Natural colors not the best..

[Perris Blue]

I wonder why it is, that the loud, crazy, unnatural colors and color combinations seem to catch a lot more crappie than lifelike natural colors do? Hot pink, fluorescent chartreuse, bright orange, lime green, etc.. Seems like when I use lifelike natural very realistic colored baits, I don't get bit, but when my buddy starts throwing out these really crazy bright color combos, he starts catching fish. Salmon and Steelhead are kind of like this also. Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass are just the opposite.. they seem to go after natural looking lures. Fish are funny critters.

[CrappiePappy]

I wouldn't say Bass are all that particular, myself. Ever seen the colors of "trick worms", and even some of the crankbaits

I've even seen people catch good sized bass on a PINK spinnerbait (and I mean pink head, skirt, blade, and trailer !! ) And I've caught numerous Bass on pink marabou Roadrunners.

Why Crappie prefer outlandish colors on our baits ....
They can certainly SEE the colors, and they can distinguish between colors, so maybe they're just hungry ? - curious ? - territorial ? - or it could be that they hate those bright/gawdy colors so much that they want to kill whatever that thing is, so it can't multiply

[MidMsAngler]

I think the colors help the bait stand out from the rest. This especially makes a difference when fishing in an area saturated with bait/schools of bait. When I was guiding offshore trips for marlin and tuna we trolled a lot of natural colors and dead bait both naked and behind a skirt. But when we rolled up of a huge bait ball being pushed to the surface by predator fish, we would switch to the gaudy outlandish color lures, jigs, poppers, and skirts. You could still catch fish on the natural bait, obviously, but it was 3:1 against the bright lures when the frenzy was on. It caught there attention in a situation when bait was literally everywhere.

Sometimes I really believe that fish are less picky than we give them credit. For example, our secret bait for trophy/bruiser cobia were hardhead catfish. A good 13-16" catfish with his fins cut off was like candy to these big fish. BUT these two fish don't share the same waters hardly ever in their life. They are certainly not on the list of food sources for cobia. It would be like catching crappie on a blue crab. Maybe they thought they were a mullet but these were situations where we were sightfishing in clear deep water and the fish had every chance to study the bait. I don't care if it makes sense as long as it works!


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[Perris Blue]

MidMsAngler.. That makes a lot of sense, predatory animals (including crappie) singling out and going after prey that is somewhat different from the rest, possibly wounded, sick or dying, maybe an easier meal. We do see this in nature all the time. In fact, recently our bright green pet parakeet got loose outside and was quickly attacked and killed by a Coopers Hawk, even though there were lots of drab-colored sparrows, finches and Morning Doves all over the tree branches and on the ground (we have several bird feeders in the yard) I know that hawk saw that parakeet immediately because of it's bright stand out colors.

[cwright]

Don't rule out the natural colors all the time though. When pulling crankbaits, natural is always good and I will have a couple tied on. Also last weekend we caught probably 80 crappie and a lot of them came on almost clear bobby g. plastics.

[Ketchn]

I drop natural colors more than outlandish ....but that said I pitch some BOLD stuff when I think its what they want
AND they bit both equally last night BTW ....

[lowe175]

Well think about it this way, bait fish are camouflaged to hide from predators. I want my bait to stand out and get eaten.

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