Eye or no eye?

I would go with chartreuse color to be safe.

I only fish plain lead (pretty dull not very shiny) or black jig heads. I've never felt the need to match soft plastic body color. I don't feel my choice of jig head color as cost or gained me any fish.

 

But if a guy wants to do the color match I say go for it. There have been times where I've done the chartreuse head and a chartreuse grub or green pumpkin head with GP baby brush hog but I think a plain lead would have been ok. I don't think the smallies really care.

47 minutes ago, ATA said:

I would go with chartreuse color to be safe.

Chartreuse for any color plastic?

I fish painted jig heads, cause I don't like handling bare lead. The fish don't care.

32 minutes ago, Ohioguy25 said:

Chartreuse for any color plastic?

usually with black and blue or junbug

I paint my Ned jig heads brown which matches very well with green pumpkin and watermelon which is what I use 90% of the time.  My wife picked up a bottle of brown, black, and red nail polish on clearance for $2 each and I still haven't used them up.  You can paint a lot Ned jig head tops with a bottle of nail polish.  For 4" swimbaits, I never paint the jigheads.  The dull gray matches a shad colored bait just fine.  

3 minutes ago, Junk Fisherman said:

I paint my Ned jig heads brown which matches very well with green pumpkin and watermelon which is what I use 90% of the time.  My wife picked up a bottle of brown, black, and red nail polish on clearance for $2 each and I still haven't used them up.  You can paint a lot Ned jig head tops with a bottle of nail polish.  For 4" swimbaits, I never paint the jigheads.  The dull gray matches a shad colored bait just fine.  

Yeah that’s why I’m getting unpainted for my smoke shad swimbaits, the locally made swimbaits I have already have eyes so I didn’t want painted.

On 7/16/2021 at 4:09 PM, ATA said:

I would go with chartreuse color to be safe.

 

I don't think jighead colors matter much to the fish, but it makes me feel better to have a jighead that's got pretty high contrast. If I'm fishing a ned rig, especially, I really like having a chartreuse head -- particularly because I find myself fishing fairly murky water.

 

Color of the plastic is whatever I grab because it suited the situation. I've used them with GP, black, junebug. Doesn't matter. I like having that little dot of high contrast for the fish to focus on, whether it matters to the fish or not.

90% of the time it only matters to the angler in my experience anyway.

I try and roughly match. So if I’m using darker or craw color baits then I’d use a darker, green pumpkin, or black color. Or white for bait fish  colors.  I love tying jigs. So my rule of thumb is. If I’m going to match a craw or blue gill hair jig then I use the green pumpkin damiki head/free style ball head . If im going to use shad, shiner or perch color hair jig then I use white damiki head/ free style ball head 

Usually black heads for darker dressings and white for baitfish type presentations. Can't see spending extra money for something that just gets lost.

Fish don't care but they do like contrast.  Anything that would look different to catch their interest and entice them to bite seems to work well.  I've seen a lot of people fishing the Ned with different/brightly colored mushroom heads.

Painted jig head has more to do with your preference, what appeals to bass like Smallmouth it doesn’t mater.

I like to use brown, black, pearl white and purple painted with Testors model enamel. Eyes for the pearl white are simply a yellow dot, all others get a red dot.

The jig head color similar to the predominate skirt color or use black.

If you want dull lead in lieu of bright soak the plain jig in 50-50 white vinegar to water. 

Tom

I've only ever used black jig heads, head shape may change but not color. Doesn't usually matter which trailer I'm using.

I do a lot of smallmouth fishing with Ned and shaky heads.  I paint all of my jig heads.  However, the color of the head has nothing to do with the color of the bait that I am using.  
My smallmouth head colors are strictly for me so that I can get the size that I want to use.  For example, my Ned heads go up in weight by 1/16 oz increments and I color them brown, green, red, black, yellow and white.  So if I want a 1/16 oz head I grab a brown one.

 I use 4 different hook sizes so all I would have to do is grab a brown head with the correct size hook.

I like unpainted heads then add eyes with black and white nail polish . My hand poured spinner and buzzbaits , same thing .

57 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

My smallmouth head colors are strictly for me so that I can get the size that I want to use.  For example, my Ned heads go up in weight by 1/16 oz increments and I color them brown, green, red, black, yellow and white.  So if I want a 1/16 oz head I grab a brown one.

 

 

Yellow, blue, red & unpainted (1/16, 1/8, 3/16 & 1/4 ounce) in my box.  I just paint the lead collar.

 

oe

4 hours ago, Jig Man said:

I do a lot of smallmouth fishing with Ned and shaky heads.  I paint all of my jig heads.  However, the color of the head has nothing to do with the color of the bait that I am using.  
My smallmouth head colors are strictly for me so that I can get the size that I want to use.  For example, my Ned heads go up in weight by 1/16 oz increments and I color them brown, green, red, black, yellow and white.  So if I want a 1/16 oz head I grab a brown one.

 I use 4 different hook sizes so all I would have to do is grab a brown head with the correct size hook.

That’s a good system. What size Ned head would you say you use most frequently, and how do you fish them? Do you use the original presentation of light weight (1/10>) and letting it fall slowly or the Z Man mass marketed way of dead sticking and jigging off the bottom?

I never ever intentionally match but if the jighead does match the bait then it doesn’t hurt either. 75% of the time I’m using an unpainted jighead and it doesn’t seem to affect the bite in any way. Rest of the time it’s a black or orange one. Then again, i do use a lot of baitfish-y colors which match well with a plain lead jighead. 

 

 

Chartreuse is my default jighead color for smallmouth with a lot baits. With a shakyhead, I might go black or green pumpkin. 

Inevitably, I’m going to lose a ton of jigheads. It’s what I throw 3/4 of the time I would imagine, and they hang up a lot even with the hook buried in the plastic. Therefore I buy the cheapest ones I can find of reasonable quality. They are typically unpainted but often you can find the painted ones for the same prices or sometimes even less. 

If smallies won’t eat these, it’s a rare day 

The other night I mashed the smallies on a 4in paddletail with a red head, switched to a white one after I broke off and got one fish, I happen to believe that was at least part of the reason why.

I think you should choose a color scheme that looks good to you.  The fish don't care.  

 

 

45 minutes ago, billmac said:

I think you should choose a color scheme that looks good to you.  The fish don't care.