Thread: does color really matter ?

let's look at it from another perspective , in most cases cold blooded critters do not look at things as irritants and in most cases not protecting real estate (except for the spawn ), the 3 basic things cold blooded fish and animals have going on are , feed , flee or make some lil ones .
now if it resembles a prey item it might get bit and, if it resembles a predator and there is no clear path to escape it might get bit ,and of course if it resembles a mate it might even get a little nip there too ....
as humans we try to put our perspective on how cold blooded wildlife reacts and thinks about their realms and it really has about zero in the same thought process dept. going on , they lead a very simple life without much in the way of thinking out what they do before they do it .

in most cases cold blooded critters do not look at things as irritants and in most cases not protecting real estate

There's no looking about it - something is an irritant or not. Many believe that fish identify prey as a particular animal and are fooled into believing that lures are those specific animals by the way they look and move. Problem is that most lures don't look or move like any animal that ever lived (curl tail grubs and spinners to name a few). So if a lure doesn't look or move like something recognizable, why attack it?
This we are in agreement:
they lead a very simple life without much in the way of thinking out what they do before they do it

So when it comes to color, what were they thinking? Color preference indicates choice and any day I fish, I use many different colored lures that fish were caught on. Actions and shapes are different so that rules out prey preferences. Yesterday the bite was amazing as were the hard no-nonsense strikes by gills and crappie of all sizes. I switched lures after catching fish on them to test others I had made and designed. All were hit with the same energy. Why? I could give a hoot as long as the strikes happened indicated by a count of 69 fish caught after 1 pm under a bright sunny sky.

But most fish attacked the big Chubby lures with gusto - including 12-13" crappie! Here are examples of the large lures that caught fish:
clear-plastic tail Bobble Butt:


Krinkle Kut Curl tail:


3.5" Chubby Curl tail:


hybrid:


The only thing that really mattered was the size of my soft plastics when it came to tail nippers. Once I downsized a quarter inch, fish on! Plus those lures then worked under a float.
Downsized lure used under a float or with no float:


Fish were in 3'- 7' near pads or pad stems and the wind gusted to 15 mph. No particular color, no scent or non-scents if you will.

spawn fish in guarding and aggressive territorial situations bite about anything in any color and or size and shape my friend , fish dont think sir , they react to the situation and getting upset and or irritated is a human thing , not a fish thing.
feed , flight or ,,,you know what, is how they roll

Maybe irritant is not a good word though it means something that excites.
Regardless, our lures excite fish to respond, the reason(s) not really up for discussion due to engrained beliefs such as match the hatch and color theory/bias.

I've posted hundreds of lure shapes/actions in many colors that have caught fish most months of the year knowing that those shapes/actions and a proper presentation are proof enough that what lures look or act like or supposedly represent to fish, are simply titles to what the nitty gritty of their success is in reality - a lure crafter's reality. Given the fact that most species attack many lures on any given day is testament to their universal appeal and seasonal versatility.

As far as a territorial response goes, here's an example:
I have a pumpkinseed sunfish that parks itself to the right of where I'm standing on the dock waiting for me to throw bits of bread to it in shallow water. Any sunfish that gets too close, it chases. Another example:
The bass I mentioned that was annoyed at all the commotion caused by sunfish slamming into each other over bits of bread and chasing them - not to eat or injur - but to stop what they refused to stop doing which is a daily obsession (I know, a human term). The bass was irritated by the activity and reacted right in front of me two days in a row!

Lures simply cause aggressive reactions to objects that are designed to do that - nothing more - IMHO. Guess 60-130 fish per outing on average makes all the above moot in any case

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

Maybe irritant is not a good word though it means something that excites.
Regardless, our lures excite fish to respond, the reason(s) not really up for discussion due to engrained beliefs such as match the hatch and color theory/bias.

I've posted hundreds of lure shapes/actions in many colors that have caught fish most months of the year knowing that those shapes/actions and a proper presentation are proof enough that what lures look or act like or supposedly represent to fish, are simply titles to what the nitty gritty of their success is in reality - a lure crafter's reality. Given the fact that most species attack many lures on any given day is testament to their universal appeal and seasonal versatility.

As far as a territorial response goes, here's an example:
I have a pumpkinseed sunfish that parks itself to the right of where I'm standing on the dock waiting for me to throw bits of bread to it in shallow water. Any sunfish that gets too close, it chases. Another example:
The bass I mentioned that was annoyed at all the commotion caused by sunfish slamming into each other over bits of bread and chasing them - not to eat or injur - but to stop what they refused to stop doing which is a daily obsession (I know, a human term). The bass was irritated by the activity and reacted right in front of me two days in a row!

Lures simply cause aggressive reactions to objects that are designed to do that - nothing more - IMHO. Guess 60-130 fish per outing on average makes all the above moot in any case

excited fish are the best fish for sure , being first to the table in the fish world tends to make em a bit aggressive if they are after a meal .
a person at the fish hatchery once told me bass wouldn't eat floating fish food , when we raised fish we saw that was for sure not correct, they would feed with the bream and catfish at dinner time too .
when I fed bread to assorted fish years ago in another pond I saw bass eat it in that scenario as well . Of course being that there were small fish in the mix ,I "thought" the bass was chasing the small fish , but once again it was one of those situations where the food had everyone in get there to the food first mode .

Nice discussion. Think I'll add a few things.
I fished a shallow lake testing my hybrid soft plastics and hooked a sunfish that fought to get free. Here comes this bass that started chasing the poor thing all over the place. Poor sunnie didn't know whether to fight (me) or flee (the bass) and swam like all get out - especially when the bass had it in its mouth a few times and I pulled it free with my rod tip. A sight to behold!

In this case, I don't believe the bass was actively feed and the panicked action of the sunfish trying to get free got it into the feeding mode. A lure might have had the same affect regardless of what the lure resembled (which most lures don't). Gettting a fish excited about a moving object is the first step at getting a fish to commit aggression - a least for the moment - after which it turns off caught or not.

Lures that worked last week in the same lake that has pads, didn't do as well in the lake I fished yesterday that has none. The lure pattern last week fishing the weed pattern went like this: drop the lure into pad pocket and channels that opened up. Fish were not in open water. 5 fish species caught by using lures that were pitched and allowed to drop in water five feet or less worked best.

When I say lure pattern, I mean certain lures that have a certain shape and action that are in a size range retrieved a certain way. Even similar shaped lures with the same action may not work if something is different such as being a bit too big by as much as even 1/2 inch. Tail action can be of major importance. The right combination of body and tail most times determines how well the lure provokes fish aggression. These drop & twitch lures fit the pad pattern fished:



Some curl tail lures worked but not as well seeing as they needed a faster, horizontal retrieve whereas yesterday, only the curl tails did very well in the open-water pattern fished.

Thanks for sharing your insights. Nice assortment of pictures

3 colors matter to me . orange,chart,white ......the rest are just for fun and entertainment