Choose Your Color

A Guide To Lure Selection

Keith Eshbaugh

Every day we make color choices from kitchen floors, our cars, and house paint, but what about more important things like fishing lures?

There are many lure companys that make many different colors. The two manufacturers with the most colors are Reef Runner and X-treme tackle. They manufacture more than 100 different specialty colors in five different crankbait styles, which is more than any other lure manufacturer!

Other lure companys like Dave’s Lures, which is the old Thundersticks, and Hot-N-Tots makes over 75 different colors. Cotton Cordell Wally Divers make about 20 colors. Rapala makes a whopping 15 different style lures, but only has six to13 different color choices. Lure manufacturers are now making more custom colors to keep up with customer demand.

A lot of anglers say that color doesn’t matter, but I have seen days when fish would only bite on one exact color.

Have you ever asked for fishing lures for Christmas and your wife gave you some beautiful pink and green lures?

Don’t laugh, those are the ones that catch fish.

One of the best fish catching colors is "Wonderbread," which is a white lure covered with colored spots!

This gives the fish something different to look at, and a choice of colors -- which some experts say the fish will clue in on, one exact color on that lure.

When looking underwater at Wonderbread through an Aqua-Vu camera this color appears to be a bunch of baitfish eyes flashing around. It actually looks like a school of baitfish!

That’s possibly why they hit such a wild color. Others will even say lure makers create such realistic patterns the fish can’t even see them!

Think about it. Baitfish are camouflaged to hide from predators right?

If the lure looks exactly like a real baitfish how is the fish supposed to see it? This probably leads to the fact I catch more fish on non- realistic colors than natural colors. The basic rule of color selection is natural colors in clear waters, fluorescent or darker colors in dirty water. You decide!

I purchased some X-treme Tackle Reef Runners in Black Lite Perch, which is purple on the back and sides with a glow belly because it looked neat. We ended up winning a walleye tournament on that color at Oneida Lake in NY.

Why did we use that color? Locals all used black and purple bucktails jigging, so we went with black and purple lures and trolled them on leadcore line to cover more water!

When you try a new fishing spot ask the locals what colors the fish like the best, then get your favorite crankbait in that color and try it.

Lake Erie is a fine example for lure color choices. There have been days that only natural looking black and silver or blue and silver worked.

Then there’s days that is what I call the " no pattern pattern," in which the fish will eat every color lure you put in the water!

One thing stays true on Lake Erie though, black and purple, copper, and watermelon remain the consistent fish catching colors.

The next time you go to the store buy that "wild color" and try it out on your favorite waters and see if it catches fish.

Check out the color selection of different lures at: www.xtremetackle.com, www.cottoncordell.com, www.reefrunner.com, www.stormlures.com, www.rapala.com