Both of the replies are good advice. Personally I think too many people get tied up in color. I tend to put more emphasis on the sky conditions and water conditions and then select a bait with a profile I think will work. I have my go-to colors that are used in different profiles and when I have worked thru on profile and a pile of color I go to another profile and start all over again.
Here’s some food for thought though. Consider contrast more than color….how does a color stand against the water color? Find a bait in a contrasting color and the fish will be able to see it and respond to it even if the color is a puker. White will contrast with most any water meaning it is visible to fish as long as there is light outside of the water. Black, especially one that is plastic, is blacker than anything as wee know it and is why black is such a great night color. Black still is a good day color.
Time of day will also play a huge part in color selection too. I fish crappies on a lake that from the time the sun rises until about 10:30 using a purple/chartreuse tail combination in one profile or another. After that 10:30 mark the purple wanes while blue starts right up. The difference is the sun’s angle on the water and how well light is utilized by the purple color. When the sun is higher in the sky blue stays right on top as a fish catcher. A clear bait, one with no pearl or hi lite added to the plastic to make the body opaque in any way, can be a great color all day long, even on radically cloudy days.
Glow colors and uv enhanced plastics make for all kinds of thing to think about. Today’s uv enhanced baits are visible at depths well beyond color comprehension. UV baits don’t glow to us but they sure as heck might to fish. On glow, one of the major drawbacks is how a whole jighead of glow paint can actually cast a huge “aura” around it and appear to a fish as too big to eat. Much of the natural foods fish eat have a certain amount of luminescence to them but they are super minute as compared to a jig head, even a dinky one. One element of the glow baits is that now fish are seeing colors at depths those colors were never seen before by the fish. Most of the information floating around as to whether the fish are seeing actual color or differing degrees of glow in gray shades and black and white is based on fish reaction. Nobody truly can say that the fish see the color. None the less, the glows work and offer another challenge to the color quandary for you.
Everybody seems to settle on a few go-to colors as the pets. Tie one on a rod and have at it but be willing to change until you hit on something that produces well for you. Pay attention to little things as you fish and catch fish. Soon you’ll start to see parallels with colors and catching.
