How to select the right color jig/lure?

How do you decide on which color jig/lure to use when you approach a completely new body of water? It’s a mystery that has baffled me for most of my 40 years of fishing. With bluegills/crappie I have always just gone with neon colors with success most of the time, but sometimes those do not work. On walleyes- I alternate between fire tiger and any lure that is silver and flashes on the primary lake I fish for them on. I’ve just always wondered how people figure out what colors work in a timely fashion?

Each lake will have particular colors that seem to shine, and it may change each year depending on clarity. Clean water= purples, blues, whites, blacks, browns, dirty reds, pinks, clear transluscents, and sometimes chartreuse shades. Green/algae bloom water=orange,chartreuse, purple chromes, blue chromes, depending on sunlight, and straight up blue.
Dirty water/stained= purples, blacks, orange, bright reds, pinks, chartreuse, golds, holographics that pick up sunlight. 👍🎣

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the same issue. But, if there’s one thing ive learned, is there is a multitude of variables surrounding the issue. Some of the main variables, as far as ive learned, is water clarity, along with weather/sunlight conditions, and what the fish are eating. Clear water, silver, stained water, gold, then match your surrounding colors with what the fish might be eating. This is just MY hunch from my research. If anyone would like to elaborate or correct any of this info, please do!

One pattern for me is often in darker stained water, the panfish will start about five feet to all the way to bottom like say 35 feet. In clear water, they stage much deeper like starting around 20 feet then towards bottom of open water flats.

So in these scenarios, my color selection process is more of how much light I expect to penetrate down in the water. I go metallic paint higher up in water column and more neon glows in dark deep water. Midday high sun, I go with solid color patterns of either light or dark and see which one produces more.

Great read guys! For me the first thing is to find the groups of fish and then start with what seems to fire them up. I am more into finding the correct presentation first then work int the color variables.

As mentioned, the fish in each body of water will show their own color preferences. Some regional color preferences can pop up but by focusing on each body of water and the colors preferred by anglers there will serve you best. Once you know what the fish like in a certain lake just work thru the colors until you get the fish to hit.

Fluorescent colors seem to be what trips anglers trigger because they do well with them. Blacks, blues and purples are great neutral colors as is plain white on the other end of neutral.

A whole world of glow-in-color jigs and plastics for crappies, panfish and perch exists. These literally bring color to deep water that the fish cannot see otherwise. Glow red is a mainstay color as is the everyday glow with its eerie green glow. Glow purple is a super sleeper color but its hard to get charged outside of bright daylight.

Pool4walleye mentions dirty red. Blood red is red that has a tiny bit of black or brown pigment in it to tone down brightness. Its a color that sees a lot of use thru the winter months in the crappie and panfish area and is great in shallow water.

Lots of options are available for colors but you really just need to start fishing to figure out where color and fish meet.

I always start with pink because it seems to be a universal go to color for me on any body of water, but if not, than I will go to white/red/black, and then more natural colors like perch/firetiger based on local forage base. Most of the time though, I rarely need to leave pink/white for panfish. For walleye I tend to start right with perch, I also love the clown jigging rap if perch colors aren’t working. I have found often times, changing size makes a bigger difference than color though.

Clown Patter jigging raps are our bread and butter on our main walleye lake. We miss the old clown pattern that Rapala had in the 90’s along with the classic perch pattern that seems to be disappearing- it was also dynamite for me. Not to get off topic, but a larger jigging rap in Perch saved a week of fishing in the Boundary Waters for my dad and I 20+ years ago. I just happened to have it in my box, and we were drift fishing with it…. the walleyes and smallmouth LOVED it- if they only had the snap rap back then, haha!

Dave O wrote:

Clown Patter jigging raps are our bread and butter on our main walleye lake. We miss the old clown pattern that Rapala had in the 90’s along with the classic perch pattern that seems to be disappearing- it was also dynamite for me. Not to get off topic, but a larger jigging rap in Perch saved a week of fishing in the Boundary Waters for my dad and I 20+ years ago. I just happened to have it in my box, and we were drift fishing with it…. the walleyes and smallmouth LOVED it- if they only had the snap rap back then, haha!

Same, open water perch raps are my number 1 walleye catcher, for ice its clown by far with perch coming in second. The number 5 clown jigging rap is lethal for eyes!

A lot of great ideas here but I really feel that a huge thing being left out here is species/color specific lures. I think pinks and reds go well with perch while I tend to like white for walleye. Big pike like shiney silver or gold with reds. Sunny’s may run the gamut on colors but I feel more importantly in this species that it is the size and presentation of the jig that counts. Just my thought. Great reading here!!

When I get to a new lake, I usually make my color choice based on water clarity, sunlight, and depth. P4walleye shared some valuable insight on water clarity. Sunlight helps one pick through the baits for water clarity even more. A general rule is darker baits for less light penetration and lighter colored/flashier baits when encountering more light penetration. This will all vary from lake to lake, but it usually provides a good starting point. If you can’t find the right color, it may not be color that you need to worry about. Before getting too involved in trying to find the best color I usually change out for size, action, noise, or tipping/removing live bait first. Once you find the right pattern, color becomes the icing on the cake.

orange pink gold green!!!! with those you should be set throw some blue every now and then mainly in clear lakes but I always start with either orange or pink. Where ever I go.