What are your opinions on what common bait colors best imitate sunfish and bluegill in a stained water environment? In low light? In bright light?

I'm trying to "Match my Hatch" but I'm not sure if I'm hitting the mark.

There are three that have been really successful for me:

The first is the Bladerunner swim jig bluegill color, the second is the Northstar Newgill, and the third is the Fishingskirts.com bluegill (in no particular order).

Thanks SF, but I was looking for some more general colors used across the industry, chartreuse, firetiger, PB&J etc...

Any ideas?

In clear water I would start with a smoke with blue flake, in water with a 2-6' visibility green pumpkins and oranges, and water with less than a 2' visibility I would just throw black and blue, or some variation, or a real dark green pumpkin with blue flake (okeechobee craw is an excellent color for stained water) The reason for the darker colors in dirty water is it creates a larger profile that the fish see more easily. They use their lateral line to find the bait but it also helps if they see the bait, just mho.

For common colors I like green pumpkin and chartreuse.

Firetiger is a good choice as well, especially when you're dealing with some color in the water.

The majority of my fishing is in south Louisiana, specifically the Atchafalaya Basin/Lake Verrett area.

For jigs, I use two different skirt colors to imitate bluegill/bream depending on water clarity.

For water with at least 12" of visibility, the best has been a skirt made with brown/orange glitter, pumpkin/green glitter, and orange. For a trailer, I'll use either a Larew 4" Salt Craw in pumpkin pepper/ green glitter/chartruese claws or a Zoom rootbeer/green glitter trailer.

In less than 12" visibilty (which is the majority of the time) a black, blue, and orange skirt with a Zoom flippin' blue trailer has produced best.

For crankbaits, I have had really good success with a Lucky Craft Fat BDS 2 in the green chartruese rootbeer color. black and chartreuse, or green and chratreuse.

strike king baby rodent....double header candy....rigged on its side on a scrounger.

the color looks just like a small bluegill and has been deadly for me the past few times out.

the tails have great swimming action on that scrounger head.

these have been inhaled by almost every one i catch.

i cast out, let it hit bottom, lift it up and vary my retrieve speed.

Two Words "Bagley Bream"

Pa Angler

Blue Gill color skirt (Or a variation of that), Fire Tiger, and Pumpkins/Melons with a little orange and chartreuse.... Gold flash isn't bad either. Over all color tones are more important than specific details...

Around here at least, the sunfish colors vary from lake to lake, season to season. Some are very colorful with lots of orange, blue, green, yellow, and purple. Others are more drab and silvery, and look nothing like the bluegill imitations sold in stores. I think it would be best to go catch a few from the bodies of water in question.

Tennessee Tuffy