I spent the last few days at the Ultimate Fishing and Outdoor Rama in Grand Rapids wandering the floor, manning the Michigan Charter Boaters booth and attending seminars. (http://www.showspan.com/USG/Home.aspx) I had a good time, picked up a few helpful pointers and bought some more tackle and equipment to try out this summer, but this article is about lure selection and colors.
There are so many lures and lure colors to choose from these days that how do you know what to keep in your arsenal of tackle? Unless you have an un-limited budget you can’t justify stocking everything. Even if you can, who wants to have a whole Gander Mountain or Cabelas to sort through or lug along on the boat? Colors and designs are made mostly for the eye of the fisherman, since he is the one buying them and lure makers are in the business to make money and we can’t blame them for that, but most of us fishermen and women need to spend our limited funds wisely. Therefore it is good to know which colors show up in the water and which ones do not.
For example, did you know that red is the first color to get lost, or turn dark (black) as it goes into deeper water? Orange and yellow are the next colors to get lost in that order. It all depends on the clarity of the water, wave action, clouds and a number of other factors, but if you are fishing deep, you want your lures to show up and attract fish.
Some of the best colors to hold their color are gold, darker green, dark blue and fuchsia. Violet, white and silver are also good choices when going deep. Light blue and yellow turn to a white, so they will still be visible when fishing deep for lake trout, but red and orange will turn black and get lost in the low-light conditions of the bottom dwelling fish.
Of course there is also the option of using glow painted lures and/or ultraviolet reflective, both of which will attract more fish in deep water.
Sea Quest Lures, Inc. owner Richard Holm has studied this in depth (get the pun?) and has a book that shows how different colors look and change as the depth changes. See :http://www.seaquestlures.com/contact.htm for a link to contact him for a copy of the book. He also has a fine selection of attractive lures to choose from to satisfy that need to have more colors in us fishermen.
Brian Helminen
