Dear Great Smallmouth Hunter,

For the last few years I've watched Al Lindner (and a few others) glorify bright bait colors for smallmouth. He caught me and reeled me in. Bright pink, blaze orange, lemon yellow, lime green; my tackle bag looks like a bowl of Fruit Loops. I have not caught a single smallmouth on one of those bright colored baits in the several years I've been carrying them. I'm ready to accept defeat and admit I've been shilled, conned, bamboozled. Are there others that carry this shame, or am I just not persistent enough using them?

signed: I need guidance...

I've seen those episodes too. In-Fisherman or Critical Concepts or whatever they're called.

I've got exactly 2 jerk baits in bright colors: clown and tiger stripes. I've only caught 1 smallmouth on clown and none on tiger stripes.

By and large, I am targeting smallmouth in clear water and natural colors produce much better.

If you have any stained lakes with largies, those brighter colors would probably work better. I target one particular lake for largemouth in the summer time when the water can be like pea soup, and I do pretty well with brighter, neon colors there.

For smallmouth, It can be a question of mood and water color. Most times natural colors work better and for me, it's perch tones and lures with some blue. But when the water gets a bit dirty and is clearing up, sometimes clown or pink or chartreuse can get so hot that's it's two fish for one for a period of time.

These all work on our local rivers.

Not sure if they fall into the "bright" category.

I've had some success with hot pink, but not much of the other brights. The one universal color I have that works - for smallmouth/largemouth/Spots/Peacocks in lakes/rivers, northern US/southern US, perch/shad/herring lakes, Minn/Florida/S Carolina, SoDak, Ontario, etc. is one color that various lure manufacturers call something like: Elegy Bone, Northern Lights, Hot-Blue Frost. A bit bluish-purple on top and the key - chartreuse on the bottom.

I saw the same information from Al Lindner and found clown pattern jerkbaits have worked very well for me. Although, on my favorite lake, chartreuse shad was the preferred color by a wide margin during pre-spawn.

I like natural browns, olives and oranges in combination for smallies. However, they absolutely have a love for chartruese when it comes to bright colors. Again, I prefer in combination with something natural, but they really do like chartreuse.

A clown or glass clown is deadly on chilly water smallmouth.

1 hour ago, JonB2 said:

I like natural browns, olives and oranges in combination for smallies. However, they absolutely have a love for chartruese when it comes to bright colors. Again, I prefer in combination with something natural, but they really do like chartreuse.

A clown or glass clown is deadly on chilly water smallmouth.

Great to see you sharing your wisdom, Jon.

I mean they are sponsored by the product manufacturers so maybe shill adjacent 🙃

And thanks for learning me a new word.

Seriously tho, I routinely catch river smallmouth on chartreuse, that hothead from rapala, firetiger and clown. This is in cloudy, stained and clear water. To be fair some of the clear water catch's were just a timing deal. Never did get anything on the pink x-rap tho.

I am a smallmouth hunter without a doubt, but "great" may not be the right word.

In any case, I went down the bright-color bait road myself, and Big Al was also to blame.

They've caught some nice fish in colored water over the years.

But it ends there, at least in the waters where I fish.

Natural-type baits, which for me are baits that come close to matching the color of the bottom (when I'm presenting baits near it) and baits that resemble what the SMB are looking to eat, have been significantly better.

I do enjoy a 'little' slash of color, but I mean it.

Like a dot or a small patch.

Usually in orange or chartreuse.

Finally, semi-clear, almost see-through baits that still have a natural bait-type color & pattern

have outfished everything in my boat when it comes to hard baits.

YMMV

A-Jay

On 4/27/2026 at 9:01 AM, gim said:

If you have any stained lakes with largies, those brighter colors would probably work better. I target one particular lake for largemouth in the summer time when the water can be like pea soup, and I do pretty well with brighter, neon colors there.

I can say they don’t really work on largies in stained water either. No smallies where I live, but I’ve thrown bubblegum & Merthiolate flukes & trick worms in many ponds & lakes…… without much success. Might’ve caught 1-2 largemouth, so I’ll eventually switch back to my normal watermelon, green pumpkin, Junebug or shad colors then start catching more. I’ve been bamboozled too. 🥴

About the only bright colors I’ve had repeated success with are White, Chartreuse or a combo of the two. That goes for soft plastics, spinnerbaits/buzzbaits, crankbaits or any topwater such as frogs, poppers & swimming worms. Go figure! 🤷‍♂️

Think my packs of bubblegum flukes & merthiolate trick worms are going on 10 yrs old and they prob only got 2 baits used per pack. 🤣

This is a helpful thread. Southern dude going on vacation this summer in the UP and hoping to target some smallies. All my research was pointing me towards crazy colors, sounds like I should stay more natural.

3 hours ago, Rucksack said:

This is a helpful thread. Southern dude going on vacation this summer in the UP and hoping to target some smallies. All my research was pointing me towards crazy colors, sounds like I should stay more natural.

Not totally crazy, however, if you're using spinning gear, try the following: 1/16 oz. Berkley half head jig with Chartreuse(yellow) head paired with zman 2.75" TRD in junebug color. One other more "natural" option is to use a black or pumpkin(dark green) jig head paired with a green pumpkin goby TRD. The latter combo will give some flash from the purple specks in the plastic. The jig head packs and the trd baits will cost you about $20 and have worked for me in cold, clear upstate NY lakes.

No need to get the other finesse trd shapes - craws, tubes, etc. - the plain straight trd works the best. The colors above also worked the best for me. I know, since I have done the research (spent $$$) buying every shape and color. I try to fish what works best,as I'm in a kayak and minimize what I carry to still get the best results.

I used to post more in the past, including pictures, Now I just fish and have good success. Hope the above is helpful. Good luck.

Edited May 3May 3 by Subaqua Adinterim
Reviewed

Baits with orange here tend to work great.

I’m the same. I bought into the bright colours for smallmouth. But I always go back to naturals. Watched a couple things where they swore on yellows/chartreuse but when I threw them, I think the fish just laughed and swam away.

I believe in fishing natural colors. But sometimes find myself fishing red or chartreuse jig heads. 🤔

On the fishing shows they say how great a product is,but they are getting paid to say that probably.

Hosts on some shows say how good this cheap reel is. But on their shows they are using a $500 reel.

This is one of my favorite smallmouth jerkbaits I've ever owned and I sure wish I could find more.

This would be a close second, also discontinued and very difficult to find without paying crazy prices.

Bluebasser86... as a frame of reference for me/us, what is the turbidity of the water you are fishing with those?

7 minutes ago, OkobojiEagle said:

Bluebasser86... as a frame of reference for me/us, what is the turbidity of the water you are fishing with those?

It's typically at least a copule feet of visibility to several feet of visibility.

We mostly fish for smallmouth. I have found that color matters on some days and on some days it doesn’t. Last fall if it wasn’t a copper truse

worm you might as well have stayed home. This spring it might as well be left at home.

You never know what will be best until you try it. That’s why I carry a half dozen colors of jigs and a couple of dozen colors of plastics.

This color thing has been bantered for a long time and has had me totally confused. I was told by an Elite Series pro who stayed with me on multiple occasions that color isn’t as important as “Hue”. He chose his colors in 3 categories, clear water, stained water, and muddy water. None of which were bright colors. In my 24 years of going to Lake St Clair to chase smallmouth, it seems that there is a definite color preference from year to year with some colors that will produce every year. I’ll use Yamamoto’s Shad Shape Worm as an example because I throw it a lot on a dropshot. Color 297 (green pumpkin/black fleck) almost always will catch some, last year it was the only color they wanted. This year it didn’t produce nearly as well as the gold hues, goby, perch, and smallmouth magic. There was a year they only wanted natural Shad, or smoke salt and pepper. But I will say this, there was 1 year the only bait they wanted was a bubblegum DShad and I mean it was the only thing they wanted and we went through an entire brick of baits. So I’m right back in the confused camp.