lure color selection

“What color lure should I use?” That is a simple question that doesn’t have a simple answer.

Over the years I’ve written articles on most of the major gamefish in central Florida waters. I’ve interviewed many fishing guides and angling experts. I’m struck by how one guide will recommend certain colors while another expert swears by a completely different set of colors. If you want an interesting experiment, go on an online fishing forum and ask what is the best color for a particular species of fish. You might be surprised by all the different answers you get. None of those folks are wrong. Those are the colors that work well for them. This convinces me that anglers are usually pickier about lure color than the fish are.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore color altogether. There are certainly days when the color of your lure can make or break your day. There are a number of guidelines to help one dial in on the correct colors for the day. An obvious one is match the hatch, which dictates you choose lure colors that match the predominant forage in the area. Another theory says to use lighter, natural, subtle colors in clear water and bright conditions, and dark or bright colors that stand out when the water is dingy and light is low.

When fishing techniques allow, I’ll often fish different colors at the same time to help narrow in on the hot color for the day. For example, I learned long ago that when surf fishing with a pompano rig that a colored bead or float next to the hook usually gets more bites than a bare hook. Beach fishing experts can tell what color to use based on water clarity and surf conditions. I’m not an expert so I’ll start out with a different colored float on each dropper loop. When the number of bites tell me which color the fish prefer, I switch all droppers to that color. I use the same approach when jigging for crappie and shad on the St Johns River. I fish tandem jigs, each one a different color to see if the fish have a preference that day.

One local species that is quirky about lure color is black drum. Since drum feed primarily on crustaceans, logic would dictate tans and brown that mimic shrimp and crabs would be the colors to use. Drum don’t follow the same logic I do. Although I’d catch them occasionally on tans and browns, success was sporadic at best. My success rate skyrocketed when guide Scott Nichols recommended I try black lures. For reasons I can’t explain, drum will gobble up an all black lure when they ignore the more realistic looking crab and shrimp lures. A few years ago a purple shrimp lure from Q8 Superbaits shook up my drum fishing paradigm yet again. For most of my fishing career I would sworn purple was a horrible color for saltwater fishing, but man, that purple shrimp sure catches the black drum, even better than black. I guess the lesson here is even an old salt like me can learn something new if we are willing to break out of our comfort zone and try something different.

A few years ago I visited the D.O.A. lure factory in Stuart Florida. I wandered through a warehouse lined with bin after bin of the iconic D.O.A. Shrimp. Each bin was filled with a different color, and I thought some of those colors were hideous, like bubblegum pink with a green belly and purple with a white nose. I mentioned to Mark Nichols, the owner and inventor of D.O.A., that I thought some of those colors were horrible. He agreed but said every one of those colors had their fans who would swear that was the color you need to use in their local waters. That leads me to what is perhaps the most important consideration when it comes to lure color, which is confidence. If you are confident in the lure you are throwing, you will fish it harder, fish it longer and focus more on every cast. That alone will help you catch more fish. So if you are a fan of bubblegum pink with a green belly or purple with a white nose then by all means fish those colors.