Now that I have nearly sold everything fished with the past 65 years it was interesting to look at lure colors changing through tthe decades.

The most popular hard lures during the 50's were red head white body,yellow coach dog followed by green back with white sides and belly silver glitter called shore minnow. The 60's brown crawdad and frog colors dark green with yellow spots were popular. The 70's perch and Shad colors become the very popular, 80's Shad topped all colors with bluegill pattern passing perch.

90's baby bass, and Shad about head to head with fire Tiger and red crawdad colors returning. The past 20 years all colors with Shad being number 1 and detailed artistic coloration dominating hard lure...colors choices exploded.

So today in hard baits realism in baitfish and crawdads etc boggle the mind.

which brings me to this qestion, what has been the most productive color in hard baits?

I had a epic evening with my late brother Bob at Lake Casitas in 1965 catching our 1st 40lb 5 bass limit using a 300 series Bomber in black/orange/black pattern. You can't find that color combination today.

The closest to the top 50's color red head white body is clown today and it's still catching bass if you use it.

Tom

 

Part 2, Soft plastics and jigs.

The 50's soft plastics were just emerging with Creme natural crawler harness rig. The 60's Creme Scoundrel in black, brown and purple with Streimbridge entering in the late 60's with translucent red and green. The 70's soft plastics worms became a mainstay bass lure with Tom Mann's Jelly worms in a wider range of colors with Blueberry and Grape being very popular. The late 70's and 80's were the birth hand pour era with Jim "Smitty" Smith creating blood line tri color plastic worms with salt & pepper flakes. Brown craw black vain and orange belly was the hot color until green weenie took over a light green back with cinnamon brown belly and either red-green flake or black-blue. The 90's Shad colors smoke with blue neon and various flake combinations were top.

Around 2000 watermelon red flake became popular followed by Green Pumpkin still top today.

jigs, the 50's black was it, the 60's black, brown and purple vinyl were tops. 70's same colors in living rubber, the 80's to today silicone skirt tabs in crawdad and bluegill colors remain top users. Black-blue is #1 with PB&J brown-purple very popular.

Tom

Excellent ?

 

Down south the 70s brought us Alphabet Baits, Balsa Bs, Big Os, Little Ns; popular color was Tennessee Shad Orange Belly.

 

70s also introduced Hot Spots & Rat-L-Traps; hot colors, Chrome Black Back, Chrome Blue Back, & my favorite Smokey Joe.

 

Later 70s was the first time I saw a plastic worm with glitter, it was Fire-n-Ice.

2 hours ago, WRB said:

Now that I have nearly sold everything fished with the past 65 years it was interesting to look at lure colors changing through tthe decades.

The most popular hard lures during the 50's were red head white body,yellow coach dog followed by green back with white sides and belly silver glitter called shore minnow. The 60's brown crawdad and frog colors dark green with yellow spots were popular. The 70's perch and Shad colors become the very popular, 80's Shad topped all colors with bluegill pattern passing perch.

90's baby bass, and Shad about head to head with fire Tiger and red crawdad colors returning. The past 20 years all colors with Shad being number 1 and detailed artistic coloration dominating hard lure...colors choices exploded.

So today in hard baits realism in baitfish and crawdads etc boggle the mind.

which brings me to this qestion, what has been the most productive color in hard baits?

I had a epic evening with my late brother Bob at Lake Casitas in 1965 catching our 1st 40lb 5 bass limit using a 300 series Bomber in black/orange/black pattern. You can't find that color combination today.

The closest to the top 50's color red head white body is clown today and it's still catching bass if you use it.

Tom

 

One day in the summer of 1977  I was 14 and found a bomber series 300 in orange and black on the bank.  I tied it on and caught a bass on the first cast.  I remember watching the lure work its way through the rocks and thinking it was the best imitation of the crawdads in that lake possible.  Nothing has changed.  It still looks exactly like a crawdad when retrieved quickly bouncing off of the rocks.  The combination of black and orange doesn't look as natural on a store shelf, but moving quickly through the water looks more like a crayfish, than any other color pattern I have seen.  I still use that same lure on that same lake with good results.

It's fun to review some history and try to figure out what these green or brown bass will strike. It appears historically just about everything at times yet  can be very selective at other times. 

What other fish can offer us such a challenge? Got to love bass for it's predictable and unpredictable behavior. 

Tom

Great thread Tom. Reading this, I can in my head create time lines for when and where I used a lot of the baits and colors mentioned. I have a lousy memory, this thread kind of kick starts the info to come back to me.

I well remember when electric, glitter worms first came to my area. At first, I didn't think they would work well. Electric blue, and electric purple/grape became really hot for a while.