2 hours ago, QED said:

I prefer to maintain a small set of colors for any particular lure that has empirically demonstrated utility.  Not a philosophical choice but rather a pragmatic one.  Once you factor in lure size, type, and color, the combinatorial explosion makes it impossible to explore all the options.

Although the terminology used is above my educational level, I think I agree with this post. 
?

I am pretty simple. Green pumpkin or watermellon based on water clarity/ dirtyness,

black/blue or black/junebug, some sort of shadish color, and then something with chartreuse or chart/white. If im in a lake where bluegill are a target ill throw in something with blue and orange in it.

What puzzles me is this. I have good luck throwing a black/blue jig in murky water and catch fish. I have tried several different black/blue soft plastics and the fish won't even look at them.

I didnt even know Black/blue was such a popular choice for muddy waters until joining this forum . I always used it in clear to stained with great success . In heavily stained water I opted for  black/chartreuse .

I jumped off of the merry go round years ago. With very few exceptions, I only throw green pumpkin and june bug in the majority of my soft plastics.