pro blue....improved

[CTom]

I have pretty decent luck using the pro blue color pattern for walleye/sauger, but I've also done well on crappies with the color. The thing is I am a nut about having transparent, or very nearly so, baits for my panfishing. So I doctored up an old recipe a little to thin it out. After getting the back color where I liked it and had the transparency I wanted I added some gunmetal glitter and blue hi lite to it. The belly color, where used, is a simple thin pearl with gun metal and navy blue .015 flake added, not a lot of either.



I fished an area of the Mississippi River yesterday that holds walleye, sauger, crappie, bluegill, perch, you name it. So Thursday afternoon was spent cooking up some goodies to round out my usual color arsenal, which was sorely lacking in the pro blue color department, and it was a good thing I did. It turned out to be the better of the colors we used. The purple/chartreuse and bluegill/chartreuse got fish, but the pro Blue got more variety. The Hellgrammite mold put out about 8 color patterns to try and for sunfish and crappie it took the cake by fishing it on a plain, no-lead, jig hook under a small float allowing the hook's weight to slowly drop the bug down along bridge pilings. It proved to be a deadly presentation. On a lead head near bottom it got some dandy perch to play. Walleyes and sauger were hard to find yesterday, but we think its just too early in the year for them yet.

The thinned out pro blue is really a productive bait for me, especially in that paddletail where only the back color is used. I'll change from the gun metal glitter is some shots to the bluegill glitter combination I blend up and both versions have just simply been hot this year, but The paddletail box showed one [1] solitary bait in the pro blue when I double checked on Weds evening so making a few more was needed on Thursday so I made up a pile of stuff in that color pattern.

[lowe175]

I like it, that color would work very well in my waters.

[CTom]

The first color I put on when I want to slip into a natural colored bait is a Pro Blue. I'm not big on the commercial renditions of the color because they are too opaque , but I can make a dandy transparent or near transparent version that really gets the attention of fish. The transparent preference is just me.

[lowe175]

Where do you get the pro blue from. I would like to try some.

[CTom]

You have to create pro blue. Basically its a thin smoke with a ton of blue hi lite and maybe a very tiny amount of plain pearl. You don't want a true pearl, you want to let the amount of blue hi lite cloud the color and it has to be used over, say, white or white pearl. I make my pro blue by melting a small chunk of black plastic in clear along with a smaller piece of blue. Once the plastics have been cooked and mixed together well I add the tiny bit of pearl and the blue hi lite until I have what I want and then inject away.

The pro blue in this picture is much more transparent than what commercial makers use. Everything in this picture is used over a thin pearl belly except the small paddletail body which is straight up pro blue. This particular version of the pb is more of a steel color....very, very nice and as natural as one can get.

[lowe175]

Ok I gotcha , I've been making a very similar color that has been doing well. I've been using more blue high lights. I just didn't know what I was making haha. Anyway thanks for sharing I will try your way some time.

["G"]

very nice

[H2oHammer]

man thats a great color tom, very good work

[billygee]

CT

"Sweet"

I like that combo which would work well in our Fox Chain, as when I use some similar color in our clear water lakes It just looks good to me but not the fish, using the same bait only a brownish drab color and I get bit.
As you mentioned in one of your posts "Color Matters"

billygee :rolleyes:

[CTom]

As you mentioned in one of your posts "Color Matters"
billygee

Oh yes! You can bet your bippie it does. Wait'll I hit you with sun angle. Not only the time of day, but season or time of year too. lol