Buying Lures

When buying lures do you go for natural colours or crazy stuff?

Most of mine seem to be either rainbow trout or natural shad.

I try for one of each. Natural colours for clear water, 'crazy stuff' for coloured water.

I used to think anything natural was the best bet - roach and perch-like colours, especially.

About the only thing I seem to have caught on this year are copper spoons and rubber shads.

Gerry, have you ever seen those pics of tank tests Barry Rickards and Ken Whitehead did yewars ago - they did sequence pics of lures going through a flume tank to try to work out what fish actually sees.

It showed that lures we think look like a fish don't once they're underwater and we're jigging them around.

I didn't see that particular piece but I did see a bass related film in the US which was intended to show how a lure performs under water and it struck me that the colour balance had changed (becoming subdued). I do have another vid here which is meant to show the same with big flies tied using material from a Florida company that I deal with, called Success Flies and whilst it does show some quite amazing underwater movement, it also shows colour changes too, this time becoming more vivid as the synthetic material marries together and 'flashes'. Brilliant stuff. I'm still a big believer in natural colours, silver scale patterns, bluey green, black, definite fish shapes, rainbow patterns on the trout reservoirs etc and I really believe that at least some of the time it makes a difference between win and lose. But in some of the badly stained stillwaters that I've fished this year, the colour of cow dung, unless you bounce the lure or fly right on Mrs Pike's nose then you are better off with lumi, fluoro, firetiger, see in the dark kinds of colours. In that case you might want to know how I attribute the success of orange and fluoro red mag grubs in clear water this year. I don't have a definitive answer, perhaps Peter or Charlie have, however I've always found any shade of red from pink to maroon to be provocative to fish in the same way that it can be seen to stir up mammals. I think it's easier to find colours that don't work, when I was using red I could usually also catch on pearl, shades of green, two tone black and anything EXCEPT YELLOW. Charlie will relate the same experience on the Yare. That's the only colour deliberately in short supply in my box. I will however girate first to anything that looks like a real fish, the silver, black backed ABU Terminator has remained my favourite hardbait all year.

I've always meant to read that book what fish see.

Choice of lure colour is a very complicated subject. However, briefly, I use subdued natural colours such as shad in clear water, brighter or even fluorescent colours in murky water.

I also tend to use a lure similar in colour to the water. Thus if the water is stained green by algae, I'll use something with
fluorescent green in it as I find this stands out much the best. This is because all colours other than green are being filtered out. In this situation contrasting colours, such as orange which is commonly recommended, would be hard to see.

The amount of light penetration as opposed to the water colour is also important. This will depend on the angle and brightness of the sun and wave action etc. If the light is bright I'll use a lure with just a little flash, and the other way around when the light is dull.

With spoons I much prefer one with a different colour on the reverse as this gives a flashing effect. As any lighthouse keeper will tell you, this is more easily seen than a steady light.

I'd add that this is a fascinating subject and one ideally suited to discussion on a Forum. What works for a given angler may not work for another elsewhere, especially if the colour of the water and the depth is different.

The latter effects the matter considerably with colours at the red end of the spectrum being filtered out the deeper you go and, not well known, the further away you are from the lure as well. Flourescent colours however are much less affected.

Partly this difference in experience seems to be down to confidence. The more confident we are in a colour, the more and harder we'll fish it and thus the more we'll catch on it. But often a consensus seems to emerge which gives a very useful starting point.

Well I think the colour of a lure is the least important aspect of it. I've heard all the stuff quoted above before and I've yet to see any of it work.
For example, Gary's thirty one of last year was caught on a perch patterned shap rap fished four feet off the bottom in filthy water. I was fishing a brightly coloured lure alongside it and it didn't get hit.
This year, the water was clear and we hit our fish on brightly coloured grubs.
Far more important than colour is running depth, size, action and the ability to fish the lure at varying speeds.

Colours catch a lot more anglers than fish if you ask me.

Eric

Different people swear by different colours in similar conditions or even on the same waters.

You also have to be a cynic and ask yourself whether all these different patterns are often little more than a way of selling you the same thing four or five times, instead of just the one or two you'd probably buy if they were all roughly the same.

I totally agree with Eric that colour is rarely as important as other factors.

Having said that, there are times when it can be critical - as a change to a different colour of an otherwise identical lure can demonstrate. On many occasions this has made all the difference for me and turned a blank day into a successful one.

I also accept that some colours catch more anglers than fish, and are in the range just to increase sales. Some colour patterns, especially flourescent ones, tend to stand out on the shelves.

You have to steel yourself to buy patterns that you think are going to be successful on your waters rather than those that just catch the eye. Black lures for instance rarely sell well but can be deadly, and not just on the surface either!

As with all angling, it's often these little changes that can make all the difference. The problem with lures is that carrying so many possible combinations is impossible.

My answer is to have boxes for the different waters I'm currently fishing. The main factors are the depth and clarity of the water, plus the target species.

I take just the one appropriate box when bank fishing plus one rod. This means I can be as mobile as possible and not exhausted from carrying too much weight. Each box contains mainly "bankers" for the water, plus a small selection of totally different lures for when these fail, and finally lures I'm field testing.

When boat fishing I take more with me as then weight is no longer a problem. This will usually include a couple of extra rods and an extra box of two of lures.

A couple of times a year I have a change round, both because the conditions will change summer to winter, but also because I like to try new ideas.

I appreciate that this system won't be everyone's choice, but it does suit me. Not only do I get a lot of enjoyment from the sorting and experimenting, but I also feel I learn more quickly and thus catch more fish.

well it depends on the waters
if the waters are very mudy then you want a bright lure with a built in rattle. i finde this time of the year a abu termonator lure
works good for doube figer fish

I don't have the answer! Atleast not as far as plugs are concerned. Even after thousands of fish. I would agree that yellow, for whatever reason, is not a big puller of pike. Yellow/fire tiger is highly rated by some experts, so accordingly I keep trying it, no real joy. Predominately red, or red head plugs, no real joy either. But silver/chrome is great, pink is great, green can be great, purple has its day, flourescents have their day, just about everything catches but yellow. But then, years ago, I had a yellow Heddon River Runt & that really did catch, but its the only yellow plug that I have ever had any real joy on. But when it comes to spoons then brass & yellow catches, big time for me. My first choice for plugs would be green on white & blue on chrome but I try anything, almost as the mood takes me.

Jazzy or all silver spoons, not so good. I'm convinced that all brass or silver & flouro pink is the answer! Spinners, silver everytime!

Interesting point about yellow lures. Didn't Barrie Rickards rate yellow plugs in "Plugs & Plug Fishing"? Can't look it up as I sold it to Peter!

I do catch on yellow plugs myself, but on my clear waters it's not (usually) as good as green. Presumably gold is a metallic yellow and I do find that green/gold, especially on spoons, is very effective.

Red head White body, does extremely well for me. Old saying bright day, bright lure, dull day dull lure. Regarding dirty water, I reckon Black everytime!

Colin

I've found yellow to be a great colour. plain yellow has been very kind to me on the Thames and my biggest fish came out of Ardleigh Res on a plain yellow grub. I still think that depth and speed are far more important most of the time though.

What would be interesting would be to start logging what works for different people at different times of year.

Maybe then we could come to some conclusions.

Books on this are always written on the author's "here's what works for me and my mates..." vein.

Some authors (no names mentioned...) even contradict themselves, or at least change their opinions as the years go on.

New colours and patterns are obviously what keeps lure companies in business, so we need to retain some degree of cynicism here.

....interesting, Peter's point about firetiger. It's a pattern that works for me, particularly an old and badly mauled Super Shad which is always first out of the box for trolling and yet yellow as single base colour - well it's always a struggle to catch anything. I remember that Trevor had great success with a two tone black and yellow mag grub. Perhaps stripes are more important than we think. Watching a two tone lure in the water, particularly one that has a very fast action like the mag grug, gives a bigger impression of 'flash' than a single colour.

Barrie Rickards, in Plugs & Plug Fishing, tells us how good Blue Plugs were in East Yorkshire but then goes onto tell us that plugs incorporating yellow in them somewhere are best. He doesn't appear to say that all yellow plugs are best though. He does rate the inclusion of stripes on plugs. Gerry's comment about Firetiger is interesting. These beasties tend to be flourescent and most of my angling tends to be in less than 10 feet of water and in well fished waters, e.g. the Broads. My conclusion is that a pike will take & retake lures of a more subtle colour and size whilst the more vivid, or large ones tend to catch a particular fish only once. My theory being that these extreme jobs imprint themselves on a pike's instinctive survival mechanism. Fanciful thinking? I don't know, but the pattern appears clear.

One point that I forgot was that with the incredibly successful 8" curly tails that these plain colour jobbies are excellent, especially the orange ones, & the red are pretty good. The all yellow ones are, in my experience, poor catchers in comparison. A mutual friend to Chris, Gerry & myself, felt tips stripes onto his curly tails. Whether he has drawn a conclusion yet or not I don't know.