Colors???

Started by camelcluch, April 24, 2007, 03:20:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

camelcluch

So many questions today.  What are some good colors and patterns in Co.?  I used to use a lot greens, browns, and black.  Throw in some crazy hand pour combos and that was about it.

HogMaster

Quincy & Aurora, Watermelon/Blk & Gold Flk, Aaron's Magic also great color out here.  Purple is also good! For the Smallies at Aurora when they are on Beds, Wacky Rig Senkos!  The Kill it!  But make sure you have atleast 3 packs due to they bite them inhalf most of the time!  Fun Fishing!!   :fishy ~c~  Also a great bait for Quincy is a Slider worm on 6lb test in a Blk/GoldFlk color! 
HOGS ARE MY BUSINESS!! AND BUINESS IS GOOD!

camelcluch


WSBC

I have good luck with anything in dark colors.   black/white, black/red spinners,    black/purple jigs, 

for some reason bright colors never work for me.

Wiley X Pro Staff
Parasite Weights Pro Staff
Leena Lures Pro Staff
St. Croix Rods Pro Staff
Power Pro Pro Staff

PaulRoberts

I'm not a color freak -I refuse to be seduced. I just haven't seen enough to justify another obsession. And I've seen enough contrary to angler's color theories that I'm a hard skeptic. For what it's worth, here's how I use "color":

The one thing I feel fairly (somewhat) confident about is obscuring lures as visibility increases. And color is only a part of doing this. Also, that lighting (visibility) varies greatly between bright sun and clear water to dark overcast and roiled waters, so my choices reflect this belief:

I try under high visibility conditions to obscure my lures using translucent hues (I don't care so much which one). The idea of "matching the bottom color" is a good one I think.  I am also a "believer" (beware!) in the search image idea -that fish recognize specific food by certain key traits. I try to "mimic" those. Exact "imitation" is impossible. After all what we're throwing out there are chunks of wiggling plastic and balsa. Best you can do is try to hide that enormous fact. Again, color is but a small part of this.

Under lesser visibility conditions I prefer my lures show up well. (I think active, hunting bass account for the majority of our catches. It's why the playing field is fairly even amongst anglers. Those that can locate active mature fish -and present a lure- catch the most). In off-color waters I like opaque white (especially but not always nearer the surface), and black or any such dark opaque (nearer the bottom). Under dark skies (and at night) I go to black -Not sure if this is real or a figment of my imagination. In really muddy water I use chartreuse -glows like a lightbulb and is at the spectral peak of bass cone vision.

I also look at what others are throwing and may avoid the popular colors in hard fished waters. It pays sometimes NOT to get tied into any specific colors.

If you find a pond full of fully uneducated bass (and I have) the constraints are greatly laxed.

mackcat

I have been forced to conclude that color is indeed important.  A few years back on a trout expedition, my son and I experienced a day that was in and out of shade/sun and we quickly learned that we had to immediately change spinner color or be forced to watch the other guy catch fish.
This year we have have been fishing a 100 acre lake and the last two trips the  bass have been absolutey fixated on the 'fire tiger'color.  My son and i have thrown side by side jointed shallow baits- firetiger brought nice fish, rainbow was skunked.  When we switched lures, the results were exactly the same.  We also tried red/gold/silver and gold colors- no luck. The guy on the fire tiger was catching fish after fish-As soon as we got slightly out of the skinny weedy water  and i could throw a Bandit in firetiger- boom, nice bass.   Lime green spinnerbait was also successful, other blade colors were not. [April 20,water temp= 51, saw clean beds, but no fish- maybe last years?]

earlir this year, it was only the white -to-silver range that brought results.

BTW, on that same lake, the trout were all over any red color- i caught them on a red stripe spoon, an old red flatfish, and a 200 series red bandit. we C&R all our bass.  we often eat all our trout....

PaulRoberts

I've often found that such differences can be attributed to things other than the color. Action or tuning of a crankbait is way more important than color. In fact, two same lures out of the box may not run the same. Fluorescents often work for very active fish -esp in a high competition situation (other fish to compete for food) -because thay are so visible.

Further, added to the above, if you both caught active bass on this fire-tiger plug, you may both have been more apt to fish it earnestly (effectively) than another color. I've seen this happen -it's easier to do than one might think. Lures rarely catch fish just cast and retreived, especially so for educated fish. They must be manipulated and the things that make a difference can be appear subtle at the rod end.

I hope I don't sound argumentative here, or offensive in any way. You could be correct that it was indeed purely color that mattered, but I've rarely found a case where specific color mattered that could not be explained in some other way.

Just some things to think about. I'll try to stay open minded as to color myself.

mackcat

one of the great things about our internet age is the chance to contrast/compare with other folk.   altho i am an empericist thru and thru , i willingly concede that fishing has  as much to do with 'feeling' as it does with controlled experimentation...there's just something about fishing that speaks to my soul... And that there are a lot of subtleties between me and that fish.  [how many times have i said to myself:  "slow it down!"]  I still feel that my [admittedly] subjective observations re color remain valid.

I have only been concentrating on bass for a couple years and i can get pretty overloaded w/ info: spawn, pre spawn, time of day, structure, water column, water temp, slow, fast, weeds, deep, low pressure , post front etc.  Maybe i like to think about colors 'cause they're right in front of me  ~read[or mabe i am just keying in with my own stereoscopic, depth of field predator brain link!!] lo



PaulRoberts

There's a lot to sift through, isn't there. And then it changes! Each day, each hour will never come again and I can only watch it roll by! I think our intelligence is somehow rooted in the very fact that we are predators in a complex world. We not only have to observe, but well enough to predict things. For me successfully predicting outcomes is really satisfying.

Empiricism works, but I feel the need to dig a bit deeper; I really want to know why. Epiphanies are more apt to occur when one is aware of the possibilities. What did Thoreau say? "There is only as much beauty in nature as we are prepared to appreciate, and not a grain more." The danger of course is running down the wrong intellectual tracks too far. Gotta have brakes.

I've been trying to remember times when color alone mattered. Will follow up if I come up with some. I'm sure there have to be some.

Hinch

 :blue
I have to agree with Paul on the color issue. However, I have noticed that color may matter more or less depending on what type of lure used. I have tried going out with only two colors, white and black. If it was cloudy I used black, sunny I used white. The fish didnt seem to care about the color as much as the techniques used. I think this is true with spinnerbaits, buzz baits, topwaters, and crank baits. The difference in color seemed to matter more with soft plastics and jigs. Some colors seemed to work better then others when using Senkos, and slight variations of color produced more strikes. With jigs its simple, match the trailer with the jig color. However, I only use a few different colored jigs in watermelon, black or brown. This makes sense when you look at what the bass eat. Using a jig to imitate a craw means using the same colors as the craw. However, technique is way more important then color though.

PaulRoberts

I think color (hue, relative brightness, or best I think, obscurity) IS more apt to be an issue with soft plastics than hard baits which tend to be fished faster. A slow crawled worm, or grub, is going to be eye-balled.

One of the first "color" things I discovered that I felt made a big difference in a some very clear hard-fished ponds I fished back East, and still follow to this day, was that translucent worms out-fished opaques (of a similar profile) under bright skies. My tried and true "black plastic worms" failed utterly in clear water under brilliant skies. They had always worked before, but then I realized this water was clearer than any I'd fished before, and it was fished intensively by other anglers.

Up until then I'd been used to fishing farm ponds that no one else did. I came to realize it didn't matter too much what I threw then in those waters. In fact, I once took an old Creepy Crawler mold and melted some plastic worms into it coming up with or all things, a 4-inch long Tarzan figure! Black of course. I threw into onto one of my pond's full of naive bass and then I'd start the "Jaws" theme song..."Ba-Bump!...Ba-Bump!! And an hour later I was still catching bass with just the torso!

PaulRoberts

Mackcat,

Some questions:

You mentioned that spinner color mattered in and out of shade. What color's worked in which?

Was the lake with bass cracking the fire tiger fished often? Is it a large lake?

Also, you mentioned clean beds. Was this this year and generally where in the State? If it's this year in Colorado (I'm assuming), would you be able to post this observaton and general location (nearest town) in the Moon Journal thread?

Thanks,

Paul

mackcat

Paul

The colors were gold or silver, and i cannot remember which worked in shade, which in sun .  I am not diligent in recording data - and, this was our first trip in a dingy I had just finished in time for my son's birthday so i was just ecstatic that a 15 yr old would think it cool to be w/ his 'ol man- much less that we were each in double digit fish  all weekend!

The lake we have recently been on is a bit over 100 acres, not much pressure yet during the week.  perhaps a dozen boats and an equal nmber of shore fisherfolk on weekends.   

i am wondering about the beds.  They seemed too close together to fit what i have read about bass.  Will bass beds be within a foot [or less]of each other?  One end of this lake has a really overgrown weed area.  later in the spring, the trolling motor has to give way to oars and pole- would this be better habitat for bedding?  And if so, is there a non obtrusive way to verify ?

PaulRoberts

Beds that close together will not be bass. They maintain some distance from each other. Bluegills on the other hand are colonial nesters. Most beds are roughly 1 to 1.5 times the length of the male that made them. If these are good-sized beds you may have found a spot used by large bluegills. This is a find! Take a few for the pan and let some be to maintain the colony. The other option are crappies, which seem to like more cover to spawn near, weed clumps or wood. All spawning sunfishes prefer to spawn on gravel. Find the gravel and you'll have a possible spawning location. This appears to be a rule for bluegills. Bass and crappies may spawn on other hard objects (cattails roots, stump or log tops) if gravel is not available, or is aleady densely occupied. New, clean beds are often pale in color, and where I fish mica is so common in the silt that the beds shine in the sun.

When you see spawners let me know in the Moon Journal. But do read the first post so you have a good idea of what to look for: pre-spawn vs actual signs of spawn. Add date and rough location -nearest town.