crayfish color question

What background/water color/time of the year do crayfish have different colors?

What makes you decide to use a black/blue or a brown/chartruese color pattern?

I don’t know, but on the rocks on Rocky Reef last night on the big pond, they were a red/orange color and lots of them!!

When I’m out getting Willowcats, I see a lot of color variety in Crawfish. Some are more Green Pumkin color, while others are a Deep Red color or a Vibrant Blue.

Do I allow something like that to dictate what I present to the fish? Probably not. I’ll try colors to match, but most times I end up going back to what I know works.

It seems to me in my past experiences that the Black/Blue color works year ’round. I can recall catching Bass on a Black/Blue jig during the LM Bass spawn and in late Sept./Oct.

One thing I do know. I tried matching the Crawfish color up on Mille Lacs, and I fell on my face. The Crawfish up there were reddish/brown. I had a variety of tubes in that color and couldn’t get so much as a sniff from those Smallies. Hook on a X-mas Tree pattern tube on Green Pumkin and you were on fire.

Lastly, pay attention to flake color. A dash of red flake can mean the difference between catching a boat load of fish or catching nothing.

Here is a crayfish that a bass puked up in my livewell last summer, Mid-July. I thought the size was very interesting. As for the color, I suppose it is probably effected some by being in the bass’ gullet, but i would suspect the claws are pretty close.

I do focus on the species of crayfish, in a system, and

what phase they are in(soft shell, new shell, ready to

molt old shell, etc). For the native nothern crayfish,

something in green pumpkin, with Blue Flake, is good for

all phases except soft shell. In shoft shell, Yamamoto’s

brown smoke is killer. If the system is infested with

exotic Rusty Crayfish, watermelon/red flake, or green

pumpkin red flake, or green pumpkin, accented with a orange

Spike-it pen, usually gets me through all of their phases.

If the Rusty’s are really faded, sometimes a blonde pumpkin,

with copper flake clearly gets attacked more than my typical

offerings.

I am not sure what Black/Blue flake is suppose to look

like, but it doesn’t match anything I find in northern

Wisconsin Lakes. I don’t fish that color combination very

often, because I don’t find it as effective as other

colors mentioned. But that might also be because a

bunch of bass guys fish it Now on the river,

there I do fish it, but I believe it is a better contrast,

in dirty water. Kind of in the same set with June Bug,

and Black Neon(black red flake).

Big Bass Bane

P.S. I emphatically agree with Blue on the flake color

being important.