, in a couple of hours you might or not need to change to color Y. So for general purposes with only a handful of colors you are safe, you don 't need every color in the rainbow.

[RoLo]

The ole Color-C-Lector was based on the intensity of incident light at fish level.

In my view, maximizing contrast is the most plausible approach to color selection.

I believe the demise of the Color-C-Lector underscores the benign importance of lure color.

I'm all ears when the man at the tackle shop informs me of the hottest color

on the lake. What he doesn't realize however, is that the hottest color

will probably be the only color I never use. Take a moment to recall the best

angling days of your entire life. I'm willing to bet you were NOT following the crowd

on any one of those days.

One day last fall we found ourselves in a whitewater jump.

About every 5 minutes of so, schoolies were balling bait on the surface.

The baitfish were silvery 3 to 4 shiners, but oddly enough,

the most productive lure that day was a 7.5 junebug' worm (clashing the hatch).

Roger

[WRB]

A classic example of color importance was the Eppinger lure company changing paint suppliers several years ago. The red paint they used was discontinued due to the EPA . The new red that looked the same as the old used their spoons; red with white stripe and yellow with red diamonds was the best sellers. After changing paint suppliers the sales dropped off the next few years and anglers were complaining for the first time ever that something was wrong with the new spoons.

Eppinger had a spectrum analysis under infra red and the new red was very different. They matched the old red and sales picked up. The fish could see the difference, the human eye could not.

Some bass anglers hunt for certain lot numbers of plastic worms knowing a specific lot out fished other lots they use. Sometimes it's a slight shift like slightly amber smoke color verses a grey smoke that can make a big difference.

Every bass angler who fishes with soft plastics has or will experienced a time when one bag of the same worms out fishes others, everything else being equal.

Someday we may know how bass see colors and solve that mistery.

Tom

[piscicidal]

I have an old Field and Stream article at home...it's entitled "What bass see".

In it, they detail some testing they did trying to characterize the frequency that different colored baits get hit by bass in a testing tank. I don't remember all the details of the testing, but there was a definate hierarchy as to which colors which got hit more.

In the article there is also a chart where they show a bunch of crankbaits of different colors on one column on the left (the baseline)...to the right were columns of that same crankbait showing "how it looks to a bass" in different light/clarity conditions. I'll leave it to the biologists to determine the validity of trying to determine what a bass actually sees, but there was definately some science put to the test.

I will try and scan the article tonight and post it here tomorrow (providing that is in compliance with forum rules)

[piscicidal]

Ok, I agree, sometimes color is a deciding factor, but you can 't always go out thinking that if you don 't have color X you won 't catch a cold. Your story is an example, I have another few others where color mattered everything, but you don 't have to go around purchasing every color available, you only need a few. Sure, you can purchase a rainbow of colors if that 's what you like and you can go even further, you can purchase a particular color from a particular brand that nobody else has, for ex, when it comes to cotton candy for me it 's Culprit 's cotton candy and no other, and what 's so special about it ? well, I like that milky strawberry yougurt like cotton candy, but let me tell you, I can 't even remember when was the last time I fished with it.

Color preference and variation can change and it 's ruled by a bunch of factors like hour the day, cloud cover, light penetration, water color, right now you are murdering them with X color, in a couple of hours you might or not need to change to color Y. So for general purposes with only a handful of colors you are safe, you don 't need every color in the rainbow.

I'm with you on that 100%.  I try and max my color selections to 4 or 5 for each lure.  Any more than that and it's just too many permutations to try and effectively dial in. I think it becomes self defeating at that point...

[farmpond1]

I don't think we see things quite like a bass does so the issue may lie on a different plain than we can reasonably debate. It may not always be that one color works better than another so much as the intensity or "luminisity" of that color. But I've seen too many times where color (using the word generically) has had a strong impact on my success to dismiss the issue wholesale.

[SENKOSAM]

I still maintain that color enhances action and profile and the more it does so the better.

Who hasn't caught bass on basic black jig and trailers in stained water? Where's the contrast? If color contrast was always important why not always use white, florescent colors or silver plate? If natural color is important, how come Creme's natural earthworm color doesn't sell ? How come super realistic color schemes and colors don't do better than more abstract colors, but can hold their own much of the time?

Maybe it's because color can be a turnoff when it comes to certain baits or not matter at all for other lures. I have rarely done well on a bubblegum skirted spinnerbaits; I don't like emerald green soft plastics and neither do bass - even in clear water! Drop shotting black finesse worms don't produce for me and isn't preferred by most anglers I know. Solid bright white swimbaits may have their place, but I prefer more muted colors and so do bass in the waters I fish. In fact solid bright white doesn't seem to sell in any lure design except spinnerbait skirts.

Lure color is too subjective as it lure design and consensus is near impossible except for the most widely used colors for certain lure designs. The ColorC Lector and pH fad hooked gullible anglers like me when they first came out, promoted by Hannon. Man, have my opinions changed!

[WRB]

There are lots of scientific studies regarding fish ability to see colors and they contradict each other.

The facts that are known is fish that can see colors have 4 color cones; red, blue green and ultraviolet. The human eye has 3; red, blue and green. The wild card is ultraviolet and goes a long way to explain why bass for example prefer some colors and avoid others and have very low light vision.

As bass anglers we want to avoid using colors that bass dislike for whatever reason. We tend to use what works for us and stop using what doesn't.

Tom