Colors?

[Catt]

When selecting a lure's color do you

A) Select based on water clarity cause this is what your supposed to do

Select based on personal preferences

Personally I pay little attention to water clarity selecting based on pasted experiences and sometimes just saying I like it like that.

[floridabassboy]

At the tackle store i buy because of personal preferance but on the water i chose because of conditions

[Bass XL]

i do both if it is clear, i usually go for light colors....but if it looks good, i usually get it.

[senile1]

I try to select based on what I need to work any type of water clarity and situation.  I'll try to have a balance of light, dark, and bright colored baits.

[scott000]

for soft plastics i usually use shades of green and brown in any water. i found black and red flake effective too

[Matt Fly]

I'm with Catt on this one, but I like to say I go with confidence baits that have worked well in the past.

Matt.

[JiggaMan512]

When selecting a lure at the store i will go with what i know will produce in some body of water, at the lake i choose what will produce in that body of water

[Siebert Outdoors]

I go with past practice that produced in a similiar fishing trip and conditions.

If I am getting skunked I might go with "I like that" or the "close the eyes and point at one trick."

[RoLo]

I'd venture to say, that fish get bored with this subject long before we do ;D

Among all the many details and variables that go into fishing, I place "color" at the end of the line.

I'll often base my color choice on what my wife is using, and pick any color, as long as it's not the same.

Over the years, some of my wife's favorite colors became mine and vice versa. I guess all we've really learned

is that color by itself rarely made the big difference. Thinking too much about color would cause me to

miss more important matters that do make a big difference. I'm referring to matters like "lure depth", "lure speed",

"lure choice" and oh yes, "boat position".

My favorite color is "chartreuse", based solely on its remarkable underwater visibility. Mepps underwater tests found chartreuse

to be unusually visible in both murky and clear water. For peace of mind, I tend to favor color patterns that offer both a dark hue

and light hue that caters to all lighting conditions. That releases my mind to think about the meat-and-potatoes of fishing.

Roger

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I try and take water clarity into consideration, depending on the baits I am fishing. Time of year also plays into this fact. Take crawfish for example, as they will change to different shades throughout the year.

I am a big fan of lures with at least some white in them, mostly due to the fact that most of your smaller baitfish have a white belly or at least something close to that color. Hey, it makes sense to me...

[.ghoti.]

For plastics, which is what's on my line most of the time, I don't think color is particularly important. No where near as important as depth and speed. Black/blue, red shad, dark green, and dark brown will be all I'm carrying next year.

For cranks, all I think I need is basic baitfish colors for swimming, and basic craw colors for bottom bouncing. And a few with some chartreuse for dirty water conditions.

White, white/chart and chartreuse get the nod for spinnerbaits, with a few black for night fishing.

I'm going to eliminate about 2/3 of the baits I carry around by sticking to this scheme for colors.

[Catt]

Ring Rascal has a color worm called Starry Night; it is dark smoke on top, clear smoke on the bottom with lots of silver glitter in the clear. Its killer at night, this goes against every thing you hear about night fishing, everyone says to use dark colors.

How about off the wall colors?

A few years back while fishing an early spring tournament on Toledo Bend my partner and I slaughtered with spinner bait that had a Chartreuse/Pink skirt. My 5 yr old daughter asked to put the skirt on, caught the biggest 3 days stringer of my life.

[RoLo]

Ring Rascal has a color worm called Starry Night; it is dark smoke on top, clear smoke on the bottom with lots of silver glitter in the clear. Its killer at night, this goes against every thing you hear about night fishing, everyone says to use dark colors.

Whenever I run into a contradictory situation like that (all too often), I always question the message.

Does it downgrade a parroted tenet, or does it simply diminish the importance of color?

Roger

[Fishin49er]

For spinnerbaits and crankbaits, i always buy a natural color (White or shad) for clear water and a bright color (Char. or parrot) for muddy or low light condition.

For jigs and plastics, i buy a natural color (green pumpkin) for clear water and a dark color (black blue) for muddy or low light conditions.

When im on the water i just match the color to the condition.

[Catt]

RoLo please clairfy  

[RoLo]

RoLo please clairfy

Sure.

You related an instance when you experienced good luck while using Light colors during a time when conventional wisdom

recommends Dark colors. In the same vien as yours, I've experienced some of my best fishing when the color of my lure

resembled nothing that lived in the lake. My question is this, when we encounter these contradictory episodes

that fly in the face of popular belief, what is the message? Do these conflicting experiences undermine conventional wisdom,

or do they simply diminish the importance of color?

My guess is the latter.

A day on West Point Lake, GA pops into my mind. My friend Jerry and I were crappie fishing, he in my opinion

is a better crappie fisherman than me. He was doing poorly that day though and kept changing lure colors throughout the entire day.

Every time I put another crappie in the box, Jerry repeated the same question, "What color did you get'm on Rog?"

My answer was always the same, "chartreuse". Like most days, I never changed the lure color once that day.

The best way to prove or disprove the importance of color is to exploit a positive opportunity and try to reverse the action

by changing colors. Wait until a day when you're doing exceptionally well with a lure that matches the predominant forage.

Then switch to a pattern that clashes blatantly with the predominant forage, and the action should obediently collapse.

I wouldn't bank on it though.

Roger

[Daniel My Brother]

A LM bass will eat anything it can get it's mouth around, Frogs, fish, snakes, worms, crawdads, bugs, etc...They don't seem to care what color it is, so I don't worry about color too much either.

[Bankbeater]

With lures I try and stick to what looks like a natural pattern.  

[Catt]

Exactly the reason for this post RoLo

I'm one of those guys that fishes outside the box because you can't me keep in the box

One tournament during late winter/clear water I caught a 5 fish/30 lb stringer on Bubblegum (pink) wacky worms

[BassFishingMachine]

Im the type of fisherman that likes realistic pattens in the colors I choose from lures to softbaits. For example, rapalas I will often choose a silver/black pattern or a gold/black pattern, even a blueish/orangish pattern to represent a bluegill. For lures that suppose to imitiate a frog, like a hula popper, buzzfrog, hollowbody frog, I will go with a natural frog color. Greenpumpkin, watermelon seed, chartreuse, green with white belly, etc. For soft baits such as rubber worms I like the brownish colors probably the best, but I will also use other colors that I find look natural, like cinnamon brown, redshad, camo, motor oil, pumpkinseed, greenpumpkin, watermelon seed, (I believe darkgreen colors work very well in rubberworms, they can imitiate so many things, from dying frogs to a juicy nightcrawler, next time you use greenpumpkin look at it in the water, the color almost changes into a naturalish appearance IMO of course) Overall browns/greens/silvers are the top 3 colors that catch me majority of my bass.

[Guest avid]

I usually end up with confidence colors.   but I usually start with something a little differernt.

I like to experiment, but I am one of those guys who changes lures too often.

I'm probably going to stop that practice, due to the discomfort and tactile dexterity of knot tying.  The fromer is increasing while the latter is decreasing.   In short.  Tying knots hurts and takes too long for so I'll be sticking with lures longer than I used to.

[WhiteMike1018]

Consider theese factors

Water Clarity

Primary Forage

Time of Day

[Matt Fly]

Catt, \\    what was the reason to try bubble gum in the winter?   Was it because of the pink skirt.?

I like off the wall choices because of past success, but for me to pick pink when I have never used one in the winter would be a reach for me to try.

Matt

[Catt]

Actually we had just saw a guide who was throwing a Merthiolate (bright orange) Zoom Trick Worm Wacky; he called it shock treatment. Well I didn't have Merthiolate but my partner had pink and that's shock enough for me. The guide was catching fish just over the 14 legal limit we were catching 6 lb average.