THE BASS COLLEGE

What color caught the most bass for you this year,my hot color was junebug.more than 50% of my fish were caught using junebug.

Here is how I feel about color on most lakes and rivers. There is an exception though, and I feel that just about any dark (CONTRASTING) colors, work the same in muddy water like we have here a lot. Elsewhere it matters more,  here dark is all you need.

Can Bass See Color?

This is a topic that comes up many times when discussing bass lures, and the proper colors to use. Biologists know that bass can see colors, and they probably can see red and green better than a human. Bass also have better visual acuity, which helps them during daylight and the darker periods of the day near dusk. Although there has been much written about how bass use their lateral line and sense of smell when feeding, their eyes are still their most vital sensory organ.

LURE COLOR AND WATER CLARITY

The clarity of the water is a key factor in determining what color lure to use. In clear water, that is less than five feet deep, bass can see colors extremely well. In these conditions lures that mimic the baitfish available, such as spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, and crankbaits, should be used in silver and gold finishes. The silver and gold flashing more closely resembles a baitfish in this type of water, and as they wobble and flash, they attract bass from long distances.

When you are using lures such as jigs, tubes, worms, or anything that is designed to resemble a crawfish or an eel, then the best colors would be a subtle green or brown in the clear waters. In stained water, which is what we have the most of here in the Northeast, that is water with a visibility of around one to three feet), different colors may come into play. Brighter colors such as firetiger, charteuse, citrus shad are better producers here. In muddy water, (that is water that has a visibilty of one foot or less), dark colors produce the best. Bass will hit on crawfish patterned crankbaits, brown jigs with orange trailers, black and blue plastics, etc.

SKY CONDITIONS AND COLOR

Many people don't pay enough attention to the sky conditions during the day.The changing conditions of the sky dictate what color you should be using.

When fishing minnow type lures, keep in mind that shiney colors like silver and gold loose their effectiveness under heavy cloud cover. In clear water, silver or gold can be rendered nearly invisible when the sun goes behind the clouds, because they reflect the grayness around them instead of the sunlight.

When this happens we always switch to a bone or a pearl-white color. Jigs, Creature baits, and other bottom type lures can be hard for bass to see under dark skies. When this happens we use the same browns and blacks that we use in the muddier water, even if the water is clear, but it has become cloudy or very dark.

Chartreuse is another excellent color when its cloudy. We found that Chartreuse is more effective on small lures such as grubs and small crankbaits. We just use it as a secondary color on the larger baits in these conditions. Just the right amount of a bright color such as orange or chartreuse can attract bass, just as too much of a bright color can sometimes turn them off! The best thing to do as a rule is to add bright colors to the baits a little at a time until you determine what the bass want. Once, in Virginia, the bass absolutely wouldn't hit any jig you had unless it had a small fleck of Chartreuse on the trailer. Too much and they ignored it.

ADD FLASH WITH FLAKES

There are many soft plastics that come with different flakes built it. A Yamamoto "IKA" tube in smoke , is a good example. This worked extremely well for us this year in all the rivers and lakes where there were a lot of shad, and the"Sweet Beaver" and GRANDEBASS MEGACLAWS  worked well also, but seemed much better than the Kreature on several occassions when there were not as many shad but more crawfish in the areas we sampled.

Flake colors usually work best when it is sunny in clear to stained water. On cloudy days, or in muddy water, try using different plastics with black flakes, or pepper, mixed in for contrast. There are many other color combinations that work well in various waters all over the country, but if you learn these simple basic techniques for color matching you can't go wrong.

Steve vonBrandt

BLACK OR GREEN PUMKIN

Im with tom on green pumpkin, a great color that works year round unless its mud then black, or purple work well.

im a fan of black with a red flek

grn pmpkin and trophy hunter(grandebass)

green pumpkin all season long

Green Pumpkin with the tip dipped in   chartreuse, Motor Oil, and Junebug worked great this year

black & blue

try all colors fish are differnt in some places

Blue fleck for stained water

Green pumkin or watermelon for clear water.

Green Pumpkin is my go-to color in almost all situations.

limiting yourself to just one or two colors is a mistake in my opinion unless you are fishing the same waters and same conditions most of the time. 

I agree Steve but the "which color" question can require a 12 page response.  I tried to give a quick answer, I figured when the guy got to tacklewarehouse.com and saw 10 varieties of green pumpkin and watermelon he would pick up a few of each and try em out.

Black n Blue for about 80% this year.Equals about 3 fish..:mad:

When i posted this question on what color caught the most bass for you this year i really did not mean what color to use,i was asking what color was best for each angler.

green pumpkin or watermelon/red flake plastics. Natural shad colored crankbaits and spinnerbaits.

Green pumpkin or black and blue were my best producers this year, although i did use a lot of Yum Dingers in the green with gold flake as well.

MarcBorger at November 29, 2011 at 7:30 PM

I agree Steve but the "which color" question can require a 12 page response.  I tried to give a quick answer, I figured when the guy got to tacklewarehouse.com and saw 10 varieties of green pumpkin and watermelon he would pick up a few of each and try em out.

LOL I know you are right. I agree. lol