Does color matter?

[TRIGGER]

What's your opinion?
I have had a few days that I can remember when it was a night and day difference as far as getting bites on one specific color and they wouldn't eat anything else. The most memorable was when my buddy was throwing a clown colored jerkbait. That was the only clown colored one we had. We had and I tried SEVERAL other colors with no success. He had a stellar day topped off with a 6+ lb smallmouth and 5+ lb largemouth and I never had a bite all day. It got to the point I was standing by him mimicking his "twitch" and still nothing.

 

[RUGER]

Talked to Bill Dance one time and he told me color made absolutely no difference whatsoever.





As long as you were throwing black / blue.

 

[Crappieaddict]

Some days, absolutely. Other days, not so much. My opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.

 

[Rammer Jammer]

My last river float….. started off either throwing a white Swimbait or dragging a watermelon red flake craw. As soon as I switched to junebug finesse trd, bam!

 

[Cannonball1]

Yes it matters. Fish can see some colors better than others based on water clarity. For crappie it makes a big difference. I don't fish for bass enough (except for striper) to have an opinion for that species.

 

[beefydeer]

Talked to Bill Dance one time and he told me color made absolutely no difference whatsoever.





As long as you were throwing black / blue.

Funny he would say that when he used to push the Color Selector back in the day

 

[RUGER]

Funny he would say that when he used to push the Color Selector back in the day

Yeah I remember those. LOL
I think he was more joking than anything.

 

[Kirk]

Color seems to matter a lot when I am fishing jigs with rage tails. Shaky heads have sort of a color range they seem to be more effective in.

 

[UCStandSitter]

Funny he would say that when he used to push the Color Selector back in the day

He pimped that thing hard in the late 80s/early 90s. Every episode it seemed

 

[XCR-2]

So this is what I've found, keep in mind I fish for bass 90% of the time. Color matters depending on your location. Say you're fishing a slough that has minimal water clarity, the bait color changes due to the environment they're living in. If that slough has lots of shade or sunlight then the bait will change color due to its environment. Take for example crawfish. I've caught crawfish in one section of the river that will be orange/green pumpkin looking, then go 2 miles away and they will be more of a blue/dark brown color. Same thing with shad but not as noticeable when out of the water. Can you keep a black/blue jig tied on all day and catch fish? Of course. If you're flipping. Can you do it with a football head casting deep, yes but not as well. Those fish are in feeding mode, the flipping bite is a reaction bite. Let's say you're at the dinner table and you just ate a big meal and are stuffed, you're wife slides in a piece of cake and you say nope can't eat that I'm full. At the same time a spider drops from its web right in front of your face, what do you do? You swat at it out of reaction. Well, fish don't have hands, they have a mouth that's for feeding and protecting. When a bass is in a treetop I think he's just chilling not necessarily hunting. When that jig falls in front of his face it's fight or flight so most of the time he eats it out of reaction, not hunger. That's just my 2 cents. So depending on a lot of circumstances color does matter. But sometimes it doesn't

 

[Chiflyguy]

Fished with a guide in Ontario for walleye once.
He was jigging yellow, I was jigging John Deere Greene
Out fished him 5:1.
He bought what JDG jigs I had

 

[NumberOne]

I think it definitely matters in certain situations and probably most situations. Pros would definitely throw more flashier colors than green pumpkin/black and blue/ white to sell more baits if color didn't matter haha

 

[Doecrusher]

Im sure it does at times but also think it's a confidence thing for the angler too. In my experience it probably matters most with slow moving baits where they're getting a good look at it. But most of my cranks have pretty much no color from catching tons of fish and beating rocks and such. So size and action comes into play more..

 

[WTM]

contrast and shape. all colors are black or not visible most anything around 20ft.(except some of the extremely clear lakes). darker tannic water white and chartreuse will have more contrast. light muddy water dark and chartreuse has more contrast.

in shallower water bass and other sunfish see the middle color spectrum best most likely:

light reds to green. they cant tell the difference between blue and black and some of the deeper reds probably look black. red looks black around 15-20 ft where the light fades.

on a lighter bottom in shallow water a darker bait will have more contrast and vice versa. when the sun/full moon is out a blue or black will have better contrast against the lighted surface water.

then you have fish memory of being caught by a certain color. they may avoid a certain color if theyve been caught and released, or they may hit a color they havent seen better than others.

in deep water 25ft plus they most likely rely on vibration and smell more than anything.

 

[WTM]

so what colors does this clown bait have in it? red white blue?

 

[WTM]

found these "clown colors" on bass pro. probably a good color they can see since it hits every color in the supposedly more visible mid spectrum range:

 

[Spurhunter]

Depends on what you're fishing for and how you're fishing IMO.

Livescoping crappie like we do color and jig profile is meaningless. If you present the bait correctly they will eat it. We pitch past the fish and as the bait pendulums back to the boat we keep it just above the fish. Apparently the movement of the bait triggers them. I've talked about one of my buddies that catches the limit every time he goes. He's been known to fish the same jig for 2 months until the hair starts falling out. I fished with him the other day and he was using white/chartreuse and I was using blue/silver. Didn't matter at all. That said, old habits are hard to break. I still find myself many days using a bright pattern like white/chartreuse or cajun cricket early until the sun gets up then changing to a more natural shad imitator. I know another guy that fishes old school with no electronics jigging trees at his home lake from March to May. He is absolutely incredible with two jig poles in his hand. He holds both poles in one hand and fishes very, very slow. He will have different colors on the poles. He says it doesn't matter what color he has on. It's all about presentation.

Bass on the other hand, color seems to be very important. For me, most days, finding the right color can be the difference in whacking them and really struggling. Like most of us, I've had many day where I was whacking them on one color and the other guy in the boat couldn't get bit, or vice versa.

 

[KDR21]

Color matters absolutely. You mentioned Jerkbait fishing and it is a color deal as much as anything.

 

[TN Larry]

Yes, no, maybe……lol.

I've seen many times it did and many times it didn't. Most of the times when it has mattered it made sense i.e. depth, water clarity, moon shining on night trips, etc.

One trip that still sticks out in my mind though is one dark night on Dale Hollow. We were catching fish in about 15' of water in scattered grass on a Zoom Ol Monster. A buddy and I had went the week before and caught them good with the color not mattering. It just had to be an Ol Monster. I went back the next weekend with two more buddies with one who had been catching them good. He started kicking our tail before dark on one particular color. My other buddy and I tried several other colors with most very similar and the other buddy was catching 2 to 3 to our 1 combined. We first thought it was just him in the front of the boat and knowing the angles to throw on the places we were fishing. That was until I dug out the same color and instantly went to catching them. Just to prove it farther, we pulled in on one of my spots around a dock with lights and my buddy put me on the trolling motor. I picked up my favorite color under lights with zero bites as my buddy proceeded to catch two behind me. I picked the other color up, caught one first cast and missed one the next. It was crazy how color picky they were that night.

 

[megalomaniac]

Color makes a huge difference on some days. I just cant figure out when those days are...

That being said, I have 1 or 2 colors I have much more confidence in. If I'm not catching anything on those colors, the fish just aren't there. If I catch one here and there on my confidence colors, I may start trying other colors to see if the bite picks up.

Size of the bait also makes a big difference. Springtime specks seem to prefer much smaller profile bait as the forage bait they are feeding on is much smaller in the spring. As the bait gets bigger throughout the summer, I start using much larger profile baits.