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Topwater bait color

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Curious to see what colors are successful for you guys when fishing topwater.....I cant seem to even get bit unless its black or a darker green (Buzzbaits, bronzeye style frogs, spooks, rage shad \ toad) and some baits out there use some bright colors,  any luck with these colors?

 Don't fish much at night and but dark to black. Day time colors, usually natural. I have done well with a Spook jr that I got last year in a ghost pattern ;)...

skillet

  • Author

thats another thing, I saw Clear spooks at the store....Doesnt this make it harder for the fish to find it? im guessing these might be for daytime ultra smooth surface

There are many times YOU DON"T want the fish to get a good look at your lure, thus clear lures.

I keep it basic. Black or something with a lighter colored stomach. Except for insects, pretty much everything a bass eats has a lighter colored belly. (fish,mice,frogs,birds,snakes, tadpoles etc)

I used to fish the heck out of buzzbaits and had really good luck with both black and white.  This year I fished with frogs probably 90% of the time (so addicted) and really didn't find a lot of difference between the colors.  With the Spros I mostly used green but I also did well with black.  My main bait was the little $3 popping scum frog.   They are so cheap so I had several of every color and I found they all worked about the same.  They were either hitting frogs or they weren't.  If they weren't hitting, changing colors never helped, and if they were hitting frogs then they didn't seem to give a darn what color it was.

I like to use Black and Bone White type colors or shad colors for top water.

For buzzbaits I tend to stick to black, white or Flo/white skirts. For topwater hard baits I experimented with all sorts of patterns and colours and have settled on a black back, yellow belly with a splash of orange. As I use prop baits, which I make more often than not, the body tends to spin a bit so all colours are visible from below at some stage. I have saved a fortune on paint now as I only use the above...wink.gif

Here is a pic of a couple of my baits in the above colours. They are not pretty but they do work pretty good....cool.gif

prop-baits.jpg

Poppers and Spooks I always use a Shad type pattern. (White belly  with dark back). Buzzbaits white or black, and frogs I pretty much only use the Bronzeyes, in either white or ive caught probly 50 or 60 fish on the same frog in Green Tree color. ;D

  • Super User

Your best first step is to forget all about color.

Ponder instead, all the many things that REALLY make a difference.

Site selection, furtive approach, lure type, lure placement, lure speed, lure cadence ~~~

Roger

When sunny, light/white/natural.

Dusk/Dawn and overcast dark/black.

  • Super User

I do like to try and match the forage. In clearer water frog colors almost always work, and black is great in both clear and murky water. I probably get more on black skirted buzzbaits than anything else. Clear is great when conditions are brighter. I think action has more to do with color when it comes to topwaters, but the general rule of picking natural forage colors in clear water and highly visible colors like black or chartreuse in murky water does hold true.

Your best first step is to forget all about color.

Ponder instead, all the many things that REALLY make a difference.

Site selection, furtive approach, lure type, lure placement, lure speed, lure cadence ~~~

Roger

x2...i don't think about color much here.

Your best first step is to forget all about color.

Ponder instead, all the many things that REALLY make a difference.

Site selection, furtive approach, lure type, lure placement, lure speed, lure cadence ~~~

Roger

Couldn't have said it better myself! I found that noise and retrieve speed are far more important!

  • Super User

With the exception of wake baits it doesn't matter...

Darker colors always work for me, solid black with various patterns. But for sure some black on it. I really think color doesn't matter that much, action and the fact it makes a silhouette is more important

if theres alot of shad i use a zell pop with white on bottom yellow on top. but if im fishing a lake with just bluegills like i did back home in northern michigan i used bronze colored pop rs or black back silver belly.

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