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Posts: 112
| Gearing up for the cisco spawn has me thinking about the best colors to fish dense schools. After doing some reading, I'm a bit stumped about what the best tactic is color-wise. Some people seem to say that you need to fish unnatural colors to make your lure stand out from all the bait, but other seem to "match the hatch" and pick silvery/blueish cisco colored lures. The same also applies to summertime, when I'll find a dense school of bait and pick a natural color, only to be ignored by muskie. Does anyone have any insight into the logic of picking a natural or unnatural color when fishing dense bait? |
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Posts: 2015
| I’ve seen both work, even in lakes with 10+ feet of water clarity... getting presentation to correct depth and action of a lure is more important .. baitfish draw muskies to an area.. color should be experimented with as a final trigger... I do like white with some contrast in general, starting point based on past successes, good luck |
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Posts: 183
| Try both until one works. If neither works then you were doing something else wrong. Everyone will have their own opinions based on what's worked in the past for them. |
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Posts: 1023
| I make my own baits so I have the benefit of painting my baits however I like.
My best Bait in St Clair in the Fall is a natural Shad paddletail with some hot orange on the tail. It has a natural look with a little eye catching shot of color. |
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Posts: 44
Location: Ohio | You can always try adding a small spinner to some baits for some added flash. |
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Posts: 612
| Never fished in shad a based food chain. However they sound like a similar baitfish to the alewives which populate most of NYS deeper lakes. They are silver and white and that the colors that work best. They run in heavy schools x1000's and in the cooler months when they are in shallower I've got a few nice ones casting right into - over the school. What's weird is with spinners - bucktails flashy colors tend to work better but not with crank - jerkbaits. |
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Posts: 112
| Thanks for the replies, everyone! NPike, that's a very interesting points about spinners/bucktails versus cranks and jerkbaits. And Landry, the mostly natural color with a bit of brightness to trigger fish is interest too. I'll keep the advice in mind!
Edited by joh10891 11/4/2018 7:45 PM
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| i rarely use natural color.the only one that i use is perch wb ad sucker gold scales.even in clear water. imo the match the hatch theory is pure bs .musky is one of these fish that seem to don't like ultra realism ,they are addicted to contrast more than bait imitation |
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Posts: 74
| I fish shad lakes bucktails are good black or white with silver or gold blades
White kickin minnow
Large glider all colors Canadian crush is a good one 10 inch Phantom is the best
White bulldawg also any sucker pattern.
Edited by Muskies247 12/1/2018 7:08 PM
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Unnatural vs natural colors for fishing dense baitfish?