When Color Matters? 2025
papajoe222 reply :
I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching. My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz. He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours. I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers.
My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing. Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?
Mike L reply :
Depending on what I'm throwing.
If its a moving bait (crank, trap, walking frog, spinnerbait, chatterbait) I'll change colors if I'm convinced I'm on fish, and then only after I experiment with different depths, weight and retrieves.
For plastics I'll change styles and rof before I change colors.
For moving topwater's I rarely change colors thinking thats the reason I'm not getting bit. I'll more times than not just give it up and change to a whole different presentation..
Mike
CroakHunter reply :
I keep my color choices very simple. White, black, natural. Most of the time when I keep the same bait, but different color is when I underestimate the clarity of depth of the water I'm fishing.
IndianaFinesse reply :
I don't hardly ever change colors on the water, and when I do it's usually because I'm on a long run to a spot that has drastically different water clarity, since I've got time to kill anyways. I think I've spent more time proving to myself that color doesn't matter by swapping between a few off the wall colors (for instance the other day I rotated between green pumpkin, bubble gum, chartreuse, and white straight tailed worms on a shaky head-all got bit with the same regularity), than actually switching colors in an attempt to get bit more.
davecon reply :
I think color makes more of a difference in deep water than shallow water.
I proved this to myself over thirty years ago. Was fishing a new reservoir. Half mile offshore was a drop from 12 ft to 18 ft.. A tremendous amount of water was being pumped into the new reservoir that half mile away and there was a slight current. The bass were stacked up at that drop and I and my buddies routinely caught 30 or so a piece in a mornings fishing.
My preferred lure was a six inch light blue Creme worm with a pretty heavy sinker.
One day a small piece of debri had washed up to the lip of that drop off. If you could drag that worm through that little bit of debri, probably the size of a garbage can lid, you were almost guaranteed a fish. After catching four bass on four casts in that debri on the blue worm I switched to the exact same worm, only difference was color - purple this time. Made four casts, felt the debri all four times. No bites. Changed back to the blue worm - four casts, four fish.
To to this day, if I am fishing deeper water I use blue.
I know that to a lot of you guys 12/18 feet is not deep. I'm in west central Florida and by our standards that's pretty deep.
As far as normal fishing goes, with plastics I usually start out early in the mornings with black. When that slows down I switch to purple. When that slows down I go to junebug with a little bit of glitter or green pumpkin. For hard baits I normally use gold with a black back due to our dark tannin stained water. If I'm in clear water, which doesn't happen often, I go with silver with a black back.
For what it's worth, that's my approach after about 50 years of this crazy nonsense we call fishing.
r83srock reply :
I too keep things pretty simple with colors. Usually I have two or three colors of each bait I throw. Jigs I’ll usua keep black, black and blue, and green pumpkin, and I’ll keep the same with trailers. I’ll mix and match those at times. When I’m pre fishing I’ll load a couple extra 3700 size boxes with baits I don’t usually throw, or might throw on that particular type of water, in various colors I want to try, but by game day I’ve got my selection of baits and colors narrowed down to the chosen few.
TOXIC reply :
As a general rule.....match the hatch......If you can duplicate what the fish are feeding on then you have a good starting point for color. I have a good friend who was in the Elite Series and he told me point blank fishermen get too hung up on color. Keep it simple and hone in on "hues" more than specific colors.
All that being said.....I don't know why the Smallmouth in Lake St Clair eat bubblegum colored baits, but they do. 
the reel ess reply :
On 9/28/2017 at 9:24 AM, papajoe222 said:I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching. My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz. He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours. I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers.
My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing. Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?
I'll switch to what's working. I had that exact experience. It was my friend's gold/black Trap vs every other color I had in my box-I didn't have a gold. I tried bluegill, chrome, craw and TN shad. He skunked me, at least on that bait. I bought a couple gold/black ones and caught fish. I haven't thrown another color since at this place, though I did buy some Cordell Spots and an H2O Express knockoff to try, all in the same pattern. So far, the Spot is the best. It's also the darkest shade of metallic gold. There are shiners in this lake. I've caught some of my biggest bass there on this bait as well as some crappie.
Catt reply :
Was it color?
Was it because you unknowingly changed rhythm?
Was it because you were now putting it in the strike zone?
How do we really know it was color change? ?
Team9nine reply :
On 9/28/2017 at 9:24 AM, papajoe222 said:I'm from the school that puts a lure's color somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to what is important to catching fish. I do, however, admit that there are times when those items near the bottom can make the difference between catching and not catching. My reluctance to recognize those times, IMO, has kept me from becoming a better angler. Today was a perfect example. My partner and I were both throwing RedEye Shads. His was gold/black back and mine was chrome/blue back, both 1/2oz. He boated four keepers and missed or lost four others to the one dink that I'd boated over the first two hours. I switched to the same color as his and started getting bit on par with his numbers.
My difficulty in recognizing the importance of color is the fact that I fish alone more often than not. I change baits, or techniques before ever considering changing the color of one of the baits that isn't producing. Now to my question; In what situations do you opt for a color change over a change in lure type, or do you always try a different color before switching?
98% of the time, I don't change color. As for the remaining 2 percent, 1% of the time is if I'm getting my arse whooped on the water and I can't come up with any other reason why 
The other 1% is if I just want to play around and prove to myself that changing colors makes no difference in the bite as @IndianaFinesse alluded to.
Troy85 reply :
Usually changing color's is my last ditch attempt, after I'm out of other ideas. My brother throws all sorts of goofy colors and still catches fish. He loves to throw rainbow trout colored Senkos, this is definitely not rainbow trout territory......lol doesn't seem to bother the bass tho, they eat it up.
scaleface reply :
I was paralleled casting the banks one fall day and the leaves were changing . I started out throwing a bluegill colored crankbait and kept casting it in the trees because the lure was camouflaged against the background . I switched to a white crankbait , began casting much better and had a productive day . Color made a difference that time .
I do think color makes a difference along with sound and action . Many times a color switch has made a difference when bass were not taking the lure good , being barely caught on the rear hook or foul hooked . I just keep tweeking until I'm satisfied .
deep reply :
It matters when it matters.
For juvenile/ small adult NLMBs- which is pretty much all I fish for lately- that's probably not very often. I do still fish my favorite colors and patterns though lol.
P.S. Might sound funny, but my favorite colors are not a function of water clarity or weather conditions or any of that stuff. My favorite colors depend on the reservoir I'm at. Iaconelli wrote a recent bassmaster blog post about this, and I agree.
Choporoz reply :
I suspect that color might matter sometimes. However, I haven't ever proved it to myself with any certainty. There are just so many other ways to mix up presentation, that I never get around to really testing color.
Brett's_daddy reply :
To me color really only matters for submerged baits. Topwater baits not so much as the fish are generally only looking at the belly of the bait from below the water's surface. I would think anything like crank baits, jerk baits or senko/craw baits where the fish gets a good look at the entire bait color would matter more but then again sometimes it's just instinct and the fish would bite anything that comes near it's mouth whether it looks like a baitfish or is bright pink with purple polka-dots.
the reel ess reply :
Fact is, I don't have every color of every bait. I usually buy a couple colors of each bait I have a lot of confidence in and go with those. But nowadays, gold/black or some version with metallic gold is a confidence color for me. I used to only buy cranks in shad, chrome or firetiger. If I was in a situation where someone was skunking me with a bait and they didn't offer to loan me one exactly like it, I'd probably try a different color, then a different bait altogether.
bigbill reply :
The light conditions and changing light conditions can make a difference in what color to use too. The sun was shining in the late afternoon. I'm catching bass after bass, the bite is on. I fishing a swamp with stumps and about an acre of open water the rest is stumps and weeds. I using a joesfly 1/4oz bass size in blackgnat. That's a silver blade with a black bucktail. As the sun started going down, as it got near dusk the bite slowed down. I switched to joesfly 1/4oz bass size in firetiger Apache and landed a few more bass.
what causes this change is the basses eyes adjusts to the change in the light conditions. Even our eyes are hard to see at the dusk conditions. The basses eyes do adjust faster to the low light conditions than the baitfishes eyes. This causes this bass feeding frenzy in the morning twilight and at the evening in the dusk. The noon time turn on is caused by the Plants give off plankton in sun light at noon is what the bait fish feeds on and they get dumb out of hiding so the bass feeds on them.
i have heard from other bass Night fisherman that after the bass shut down in the evening after dusk conditions go to darkness they turn on again around 10:00 pm at night, I haven't proved this yet. They were throwing inline spinners at 10pm.
smalljaw67 reply :
When I'm fishing lake largemouth my color choices aren't many, green pumpkin and watermelon for clear to light stained water, black for dirty water, and sometimes brown instead of watermelon if I'm fishing rocks in high visibility water. For the river smallmouth I pursue, color is really important. I can introduce you to a gentleman from Florida who I took out for 3 days of smallmouth fish who caught all of 9 fish while I boated 104 , yeah, it sounds like a story but true, he refused to believe that the smallies in clear water were really keyed in on color opting instead to just throw downsized baits. The color was smoke purple, and it didn't matter if it was a tube or a swimbait, those were the only two baits I use, my friend from Florida didn't have anything that color and wouldn't take my baits, and he insisted that eventually they would eat a different color, the short story was they didn't. Now, this doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to place color a few rungs higher than the bottom, and that is another thing I found. When it comes to smallmouth, color factors way more than largemouth, at least in every body of water I ever fished for them in, you may be able to catch them on several different colors but you will quickly notice that certain colors will get bit more often or by larger fish on average, and I've had a lot of days in which the bait had to have glitter. Black wouldn't buy me a strike during a small club tournament but black neon was getting hit so hard I had to change baits every 2 fish. For the most part I'm with the general consensus on color and that it is the least important element with location and presentation being on top but in clear water fishing smallmouth, color is much more important that some would like to believe.
Turkey sandwich reply :
On 9/29/2017 at 5:47 PM, smalljaw67 said:When I'm fishing lake largemouth my color choices aren't many, green pumpkin and watermelon for clear to light stained water, black for dirty water, and sometimes brown instead of watermelon if I'm fishing rocks in high visibility water. For the river smallmouth I pursue, color is really important. I can introduce you to a gentleman from Florida who I took out for 3 days of smallmouth fish who caught all of 9 fish while I boated 104 , yeah, it sounds like a story but true, he refused to believe that the smallies in clear water were really keyed in on color opting instead to just throw downsized baits. The color was smoke purple, and it didn't matter if it was a tube or a swimbait, those were the only two baits I use, my friend from Florida didn't have anything that color and wouldn't take my baits, and he insisted that eventually they would eat a different color, the short story was they didn't. Now, this doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to place color a few rungs higher than the bottom, and that is another thing I found. When it comes to smallmouth, color factors way more than largemouth, at least in every body of water I ever fished for them in, you may be able to catch them on several different colors but you will quickly notice that certain colors will get bit more often or by larger fish on average, and I've had a lot of days in which the bait had to have glitter. Black wouldn't buy me a strike during a small club tournament but black neon was getting hit so hard I had to change baits every 2 fish. For the most part I'm with the general consensus on color and that it is the least important element with location and presentation being on top but in clear water fishing smallmouth, color is much more important that some would like to believe.
Agreed. A simple way to cover a lot of bases without going nuts is to keep at least 1 jar of dip'n'dye/JJ's around (if you only have one, make it chartreuse). It's amazing how some days they want glitter/sparkle and others white with chartreuse to accent and another will only bite watermelon or pumpkin under virtually the same conditions. That said, even when smallmouth get particular, the basic color rules regarding clarity and sunlight hold up.
BassNJake reply :
I've had days where they wont eat a senko until I dip it in Spike-it.
There are days that switching from a 5 inch senko to a 4 inch or vise versa made all the difference.
Or going from a 1/2 ounce jig to a 1/4 ounce one.
At a lake in Ohio the fish prefer an Xcalibur rattle bait, I can't get a bite on that lure at the lake in TN I fish.
but tie on a red eye shad and it's on.
I will change colors when they are not taking the bait completely.
This is only done after changing my retrieve and switching sizes.
My experience is changing the rate of fall will draw more strikes than changing the color.
Other times it is the opposite which is pretty much how fishing goes.
Like others have said I have tried rotating colors when I'm catching fish and noticed no difference.
I think the color issue comes more into play when they are not eating it.
I get a couple bites and I dont hook up, I know I'm around the fish just got to make little adjustments to get them to take it better.
scaleface reply :
I was a non boater in a tourney and got smoked . This was in the late 70's . The boater was using a chartreuse spinnerbait with chartreuse blades . I didnt have anything like it . There was a ten fish limit in those days . First day he got me ten to zero . Second day ten fish to two . He won the tourney . It may have been color , it may have been vibration or a combination . These were open water fish on a shallow flat and all he was doing was casting and reeling .
king fisher reply :
I would change the color of the lure rather than the lure itself, when like your example, I'm getting out fished with the same lure, and I'm sure my retrieve and depth are the same. The other time would be if the prey the bass are feeding on have some different color or flash that could be what the fish could be reacting to. The flash of gold instead of silver, bright orange claws on a crayfish, or any other significant color of the prey. I wouldn't bother changing colors if the prey is similar colored as the lure I'm fishing. You might only have to add a small amount of a key color, or change from a metallic color with flash, to a dull color with no flash. I have seen times when a fish would hit anything with red,same with the flash of gold. I do believe most of the time a certain retrieve or action is what the fish are keying in on, but there are time, when it is the only thing they are keying in on.
BassWhole! reply :
I'm in the color doesn't matter camp, but will be the first to admit that when it matters, it matters a lot. Clear (like really clear) water, and when fish are keyed on a particular forage (or worse the combination of the two) is when I get particular about color, if there are no clouds or wind (like last week in the Saint Lawrence), then it makes it even more so, but as a general rule, I'm either throwing bright, dull, or forage, with no specific one color in mind.
WRB reply :
I don't know what colors bass prefer, I do know what colors I perefet, the problem is we don't agree!
Tom
Mike L reply :
At a 2 day tournament last weekend both my boater and I started throwing hard baits with minimal success. We went to a spot where he practiced at 2 days before and wanted to start there.
My strength is all things plastic so after an hour I changed to a honey candy Cut R and had one within 5 minutes.
Because of the way it took it I decided to change size and color and went with a black and blue 7" ribbon tail and had a limit in 2 hours with better quality fish. I was running low so changed to the same bait but in a 2 tone light accent red and stayed with it most of the day.
The 2nd day I started with the same red but was running low so I started alternating between them both but it didn't matter. I was culling by 10:00 and went big girl hunting the rest of the day.
Maybe it was because they were both a darker hue compared to a light watermelon I don't know.
What I do know is that color on both days with the same presentation useing the same weight, hook size and line didn't matter.
Mike
ww2farmer reply :
I must have a wizard like 6th sense when it comes to color selection. EVERY color I choose, get's bit, and catches big fish in every body of water I fish.
OR................ color doesn't matter.
I really don't know, or don't care if it does.
I carry around different colors of stuff to basically satisfy my own tackle buying fetish, because having a box full of black jigs, black worms, and white crankbaits is boring.
I know right off the bat who's going to be a non-factor at a tournament when the first question out of their mouth is "what color are you using?" instead of 10 other things they could be asking that are way way more important.
flatcreek reply :
I use a lot of the green pumpkin baits and when I think color is a factor I'll pull out the dye pencils and start tinkering.
king fisher reply :
Ten years ago I was guiding two fly fishermen for Artic Grayling in Alaska. The silver salmon run was late, and they chose to spend a couple days fishing for grayling. There was a hatch going off at the first place we tried. I tied on what looked to be a similar color and size of dry fly. Grayling are usually not picky, and I expected to get fish every cast. After fifteen minuets without a fish, and watching a few perfect dead drifts go right over nice fish I was getting frustrated and thinking of moving. Then one of the hatching flies landed on the front of the boat. It was brown like the flies we were fishing, but had a small amount of yellow on the body. I looked through my box and found a fly with a yellow body. Caught fish every cast for an hour after tying on the one with some yellow. Tried a nymph below the surface with a bit of yellow, it worked too. Then tried many different flies without any yellow on my rod while the No bites. The clients continued catching fish every cast on the yellow flies. There was no doubt the color was what made the difference. The next day I went to the same place. No hatch going, but the fish were still there. Tied on a couple flies the same size as the day before. Again no bites, from what many believe are the dumbest species of fish alive. One of the clients failed to mend his line causing the fly to skitter across the surface. I was about to tell him he had to mend his line in order to get a drag free drift when he got a bite. That was the key. Most of the time a dead drift is what works, but that day the fish wanted the fly skittering across the surface. Changed our presentation, and landed fish every cast on many different colors, and sizes. Color was not a factor that day. Color may be at the bottom of the list most of the time, but some days it is at the top.
Angry John reply :
I feel color always matters but what is best is changed by the conditions. When the water is very clear then a natural presentation is critical. If the water is stained or muddy then having something that can be seen is the ticket. This means that one color is not always the answer. Matching the current food item also helps. It is just one piece of the puzzle like depth sound and action. The time you get them all right will be the day you will always remember....
bigbill reply :
Some days color matters, somedays size matters, somedays size and colors matters we must be flexible. Don't get stumped throwing one color for hours. Simple change colors. The sunlite influences the hues in the water along with the water conditions on what color the bass sees. Their eyes aren't like ours they don't see all the colors all the time.
when I purchased crankbaits I buy a red, a green, a brown, a firetiger, a black, a firecraw, a silver. I prefer craw colors in the bomber cranks. Example. Then I go with the natural colors, sunfish, bluegill, perch, baby bass.
i feel bad I played god one day. The small pickerel were feeding on the bass fry. I put on the same size rapala in baby bass and I caught every pickerel there. My future generations of bass were saved. I did release the pickerel.
FLcentral reply :
When I was a teenager fishing the local lake I noticed another guy fishing a mid lake eel grass flat catching a few bass. It was mid morning and the bite was slow so I moved on to the grass flat a good distance from the other guy. The water was about 5 feet deep with fair visibility to the bottom. I started throwing a red 6 inch plastic worm as I slowly drifted the flat. With no strikes I was watching the other angler who had boated a couple more bass and had also seen a couple bass swimming near the boat so I changed my worm to a blue color which also produced on this lake. Still no bites and bass swimming by the boat made me change colors again to a black worm. The black worm quickly produced a couple of 1lb bass and the likely answer to the fishes preferred color. While unhooking the fish I could see crawdads sticking out of their gullet so a dark colored worm was close enough to the craws they were eating to get a strike. I tried a chocolate colored worm which also produced but red or blue was ignored.
During the last month I have been fishing rattle baits in the local lake and have found that a bait with a good bit of chartreuse on it was getting regular bites while the metallic baits that produce consistently last summer were not getting hit. The water clarity was less than 2 feet, a little less than last summer. I threw several different brands of rattle baits and caught fish on all brands that had chartreuse in the paint job.
thinkingredneck reply :
I spent an entire spring and summer using one color plastics, to prove a point to myself. I would change shapes (i.e., trickworm, ribbon tail, ole monster, paddle tail, u-vibe) and speed. It was in a shallow lake with a lot of vegetation. once I figured out the shape, they would consistently bite.
I have noticed I seem to do better with glitter than with a plain worm.
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