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just wondering whats peoples thoughts are about life like baits, or ultra realistic baits. I seem to do better on nonlife like lures. I think it stands out from the rest of the real bait in the water. I just was wondering everyones elses views where.
I have to agree with you. Some of the baits I catch alot of fish on do not seem to really look like anything the fish eat. Then I think, well I do not know what all in the water they feed on. Sometimes i am positive it resembles something they feed on. Then sometimes I think they just are curious of something new
I think it is like if you LOVE Philly Cheese Steaks and instead of one of them your wife brings you some ribs,Whatcha gonna do?lol.Here in Arizona,if it looks like a shad it will get ate.
Hmmmmm thing to ponder, do yall have alot of shad? In Missouri it seems like you can walk on shads backs and never get your feet wet. I wonder if we have so many that you need something to stand out. This could be a cool studyQuote:
Originally Posted by azslabber
Here there are pretty much only shad.We have threadfin and gizzard shad.It is so hot during the summer that nothing else is really here.All the lake are very deep,as they are watersheds for the state.Everything that I use is grey and black,or one or the other.I have tried every color under the sun,lol.
My fish are size picky as a rule, it can't just look like a Shad... it has to look like a baby Shad to get eaten quickly. You can throw 3-4" baits all day and only catch a few fish, pull out a 1 1/2-2" bait and catch all species. The little ones must taste better or something.
I agree GCD
making something of a natural is always a winner maybe. I base my knowledge on action of a lower that is what the fish are warning. So it imitates what they are feeding on. We find that a lot of action sometime is no good we find little action sometimes will work better than faster action in the lower what I'm saying here is that if you have a marabou jig they may not like it but if you have a sub made of nylon that is still there wanting no action at all so you always carry a wide variety of jigs or plastic baits with you with different action I do not put my money on colors you won't find it fish will get any other along and say action is there that they want. If you don't believe me try it I have fish for over 50 some years of knowledge and we do remember every time I go out and try something different kind of keep a catalog in my brain. Take for instance the little minnow that I make if you look at the tail of that in the water you will see that it is vibrating like a little minnow and this is what they're after. So my friends always carry a wide variety of different stuff with you stiff action loss of action and no action. But to say make a date it looks natural to some insect or something else that's swimming in the water is always attractive to the fish providing they are feeding on that. We have tied flies were many years and you're always trying to imitate a different insect that is in the water in that time of the year. There are literally hundreds of different patterns to go by. And this is where it's going to date with jig tying and making plastics.
I think most of it is the tail action myself. Like snake said, it can be many different things. Sometimes they want no action and sometimes they want lots of action. however I believe color is a main attraction most of the time.
I use 3" baits almost all the time, and catch everthing from dinks to pigs.
I think color is a factor, but your comfort with the bait is the real key to me.
I think you are right on about the action and colors. We have tons of shad in our lakes but most of the time a silver or gray is not the color the crappie want. In Feb. a 2.5'' grub was good and then after the spawn a baby shad would out fish the grub for close to three weeks. Now a 1.5 grub works good.Quote:
Originally Posted by crappieseeker
The bigger baits doesn't scare crappie either. Cranks 3.5'' are working now but only if you find the right color the fish want or you can fish all day without a bite.;)
Stump, I really work on the color thing alot due to my past experiences. Sometimes the very slightests of differences can make a huge difference to the fish. Also, what is considered the same body of water sort of speak, just different locations can mean a difference in color. Some people think if they are biting a certain color on one part of the lake that they will bite it everywhere along the lake or water system. Generally they will, but not always. I have watched people fish a main color at one bridge and catch fish and then move to another bridge and think because they do not catch any that the fish are not there. Big mistake on their part sometimes. Yes, generally a hot color will produce anywhere on the same lake, but not always. Just make sure you experiment with colors and even colors of the same color in general, just different shades of the color.
I've also seen the "hot" color for the day change too. During the morning hours the fish may want one color but change to another preferred color in the afternoons.;)
[QUOTE=crappieseeker;1217873]Stump, I really work on the color thing alot due to my past experiences.
Good thread froms all guys from above makes jig tying and plastic works so fun and testing. When first started tying a red/insect green/yellow maribou was a favorite . . . what was the trigger. Think colors/size/action all play into the catch at different times. Interesting post was the shade in some cases something I didn't think about much until following some the guys posts here. Would be interested to see some of shade thoughts of different colors you all use and success rate etc-
bright green/kelly green/to light green
bright red/down to pink
black/to grey
then add all the floresents -spelling
Know different locals have different colors that work or the confidence factor comes in . . . boy what a mess guess that's why we keep tying . . .
Bump for an example on the shade of certain colors, here is what got my attention on that. I was fishing one day with a yellow and white tube jig. I always make the big mistake of taking themout of the original bag and putting them in my open container boxes. I grabbed one of the tubes that had gotten a little wet and had sat in the sun, it had faded just ever so slightly to a different shade of yellow than the rest of the tubes. I was catching lots of fish on it. The fish finally tore the jig up so that it was hard to keep on the jig head. I pulled it off and grabbed another from the same batch and i quit catching fish. I picked back up the old torn bait and put it back on and fought it until it was completely unusable. I ended up catching more fish on it and tried the other shade again with no success. I have also fished with panfish assassins in the salt and pepper silver phantom shade verses the crystal shad shade and they are very similar, however one will outproduce the other 10 to 1 for me usually.
did you guys a little story about a past some 45 years ago on color combinations. First of all you guys get three different key colors red yellow and white. They definitely weren't good to get back when I was about 15 years old I tied up that combination on a streamer fly using marabou with yellow Chanel body on the channel we used a piece of red and often they had we used a little piece of red also and tired the marabou behind the eye of the hook we finished about 3 foot down and it was fantastic. We can't thought if you big fish the streamers were approximately 3 inches long but that color combination worked good for many years but I am a person for more action than I am colors. But it definitely worked many years ago. I think those colors have been pretty well a top producer for many years as you probably know many years ago all we had was white in the way of a jig and of course they were all marabou. Those were definitely good days to remember that I think number one pick in the worlds of them is a piece of them. In our beautiful state of Oregon we are not allowed to use live bait depending on where you fish now. So using crappie flesh was always a big producer. Maybe we should go back 50 years ago and fish that way we used to. We probably caught more fish when we were kids than we do now. It was kind of aggravates me now to see some kids come up with some 16 inch crappie and mine are only 8 inches.
snake, more people fish these days than ever before though. I hear the old timers talking about the fishing pressure on lakes and how it has severely effected the fish populations. I hear some of the older guys say they use to could go fishing in many places and catch fish by the hundreds, but not anymore they say. They do good to get a limit even in some good holes anymore. I do not want to tell them where I fish, I will let those be just memories for them, I would not want them reliving the past ha ha.