You know, a question I get all the time is, "How do I choose the right lure color?" Well, that's a really broad question and there are a lot of answers to that. But let me give you a few tips on how to help refine that down a little bit. Here's how I start off every day that I fish and every lake that I fish.
First I find out, what are the fish feeding on? Are the fish feeding on shad or are they feeding on bluegill and crayfish? That's the very first thing I figure out. Because if they're feeding on shad, then I'm going to fish with baits that imitate a shad, your white baits like your white buzzbaits, your white swimbaits, your white crawdads, your white swimming jigs, your white colored crankbaits, anything shad pattern. That's a very simple way to figure that out, right?
Now, if they're feeding on bluegill and crayfish, a lot of times in the spring when these fish are up shallow feeding on bluegill and crayfish, I'm going to fish with more of my natural colors, your watermelons, your green pumpkins, your black and blues. Like you have here, this little bruiser, black and blue, crazy craw. That's actually green pumpkin and blue, it's a really cool color. You know, your chatterbaits, that color right there imitates a bluegill. I'm going to stay away from those white colors. So that's really how I base it a lot of times.
And then the next thing you want to do is to get water clarity, really simple. If it's real clear, crystal clear water like what we have here behind us, I'm going to fish with more natural colors. More natural colors, if I'm fishing for shad I'm going to fish more translucents. I might not throw a straight white spinnerbait. I might throw one of these translucent type skirts, the kind of the see through whites. If it has a little color in the water, then I might throw your straight whites. If it's muddy, I'm going to go to your darker colors, your black and blues. But again water clarity, if it's darker go with darker baits, if it's clean and clear, go with lighter colored baits. So that's basically how I choose what color baits to fish with.
