when to use certain colors

i have 3 types of jigs all dif colors i have a hair jig solid white i have a curly tailed jig green and red and one of these types
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...2HkRFjjLiqae0Q

the one on the bottom its pink and brown


so i have a decent amount ofcolors t choose from im wondering when the waters really dark doesnt itmake sense t use my solid white hair jig?and when its very clear id wana use a darker bright color like the pink or greenish red jig?

iv used jigs a few times and never any luck i bank fish though but i wana make sure im using the right colors

Usually use dark colors with overcast or muddy water and lighter colors when it’s bright or clearer.

Chartreuse is one of the best colors. Chartreuse and white, and then chartreuse and black. Those 2 color combinations would be my go to picks.

I go by the "contrast" theory ..... two colors on the bait; one dark, one light. This gives the angler a visible color in most all water conditions. Also of note, is the fact that fish can see better in dark water than humans can, so the "dark color/dark water - light color/clear water" theory may not be all that important.
It may also be important to note that fish can see much better, farther, and with more clarity in cold water.

I don't fish muddy waters, and rarely have to fish "dirty" waters. Most of the lakes I fish are usually lightly stained & have a foot or two of surface visibility (before a chartreuse jig disappears from sight). In most of those waters I tend to use purple/char, blue/char, solid chartreuse, or solid pink as my primary choices for colors or color combos. The combo colors are usually plastics, and the solid colors are usually Road Runners.

Clarification : when I say "purple" or "blue" in combination with chartreuse, talking about the plastics I put on a jighead, they can run the gambit of variations of those colors. Blues or purples can be very light to very dark versions of what the general idea of those colors are. And I include colors like "junebug" in my "blues" category.

I’m hoping this adds to the conversation,in my feeble way of seeing and understanding things,wouldn’t natural colored lures be advantageous for the fisherman than say bright colored lures? Let’s put it this way,natural brown,or black shows up in a wider range of water clarity than bright colored lures do,that being the case,wouldn’t my odds and catch ratio increase when using browns and blacks,vs brighter colored lures?
I do believe contrast to be more important than color,but only if the contrast is noticeable in all water conditions.Just to clarify something else,I live in notoriously red clay country.When our water is muddy,it’s not dingy or stained,it’s flat out orange colored,under much of our water conditions,at best visibility is no more than a foot.

Richard Gene has a new video using red and white in muddy water.

https://youtu.be/QJIvWrCBLQk

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Originally Posted by Yaker

I’m hoping this adds to the conversation,in my feeble way of seeing and understanding things,wouldn’t natural colored lures be advantageous for the fisherman than say bright colored lures? Let’s put it this way,natural brown,or black shows up in a wider range of water clarity than bright colored lures do,that being the case,wouldn’t my odds and catch ratio increase when using browns and blacks,vs brighter colored lures?
I do believe contrast to be more important than color,but only if the contrast is noticeable in all water conditions.Just to clarify something else,I live in notoriously red clay country.When our water is muddy,it’s not dingy or stained,it’s flat out orange colored,under much of our water conditions,at best visibility is no more than a foot.

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Considering that the only colors available to me, when I first started out Crappie fishing, were black, white, and yellow hair jigs (Doll Fly jig) ... you have a point. BUT, not only can the fish "see" a lure a good ways in muddy water, they can also "feel" its movement (water displacement waves). So, even if they can't see it, they can still home in on it and grab it, if so inclined to do so.

Natural colors are fine, but Crappie don't just eat minnows/Shad ... they'll eat any fish small enough to swallow. They might prefer the soft rayed fish like a minnow, shiner, or Shad ... but, they're not likely to turn down a MadTom Catfish or Bluegill or other panfish fry.

When we use blues, greens, yellows, black, white, pink, orange, or whatever .... it's not totally to represent a "natural colored prey". It's, in a lot of cases, to have the bait "stand out" in the crowd & bring all the attention upon it vs the other prey critters.

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Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Usually use dark colors with overcast or muddy water and lighter colors when it’s bright or clearer.

Chartreuse is one of the best colors. Chartreuse and white, and then chartreuse and black. Those 2 color combinations would be my go to picks.

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really thats strange i figured that id use light colors when waters dark since it is much more visible so depending on if waters dark u wana use dark and if itslight use white? wow ok i as doing the opposite

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Originally Posted by matt1991

really thats strange i figured that id use light colors when waters dark since it is much more visible so depending on if waters dark u wana use dark and if itslight use white? wow ok i as doing the opposite

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The theory is that dark colors are more visible against the lighter sky in dark water. It's a question of contrast not color. Think how most fish or aquatic mammals have a light belly and dark top. It is of course complicated by the fact as you mentioned that different colors are effected by depth. Color disappears in the following sequence under water, first red followed by orange, yellow, green and blue. Lure Color: Know What Fish See, What They Don't And When It Matters!

I'm going to be really rude and just say the obvious. Lures are pretty easy to change and if you have two rods you can try two colors to begin with. I would start with the science as outlined in the link above. Keep in mind however that garbage in equals garbage out. The amount of information you would need to make a scientific choice is never really available. If you can find out how deep the fish are by imaging or something that would be a big help but you still don't know what light conditions are at various depths. That is why I say just go mostly with trial and error because it is not practical for most of us to have all the tools needed to measure conditions accurately.

In the future I'm sure they will have instruments that measure temperature, oxygen levels, light and currents at various depths. Then they will have lures that automatically drop right in front of the fish most likely to inhale it. With enough AI the whole world turns into a video game. At that point tournaments will restrict people to making their own poles, boats and lures and eliminate all electronic devices completing the circle. Devil Icon

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

Considering that the only colors available to me, when I first started out Crappie fishing, were black, white, and yellow hair jigs (Doll Fly jig) ... you have a point. BUT, not only can the fish "see" a lure a good ways in muddy water, they can also "feel" its movement (water displacement waves). So, even if they can't see it, they can still home in on it and grab it, if so inclined to do so.

Natural colors are fine, but Crappie don't just eat minnows/Shad ... they'll eat any fish small enough to swallow. They might prefer the soft rayed fish like a minnow, shiner, or Shad ... but, they're not likely to turn down a MadTom Catfish or Bluegill or other panfish fry.

When we use blues, greens, yellows, black, white, pink, orange, or whatever .... it's not totally to represent a "natural colored prey". It's, in a lot of cases, to have the bait "stand out" in the crowd & bring all the attention upon it vs the other prey critters.

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Not that I mind one way or the other,catching fish is catching fish,I’m thinking if what you are saying is true,presenting a bright colored lure in a world of natural colored lures is essentially to inducing a couriosity bight.Perhaps it could be similar to an old restaurant offering a new item on the menu to attract more/ new costumers.
I’m a firm believer that dark neutral colors catch more fish in the long term,but also believe brighter colored lures have earned a spot in my tackle box as well........besides,them bright colored combo colored lures sure do look purdy!

I never go by rules in fishing. Try the obvious. If that doesn't produce, try someone opposite. Then refine as the bite gets better or worse. You have to give them what they want. Not what you want to give them. And never forget, fishing success depends on only two major controls - depth and speed. Everything else is secondary.

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Originally Posted by wolfhnd

Richard Gene has a new video using red and white in muddy water.

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Awhile back I asked if any Considered white as a dark color ? Got the usual light in light , dark in dark , Been that way forever . Was fishing a not so clear ,actually muddy creek on Enid due to rain . Came across an old friend that ask me what I was using . Anybody that has ever fished with me knows that in Dirty water on Enid there is only one bait for me . PURPLE/CHARTREUSE ! I had a few and I ask what he was using and he said "white ". Since he had twice as many as I did I could not get it off my mind . When I asked him if he did not consider white as a light color, he replied only if it's transparent . The question now after seeing the "Richard Gene " video is why red/white rather than black /chartreuse, solid black ect, better ? Is the red/white more contrasting than Black /chartreuse ? I use red/white, and blue/white, in clear water . Looking to learn something here . Since it was ripping cold where he was and I do not fish in cold weather much how much does that come into play ? He did say the fish were 8 ft' deep but did not say how deep the water was actually.

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Originally Posted by eagle 1

Awhile back I asked if any Considered white as a dark color ? Got the usual light in light , dark in dark , Been that way forever . Was fishing a not so clear ,actually muddy creek on Enid due to rain . Came across an old friend that ask me what I was using . Anybody that has ever fished with me knows that in Dirty water on Enid there is only one bait for me . PURPLE/CHARTREUSE ! I had a few and I ask what he was using and he said "white ". Since he had twice as many as I did I could not get it off my mind . When I asked him if he did not consider white as a light color, he replied only if it's transparent . The question now after seeing the "Richard Gene " video is why red/white rather than black /chartreuse, solid black ect ? Is the red/white more contrasting than Black /chartreuse ?

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I would say red/white is likely no more contrasting than black/chartreuse .... in very dirty water. However, the chartreuse IS more transparent than white, all other things being equal.

If color was the only trigger for a fish to hit your bait, then a cube shaped piece of plastic with those colors would be the only thing needed to catch fish. The shape, size, and action (or lack of) also comes into play. I've seen it too many times when a "stinger shad" shaped bait wasn't getting bit, but a boot tail or tube bait of the same colors would get smashed ... and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

I would say red/white is likely no more contrasting than black/chartreuse .... in very dirty water. However, the chartreuse IS more transparent than white, all other things being equal.

If color was the only trigger for a fish to hit your bait, then a cube shaped piece of plastic with those colors would be the only thing needed to catch fish. The shape, size, and action (or lack of) also comes into play. I've seen it too many times when a "stinger shad" shaped bait wasn't getting bit, but a boot tail or tube bait of the same colors would get smashed ... and vice versa.

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So comparing Chartreuse to white , white is a dark color .

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Originally Posted by eagle 1

So comparing Chartreuse to white , white is a dark color .

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Tricky question. White isn't what I'd call a "dark" color, but it's not transparent .... so in dark conditions it would show up as a dark silhouette against a lighter background. The amount of light that reaches it would determine how much reflection it gave off, under those conditions.

When you ask a search engine : what color is white at depth ? Here's a couple of notable facts -

"White objects will appear bluish or gray underwater, and the darkness of that blue/gray appearance increases rapidly with depth. Red objects will begin to look dark brown or even black within a few meters of the surface."

"The longest wavelengths, with the lowest energy, are absorbed first. Red is the first to be absorbed, followed by orange & yellow. The colors disappear underwater in the same order as they appear in the color spectrum. Even water at 5ft depth will have a noticeable loss of red."

Now, those quotes may be referring to human eye concepts of color, and certain fish can see & distinguish many different shades of base colors, so they may not be 100% accurate where fish eye concepts of color are concerned. :dono

In this video, Richard Gene says, Black/Chartreuse is the best color for muddy water.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9AFMS3P8QA&t=303s

There is a video on u-tube,( for the life of me I can’t find it again ) ,but this fellow takes several containers of water,each with a different degree of clarity,and test different colors and color combos.I don’t claim to know what a fish can see compared to a human,but it is very interesting to see just how different colors appear/ disappear in the various water clarities.

Would it be this video?

https://youtu.be/zL1G-VJmV3o

Not an expert here at all but just to make a comment based on experience. I don't know why this happens but I know it does. May start the day with a blue/white combo jig or red /white combo jig and the fish just can't leave it alone. Hit almost every cast. Then all of a sudden the bite just stops. Change colors to say a char/white, red/char, solid white or solid char and the bite picks right back up. I have always thought this has a lot to do with the angle of the sun and light penetration into the water. The lakes I fished in Arkansas was always a stained color and never real clear. It just seems the light penetration is the key and of course that has a lot to do with cloud cover, sun angle, and water color. Combo colors seem to work in almost all conditions but crappie do change their preference throughout the morning or afternoon. Just my experience.

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Originally Posted by arkie55

Not an expert here at all but just to make a comment based on experience. I don't know why this happens but I know it does. May start the day with a blue/white combo jig or red /white combo jig and the fish just can't leave it alone. Hit almost every cast. Then all of a sudden the bite just stops. Change colors to say a char/white, red/char, solid white or solid char and the bite picks right back up. I have always thought this has a lot to do with the angle of the sun and light penetration into the water. The lakes I fished in Arkansas was always a stained color and never real clear. It just seems the light penetration is the key and of course that has a lot to do with cloud cover, sun angle, and water color. Combo colors seem to work in almost all conditions but crappie do change their preference throughout the morning or afternoon. Just my experience.

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Yeah, I've had that same experience. But, I've also wondered if it's not just the fish ALL wanting something a little different. Like when you drag a half dozen different colors thru a school of Crappie ... and most all of them get hit. I've also seen times when my partner and I are using totally different color combos, yet we're catching fish from the same school.

I also wonder about that scenario you describe, about catching them on one color combo & then they quit hitting it, but the bite starts back up when a different color combo is introduced. "Maybe" you caught all the fish that were keying in on that color, and the remaining fish weren't "turned on" by that color ... but, when a different color was introduced, some of the remaining fish were interested in that color and bit it. :scratchhead

How about choosing colors by moon phase :-)

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing...ure-color.html

Yup,that’s the one,I’m not saying one way or the other if this is how fish see color compared to us,but it does go along with my belief that overall,Browns and blacks with some contrast are my go to colors on a regular basis.

Ok I have developed an interest in this topic. It seems that we take vision for granted to such an extent that the basic processes are not at first well understood. I have been doing a bit of reading :-) Although the following relates to motion not color I feel it is somehow a good starting point to explore fish vision.

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In addition, medakas proved to be able to discriminate different kinds of biological motion, preferring the motion pattern of conspecifics to human motion and being particularly sensitive to the smoothness and the speed of the movement. This is particularly relevant since, also in our species, the speed of movement can drastically alter the perception of biological motion, with abnormal speeds giving the impression of unnatural. Moreover, both humans and the fish tested by Nakayasu and Watanabe (2014) seem to be more affected if the movement sequences were slowed down than if velocity was increased.

In this study zebrafish spontaneously chose to associate with a “natural” movie of swimming conspecifics rather than with a backward version of the movie, while they did not react to another violation that also created an unfamiliar visual scene (movie presented upside down). In the backward movie, movement and shape information were both still present and virtually unaltered, but were inconsistent with each other. To recognize the original movie from the backward one fish needed to integrate form and motion

This result was then replicated in the same study (Neri, 2012) with computer generated stimuli that were more controlled, even though less natural: an image representing a side view of a zebrafish was moved along a linear trajectory, which could be either consistent or inconsistent with the orientation of the image of the zebrafish (the direction toward which it was facing). As long as a sufficient number of individuals was depicted in this artificial animation, zebrafish were able to direct their response on the basis of the conjunction of motion direction and shape orientation, even when stimuli were constructed using images of another species (needlefish, Xenentodon) or when only the frontal part of a zebrafish image was visible.

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Frontiers | What can fish brains tell us about visual perception? | Frontiers in Neural Circuits

I see two possible ramifications of this research.

First that a naturally moving lure should be more attractive in most cases. By natural we apparently mean smooth and slow. Experience would however tell us that fish will also attack objects in what has become known as triggered strikes. The later feeding pattern would be more typical of aggressive fish such as bass that tend to be less discriminating.

The second take away would be that biological motion may be discriminated by fish more readily by multiple lures "swimming" in unison.

A third interesting observation from the few minutes of reading that I did is that motion can be ambiguous.

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The motion direction of a contour is ambiguous, because the motion component parallel to the line cannot be inferred based on the visual input. This means that a variety of contours of different orientations moving at different speeds can cause identical responses in a motion sensitive neuron in the visual system.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...m_animated.gif

The aperture problem. The grating appears to be moving down and to the right, perpendicular to the orientation of the bars. But it could be moving in many other directions, such as only down, or only to the right. It is impossible to determine unless the ends of the bars become visible in the aperture.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion...ion_perception

The above would suggest that a lure should have a marked beginning and end. This idea is supported by the fact that only humans have been shown to have what is described as "global" vision. Fish likely see trees not forests. They will only see the trees however if the end points of the "trees" are clearly indicated because of non global neural processing and the aperture effect of objects moving in water. This is of course my own interpretation and would require experimentation to confirm.

THANKS "superdave336" for the amfish video ----- Usually tie my 4# braid direct to jig.

Here is where color comes in related to my previous post. I purchased a red Sharpie Permanent Marker. To test the above theory I plan on marking the beginning and end of each lure with it. My question is if you think that it will leave and odor or something else may make it interfere with the validity of the experiment?

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Originally Posted by wolfhnd

Here is where color comes in related to my previous post. I purchased a red Sharpie Permanent Marker. To test the above theory I plan on marking the beginning and end of each lure with it. My question is if you think that it will leave and odor or something else may make it interfere with the validity of the experiment?

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I don't know if the Sharpie scent will last any length of time or not, but it may not matter. I use to use Super Glue Gel to hold hollow tubes on my jigheads, and didn't always wait for the gel to dry before casting the jig ... and still got bit, sometimes on the very first cast after applying the gel. And while the scent/smell may be totally different between the Gel & Sharpie, it does go to show that the fish will hit a bait that has an "unnatural" scent. I mean, I really don't know of any baitfish that smell like garlic, or licorice (anise), and yet those scents have been proven to work.

The Todd Huckabee myth buster video shreds everything I thought was factual About crappie fishing .

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Originally Posted by eagle 1

The Todd Huckabee myth buster video shreds everything I thought was factual About crappie fishing .

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People tend to grossly underestimate the complexity of biological systems. Any kind of mechanical analogy is going to prove inadequate. I'm willing to bet that everyone posting in this thread is an accomplished crappie fishermen who consistently out fishes the average but there is no agreement on something as simple as color.

It's fun to talk about technique and that is the point, it's all about having a good time.

All I know for sure is color does make a difference for what ever reason. Sometimes they will hit anything (jig color) you pitch out there and sometimes they want only one color. Sometimes they won't hit anything. That's why we fish. We look for them and try to establish a pattern to put them in the boat. We call upon our experiences in where we think they should be and usually pitch the jig we have the most confidence in. If they won't take that one we start changing colors until we find what they will hit or we run out of time trying to catch them. Frustration or elation. It's all about having fun and trying to put fish in the well.

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Originally Posted by arkie55

All I know for sure is color does make a difference for what ever reason. Sometimes they will hit anything (jig color) you pitch out there and sometimes they want only one color. Sometimes they won't hit anything. That's why we fish. We look for them and try to establish a pattern to put them in the boat. We call upon our experiences in where we think they should be and usually pitch the jig we have the most confidence in. If they won't take that one we start changing colors until we find what they will hit or we run out of time trying to catch them. Frustration or elation. It's all about having fun and trying to put fish in the well.

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That seems to be the general consensus but people want to take advantage of the collective "wisdom". We all maintain relationships that create normative networks of cumulative evidence based on at least somewhat empirical evidence. The internet makes this possible in ways preceding generations never dreamed of. In other words we natural wish to have our experience validated by the experience of as many other people as possible.

Sports seem to be competitive exercises but they are only possible because of a great deal of cooperation and adherence to rules. We enjoy the social aspect as well as the practical aspect of exchanging experience. The rules that we think of as establishing peaceful interaction must have their origin in expediency or natural logic. We imitate people that are successful without even thinking about it. That said the more we reason about that success the more likely we are to be successful ourselves.

If we compile all the information available in the forum to come up with the best color information the problem is complexity. You can weigh the information according to reputation, personal experience, demonstrated competency, etc. etc. but you still have to compare different conditions such as all the normal things fishing requires. Time of day, temperature, water clarity, different habitats, time of year etc. etc. That is why it is a good idea to listen to as many people as possible and try and get them to be as elaborate as possible. We will never run out of "fish stories" that are interesting and informative. The only limitation is that most of us would rather be fishing than talking about fishing with the time available.

With that in mind I think we should be thankful that so many people are willing to share their experience here, that is what makes a great community.

The color that I have a hard time using is orange . I had a guy tell me once it was to early for orange so I figured he was matching the natural process on the nearby rip-rap .Orange/black in muddy , Orange / chartreuse in stained . These both are a ways down on my list . How about you ?

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Originally Posted by eagle 1

The color that I have a hard time using is orange . I had a guy tell me once it was to early for orange so I figured he was matching the natural process on the nearby rip-rap .Orange/black in muddy , Orange / chartreuse in stained . These both are a ways down on my list . How about you ?

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There are people here who have way more experience than I do. I may try to set up a poll of some sort to simplify this very complicated discussion. If we could get a list of conditions, color combinations, geographical locations, etc. then perhaps we could develop a somewhat sophisticated poll to see if there is any consensus. Perhaps a thread where people list as many factors as they can think of could be a basis for building the poll?