Haunting Question

I'm setting here pondering a thought WHY! you know people try to come up with new Idea's, new way's ,new look's, new concept's and it's all for not! fish have been caught for age's animal's have been harvested the same length of time I notice as I grow older I want thing's easier in My life do fish and animal's think like this. I'm not a betting Man but if were to say it would be yes, think a minute Mature buck's grow older by avoiding hunter's young one's learn this by traveling with them at NIGHT! Fish learn spawning and feeding patteren's by instinct they avoid being eatten by using cover be it brush or darkness ? and it's a food chain thing so here it is . The bait your using where's it at in the food chain did you buy it because it look's realistic what does it look like 20 foot under water some of these minnow jig's look like a pumkin on a tomatoe plant is this natural NO! do you catch fish sometime's all's you have to do is think basic present a ture likeness of what their feeding on in a simular movement patteren and yuo'll have sucess here's the challange when it's my turn to do a swap it will be based on food chain patteren's color and shape I'm putting this mind thought question at you now so you are prepared My most succesful bait is the easiest to tie and it's very plentiful in My home water's and the fish I seek know this!

Be ready Men FF:eek:

Well all I have to say about fish and them recognizing a certain bait. I have a little spot off the dock next door that I have been fishing for the last 9-10 years. I go out there when I am not going out in my boat and just want to have something pull my string. I catch a lot of bass there, not big or anything, but lots of them. I know that if I am out there one afternoon and catch fish on some color bait that if I go back the next afternoon I had better at least change color or I am not going to get the normal bites I get there. If I change from a wacky worm to a jerk bait or some other style that is good enough too, but if I go back with same color and style I will not get bit enough for my fun.

I also know that a good shad pattern on this lake should be good as it is full of them, but I also know even though that is their main food source many times a different color will produce better even if the shad bait looks like a shad.

And what it looks like them them is pure speculation to me because I have no idea what they see or how they see it, but I do know when I get bit.

Skip

Simple is good.

Fish might have better memories than some of us - wait till you get to be my age!

Now I'm Here'in Wisdom Speaking !

I think I am in the same boat as 1aB

I look forward to that swap FF. I am in the process of developing an Egg sucking Leech on a jig head with a wide body and a ribbon tail in my crochet pattern. Guess I better get to working on it.

Going for total realism. Anyone got a picture of a leech sucking on an egg? I mean in the wild! Last time I checked there shouldn't be a body of water that doesn't have leeches so it should work, right?

My buddy fishes with micro jigs in crazy color schemes year round and does pretty good. He calls it the jelly bean theory, no matter if your hungry or not if somebody has a bowl of those fancy jelly beans out you will pick out the blue one with the pink dots and try it just to see what it tastes like. He says fish are the same way, they see something they've never seen before they're going to taste it even if they're not hungry. We had days where the only thing we would catch was maybe one big crappie and it would be him on a orange jig head with a pink tail with a chartruse nibble and I would be trying every "normal" color in the box.

MY biggest came off of orange and yellow.........and another one thatd look like his twin off of a solid black, which isnt unusual for here. Black is great. especially under large boat docks.

Flat

I don't know about natural vs manmade - what works on a given day works - who knows why?

Case in point - this summer, I was on a small impoundment - mid summer, water temps easily in the 70s, early morning, call it 6am-10.30 am.

I was fishing a 1/16 oz white head, red collar, yellow marabou jig. The crappies liked it, a 23" carp liked it. Tryed white hd, white marabou - nothing doing. Tryed a black hd, white marabou jig, nothing doing. Went back to the yellow - and fish on, again...and again...

The yellow marabou couldn't have looked like a minnow, nor could it have looked like bottom growth or what ever it is that carp eat, yet both the crappies and the carp wanted it.

On another trip to that same water, I'd catch 2-3 fish on a given jig, then they would stop. Change jigs, catch 2-3, etc....

Who knows what fish think, or IF THEY THINK....that is part of the mystry of fishing....

My $.03....inflation, you know.

UG

Man! Mass Wisdom Unleashed !

well i been thinking about this for a bit now and the only thing i can say is poeple come up with new things and color combo's to get fish to react to it and realy who know why they do
haing a swap that you use more natrul pattens is great and ill join in but i have a feeling would be alot of black brown and silver jigs lol

I want to get in a swap, but the timing seems to always be a problem for me for one reason or another. Maybe if someone did one that had a little longer lead time to delivery?

Skip

Not always ture Bulldog I've been doing alittle experiment with under water camera's and a white or silver jig dosn,t look like a minnow I don't have a expensive one ,but with the bracket I built I can hange jig's and bait side by side and compare them at different depth's you would be amazed what the surrounding aquatic vegatation or bottom color does to light transsion . Yep I've gone of the deep end I've spent 3 wks perfecting a color for 1 area on LOP made the last blend on powder today painted the head's tieing tomorrow hopefully they'll do good Saturday If I saw these in a store I would Buy'em for love or money same thing over at Tyler the jig Piroguepusher use's you couldn't put in My jig box till I seen it used and I, I'll admit took a beating about 3 time's before I put one on I got about 1/2 teaspoon of pride.Skip will figure out how to get you in I love your work!

Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but I think most of us fisherman want our stuff to be pretty! :o I think that many lures on the market are to catch the fisherman.

My daughter (6) won't use anything unless it has sparkles and I think we get into a similar pattern. Ok, ok, maybe not just because it is pretty for us manly men! But if we go out one time and do good with a certain color, we DO remember this and look for anything with that color.

I have been trying to match a minnow for a lake I fish often. It's a creek chub, gold back with white belly and outfishes shiners any day. My effort has been mostly on getting that 2-tone look on top and bottom.

Look at most fish... light belly, darker back. My theory... view from the bottom and it will look like the bright sky, view from the top it will look like the dark bottom. Maybe years of evolution maybe not, but I am trying my darndest to match it.

When i was a youngster back in the 60's all i carried in my box was a solid white chenille/marabou crappie jig and black and yellow beetle spins.I caught a lot of fish with those.Now there isn't either of these in any of my jig boxes.Everything has at least two colors in my jigs now.I think most baits draw on the fishes natural curiousity and since they don't have hands they suck it in to see if it tastes good enough to eat.Some end up on my stringer. I like your idea flatfish about a swap with more natural imitations.I'll probably be up until 2a.m. just thinking about it. I see a migraine in the making.

Just remember the color of the water make's a difference ect. tint white in most of the lake's I fish go's pink to orange yellow go's red to brown pink go's light brown.It dosn't have to be the color just kinda look like something I'm gonna tell ya'll something just don't ever repeat it My best jig and the one I'll donate to the swap when it's My time iS AAA CCOMMON grass shrimp patteren in a special blend of color's very simple to tie million's of them in the lake's and crappie feed on them every day !

The 20 foot deep and low light question has me thinking. The lateral line on fish picks up movement and vibration from around them, kinda like our sonar looking for things in the water that has the shape of a fish. We see it on our electronics and just believe it is a fish. Even if it is a chunk of wood, our instinct is to drop a line and put a hook into whatever is down there. Does their lateral line sense over-ride their visual?

Even if crappie have the best sight of any creature, they can't see @$#! on a new moon feeding on minnows 15 foot deep whith no light source around. I have caught them at those times so know they are there... and feeding!

Color does matter, but the idea for "match the hatch" includes the size, profile and movement of the bait as well as the color. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm gonna start soaking my thread in minnow blood for 48 hours before I start to tie? LOL :D:cool:

Their laterial line is their strongest form of detection .

I just keep changeing colors until they hit, makes it easy to have all those fancy colors in my box.

Fatman

Thinking about the lateral line being their strongest form of detection.If only we could get a tiny transmitter inside a jig that could send electrical impulses or vibrations to attract them crappies calling them right to our baits at any depth,day or night. Calling Dr.Frankenstein.

If some of you are also fly fishermen does " match the hatch " ring a bell. While some swear by realistic size , color pattern and on and on. One of the most successful flies ever tied is the Royal Coachman. Yet this fly does not resemble any known insect.

I like the approach previously mentioned throw something at them until they bite. if it resembles something in the lake or looks like bozo the clown the final most important thing. Are you or have you caught fish on it ? At the age of 61 I have learned one constant for fishing. Never assume you KNOW what the fish want on any given day. Let the fish tell you by their interest or lack thereof.

Sometimes we fishermen like professional baseball players go into a slump and we start thinking too much. See the ball hit the ball solves the slump. In our palance find the fish catch the fish. I have learned I don't care why they clobber something. I just keep tossing until I find something they will clobber.

That's ture in every aspect and has been the door I get slamed into My face quite often. I believe color sometimes triggers strikes when appearance isn't even the question
crazy isn't it and very intriging ,and the main reason I start most days with a multi pole setup with multi slide jigs on 2 pole's to quickly determine what their after sometime's the window of sucess is very narrow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by flatfish46

My most succesful bait is the easiest to tie and the fish I seek know this!
FF:eek:

---

That is why I like to personally tie and use a hackle jig, kip tail jig, or marabou jig. They work well as do the spoon rig I make. Call me an old "Fuddy duddy" or "Old School" but they work just as well in 2009 as they did in 1950. The attracting and triggering concepts of a minnow shaped bait or one with the flash of a spoon are tried and true methods and they still catch fish. These combinations have stood the test of time. The key thing for any fisiherman is CONFIDENCE in the lure you choose and PRESENTATION to the fish so they will bite it.

Chartreuse/Black
Chartreuse/Pink
All White
All Chartreuse
Aqua/White
Aqua Chartreuse
Black/aqua
Pink/White

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by flatfish46

Not always ture Bulldog I've been doing alittle experiment with under water camera's and a white or silver jig dosn,t look like a minnow!

---

It would be great if you could post or PM me some of that footage. We'd all love to see it.

A Hunting Question.....if you tinker and enjoy tinkering, if you create a lure or pattern that does well, if you find a combination of materials and profiles, colors, textures, variations that work well, real or unreal, you have to hunt for the combination and there simply is a lot of personal gratification in the journey. I was told once that bass really like fat and fuzzy. For a long time in tying I went by that credo. But somewhere along the way I tied a few skinny and slick....they caught bass too. Jigs don't need eyes, don't need fat, or fuzzy, but some of the fat, fuzzy and sighted jigs work too. What ever catches them is great. It's the journey that counts.

In the book my wife gave me about facets of fishing, there's the old story of two old men who tied flies. It didn't matter that only one or two flies out of the hundreds they tied actually caught the occasional trout, but the inventiveness of the tie, the excitement and the sharing is what they enjoyed. The journey is never for naught.
It's just in the blood.

While browsing a dollar store, I happened upon bags of mylar shredding used normally for stuffing gift bags. I bought some silver, gold and red, and tied some 1/16 ounce red headed jigs. Made a silver fanned skirt vertically on the hook, tied with red thread and put a red stripe down the side.....a lot of flash. So far, twenty species of fish on that little jig. It still pumps me up whevever I think of the little silver jig. It's in the journey.
Never for naught.

Good Luck and Good Tying, Mac

Although I use wild colors, I cant help but to think, if I tie a jig that looks like a minnow or shad, same colors, etc.....that they will change colors the same as they go through the depths.....why should one silver or white look chartruse at 15ft down and the other still look silver or white?

My ignorance is probably showing now. That being said....as ive mentioned before, My largest two, one was on a natural colored jig, and the other was on an orange and yellow with a plain lead head?

well i think the change in color comes to the way light is reflected and refracted it goes through water. water is like a prism white light comes in and is changed into the color scale they say red only reflects so far down and then it is no longer reflected which is why i brought up ultra violet light awhile back and people laughed at me. but i think its true what color spectrum does a fish see. do they have the three color rods in there eyes as we do so they see color the way we see it or are they color blind and that doesn't mean they cant see color but they see it different then we do is green pink and red green. or what. just like with a deer it sees ultra violet light better then normal light. it also only has two color rods in its eyes which means the eyes don't see the same color as we do bright orange can be blue to them and a bright blue at that or a dull blue. i have heard that fish see yellow which is up and black which is down. i am not sure how true this is. but if that is the case maybe on clear days and clear water it is bright yellow and on dull days and muddy water it is dark yellow. hard telling not knowing but i can say this i don't think they see color the same way we do and i am sure the deeper you go the more the color changes

My idea over the years is to try and match the hatch so to speak. Where I fish that means I try to use something that looks like a natural minnow or perhaps grass shrimp. I had been a minnow dipper when the original beetle spin came out. That thing took the world by storm. There are a lot of small marsh bass here. They only grow to a pound or so, and that beetle spin was deadly on them. While using the beetle spin I started catching the occasional crappie, usually big ones. Decided to try downsizing using only the jig part and starting catch a lot of crappie. I then started using doll flies tied with polar bear hair. Boy were those deadly. Don't remember which came first the tube jig or the sassy shad. but I became a believer in the sassy shad 1" either white or white with darker back. I use that for years. Although others were swearing by tube jigs especially blue and white, I stuck with the sassy shad. With the introduction of the panfish assassin I changed over. Now I use the assassin or my own tied jigs. I'm successful with both. My favorite assassin is either the white with dark back or the green back with light colored belly. Now having said all that, this is my conclusion. I have fished with a lot of different people of many different talents. We all fish different but I find that where ever I fish, using my tactics of trying to imitate bait fish usually works. I usually try to swim my jigs much like a minnow. I dip and bounce around cover, darting in and out, and up and down. Now I have a friend who is a excellent crappie fisherman. His method is to use mostly tube jigs below a bobber. One of his favoite colors is kelly green with pepper flak and salted. He catchs a thousand plus a year one that color. All I can say is you have to have confidence with any bait you use. I've seen may trips where all I bring is a few jig heads and one pack of shads or assassins and always catch fish. Although color might make a difference, personally I never look for the right color. I'm more interested in making it look right in the water.
"gene"

"I never look for the right color. I'm more interested in making it look right in the water."

Well said !

Flat

When you do your looking in the water w/ your camera - are you using a color camera?

Assuming you are - and you see the image on screen - are you using your eyes, or those of a crappie?

I'm not tryed to be flippant or a smart *ss here - but trying to make a point.....

We (man / science / wildlife biologists) only think we know what / how a fish-deer-etc see color. We don't really know - as there isn't any way for us to see what the given critter sees.....

Consider the PM you sent me about your 2.6 crappie....that wasn't caught on a jig that mimmiced food....at least not color wise.....

Best of luck this weekend.

UG

Your absolutly right We don't know what they c it could be they just c thermal shapes who know's I guess it's just a challange to get the bait to resemble their prey as close as possiable then that's not even nesscary.

Uncle grump they actually do have a device for seeing what the animal hooked up to it sees. Let me see if I can find a link.