Colors!!!???!!!

Wow! I am amazed by how important color seems to be in crappie fishing. I am also slightly concerned. You see, I have a fairly common problem among males. Namely, I have red/green colorblindness. Let me tell you quickly how this is a problem for me. When 2 colors are mixed, like red & blue to make purple, my eyes filter out the red & all I see is blue. I can't tell blue from purple, I can't tell aqua from blue, I sometimes confuse reds & browns. I can't tell yellows from some light greens. I have no idea what color chartreuse is. It's yellow to me. I can't tell any difference. Now, as far as knowing what jigs or skirts are what color, I can have my wife sort them out for me & put them in small zip log bags that are labeled for that color. She's great about doing stuff like that for me. I don't know what I'd do w/o her. But the real problem is going to be knowing what color to use in what fishing situation. I've looked at an add for a device called a "Color-C-Lector" or something close to that. Not technically, but practically how does that work? Does it tell you (in words) use a yellow jig or do you look at a color chart? Beyond that, I guess I'll just have to guess that a jig from this ziplog bag that says "chartruese" might work today. Does anyone else on the board have this problem & how do you manage with it. If you'd rather not mention it on the board, PM me.

Tugaloo

Color is important but I wouldn't overthink your situation. Just find a few favorites for each water condition and stick with them. Build confidence in a few colors and you won't have to worry about a box full of wacky colors. In my part of the world, I bet that if I only fished with 5 colors for an entire year - a blue and white, pink and white, black and chartreuse, red and chartreuse and solid white, I would catch as many as if I threw every color in the box. It's just my opinion but if you find a few colors you have confidence in, stick with them and keep the baits in the water.

Wax I think you got it right, We use to fish with this old guy who taught us alot about all kinds or fishing, he theory on colors was bright or dull, he used doll flies which were round head jigs with feather tails, four colors black, white, brown and yellow, he fished them on glass cane pole type rods without a bobber, knew were every stump in the lake was. He would scull from stump to stump, dip with a lite color then a dark color till he found what worked catch a few then move to the next stump. His tackle box was a band aid box full a jigs and split shot. Caught a mess of big crappies with no motor, depthfinder, no fancy rods and reels. He just knew what worked and where the fish were.

just go with black, black/chartruce, white, and yellow and any combination of those and you should be fine.

Colors are truly important, but I think they vary mostly according to lake and subtly according to other conditions (i.e. clarity of water, overcast vs. sunny, etc.)

But, really just like people have said you can usually rely on a handful of colors for a particular lake in certain conditions, you just need to take the time to pinpoint those colors....and I am slightly color-blind to green/red myself, but it really hasn't been too much of a problem, because the only time I really have trouble is when they are subtle changes.....such as pinks, and light greens, etc.....but, I can tell enough about the darker colors......

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Originally Posted by Tugaloo

Wow! I am amazed by how important color seems to be in crappie fishing. I am also slightly concerned. You see, I have a fairly common problem among males. Namely, I have red/green colorblindness. Let me tell you quickly how this is a problem for me. When 2 colors are mixed, like red & blue to make purple, my eyes filter out the red & all I see is blue. I can't tell blue from purple, I can't tell aqua from blue, I sometimes confuse reds & browns. I can't tell yellows from some light greens. I have no idea what color chartreuse is. It's yellow to me. I can't tell any difference. Now, as far as knowing what jigs or skirts are what color, I can have my wife sort them out for me & put them in small zip log bags that are labeled for that color. She's great about doing stuff like that for me. I don't know what I'd do w/o her. But the real problem is going to be knowing what color to use in what fishing situation. I've looked at an add for a device called a "Color-C-Lector" or something close to that. Not technically, but practically how does that work? Does it tell you (in words) use a yellow jig or do you look at a color chart? Beyond that, I guess I'll just have to guess that a jig from this ziplog bag that says "chartruese" might work today. Does anyone else on the board have this problem & how do you manage with it. If you'd rather not mention it on the board, PM me.

Tugaloo

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......everyone else has colors situation pretty well covered.....so I'll tell you about color-c-lector...basically photo-cell checks light penatration..I think??....but anyways has red pointer on about 270 deg. circular disc with actual colors on dial in 3 rows...each row is water clarity--clear,stained,muddy.....different color selection on each row...but all colors have letter code...get paper chart to id color code---I think??? got selector in hand.... lost paper....hope that helps...confused myself a little.hahahaha :o :cool:

Pro catch plus is making a color selector that is 1/2 the cost of the original selector. It uses a color graph to give you the color. I used mine Sun for the first time. I won't fish from now on without getting a reading from it first. What a selector does is elimanates the colors a fish can't see at the depth your fishing, giving a you a list of colors they can see.

Color is important, but confidence in what you're fishing with is more important. Devices that help determine jig color based on water clarity/light penetration are good to have. But, after a while, you'll begin to develop your own pattern and know what you want to use and have confidence in. The old rule of thumb is this: dark color in dark water and light color in clear water. Experiement with everything in between and you'll quickly find your preference.

My buddy's and I used to argue over color choices. Don loved straight up lead, Red was into the black and green, Art REALLY insisted on his red jigs. Then along came this color called (bear with my crude spelling attempt here) "flourochromatic", and that is now all we ALL will use when trolling in mud or clear water. We have never seen any difference with painted eyes or not but this color flat out works better on crappie, whites and stripers. Above water and in clear water it looks to us humans as a slightly dull chrome. But to fish and under a black light it glows a shiny chartruese color.
Not many jigs makers seem to use it though yet. Must be a hard paint to get.

Colors are very important in all conditions with plain old lead having been the best all'round color forever. When our guides started useing the chrome colors instead of lead (lead dulls with oxidation quickly) they improved the catch rates. We then looked to better that even more and found a way to make the chrome powder coating fluoresce in low light conditions present in most of the western lakes. I HIGHLY recomend finding and useing such a color. Like slabtroller say's, it works. About half of our sales are now to bass guys and almost all in those two colors. These guys are drop shotting in over 50 feet of water often.

Water filters out almost all visible light within only a few feet. Think of a rainbow, the reds being on one side and the blues the other. Reds are first to go dull and blues are last. The very reason water looks blue is that it has a hard time absorbing the blue spectrum. Blue colors are noticeable fairly deep in stained water. UV light will penatrate even deeper and colors that fluoresce when exposed to UV are the deepest colors seen. X-ray's will go even deeper but lets not go down that road just yet.

Its no secret that shiny things such silver and chrome are fish attractors. Add to that the ability for a chrome to fluoresce and you have a color that gets noticed from shallow to deep depths. Its still up to the fish to be hungry, but they at least saw the thing pass them. We are currently testing different theories as to why the crappie seem to like the flourochromatic colors better than a straight fluorescent color and hope to have that info soon. For now it seems the chrome color adds a flash even in very low light when assosiated with the fluorescent dyes.

If our staff can be of any help, please let us know?

Robert

www.jumpingchollajigs.com