Lure Colors Are Important

by Mike Schoonveld

Is the color of fishing lures important? And if so, just how important?

Look in the tackle box of most avid fishermen and there's no doubt that most anglers think they need a wide palette of colors.

Lure color is important, but not always for the reasons you might expect.

Finicky fish, used to eating only a certain food, may shy away from a lure that doesn't look like the usual fare. That's why a trout strive to match the hatch--to use a fly that imitates the insects on which the trout have been feeding recently.

Bass anglers in rocky lakes and streams are often successful pitching crankbaits that imitate crayfish. Crayfish are high on the list of preferred foods for bass, and they abound in areas with rocky substrates. Bass in those areas are always suckers for crawdad fakes.

Matching the normal food isn't always the key to success, however. If that were true, baitshop shelves would be lined with brown, grey, and dull-green lures matching the color of the foods fish eat. There are lures of that color, but in tackle shops you'll more often find lures painted boldly with all the colors of the rainbow and others adorned with fluorescent hues no rainbow ever sported.

How many Day-Glo yellow minnows do you see? Or purple and chartreuse worms? But those outlandish lures can catch fish when naturally colored baits might go untouched.

When brilliantly colored lures work well, it may simply be that those hot colors are just easier to see. In muddy or stained water, visibility may only be a few inches. Throw a lure in there that can be seen twice as far and it could mean twice as many fish will see the offering and strike it.

Some species of fish seem to have a fetish about certain colors. I'd never be caught fishing for crappies without a good supply of "pinky" jigs--ones with a white marabou tail and a fluorescent pink head. Why crappies gulp them I'll never know, but the important fact is they find them simply irresistible.

There's nothing a crappie normally eats that is colored white and pink, and there preference for those colors is not just a matter of higher visibility. If that were true, hot-green and fluorescent-chartreuse jigs would be just as effective as the pinky, but they aren't. And work just as well in gin-clear water as they do in cloudy or stained conditions.

Just as pink is the color of choice for crappies, lime green is a favorite brighter-than-life color for walleyes. And what sort of northern pike lure would not have a splash of brilliant red on it?

Lures painted flat black are among my personal favorites regardless of what I'm trying to catch. Few plugs come from manufacturers painted that color, presumably because they don't catch fishermen very well. But a spray can of flat-black enamel can produce a lifetime supply of black lures.

Surprisingly, black lures work well for the same reason fluorescent-colored lures excel in stained water; they are easy to see.

Most fish strike a lure from below, and whether a lure is green, blue, or rosy pink makes little difference when viewed from below against the bright background of the illuminated water surface. Only the dark silhouette of the lure is seen. What color casts the strongest silhouette? Black.

Understanding that lure color is important is only half the story. Choosing which color to use, of all the colors available, is the other.

Experience, conditions, preference of the fish, experimentation--even blind luck--all help dictate color choice. Weighing those aspects and making the selection is part of the fun of fishing.


Copyright (c) 1997 Mike Schoonveld. All rights reserved.

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