I have several colors of paddletail baits stocked at a local mom and pop bait shop. The only solid colors I have there anymore are white and black. They are both solid selling neutral colors. By far though, the more transparent colors with chartreuse tails sell out before anything else....I'm talking purple/chartreuse, bluegill/chartreuse, blue/chartreuse, orange/chartreuse in the order of selling out first. I see transparent fluorescent orange and transparent fluorescent hot pink sell in numbers right about now too as people start searching for the crappies as they begin showing up in deeper water adjacent to the spawning areas. Everybody is a little bit different in what they want for colors but I guess I'm a poor judge because I don't offer any opaque colors other then the white and black. Even my smoke is very transparent. I make baits based on what works best for me and I think that people figure out that what's on the pegs in the bait shop is what the fish want. As long as I keep a decent color selection, transparent seems to be fine with the anglers because we never hear any negative comments. I offer a few split colors...body one color, tail another....and keep the transparent thing there too. Some of the transparent colors....the hot pink, bluegill, blue and purple....get glitters added as well as hi lite. All other colors are just transparent plastic with some hi lite added.

For me the key has been to create colors that hold onto the transparent side well, but are just "different" from the everyday colors we see in commercial packaging. Most of this difference comes from hi lite. Some hi lite added to a transparent color gives the color some depth and internal light reflection without causing light blockage. Its that little bit of "something else" that comes from the hi lite that I think takes people away from purchasing an opaque bait. Black and white are a given for opaques, but beyond those two all else in this camp is transparent. This is especially true in the very tiny micro-sized ice baits I sell each winter.