Whats more important, paint or action ?

[BobP]

I bet different species of fish vary in which bait attributes are critical, important, nice to have, or meaningless. Talking about largemouth bass, I've seen lots of "favorite lures" with almost all the paint eaten off of them - but still catching bass like crazy. That suggests color is probably not the most critical factor for this species. Sure, better is better. If EVERY lure factor is right you'll catch more fish. Ok, you're loading the boat on a #5 Threadfin Shad Shadrap. You get broke off. What do you tie on now: Any #5 Shadrap you have in the boat, or a Norman DD-22 in Threadfin Shad? It isn't hard to answer.

[hazmail]

One more thing;

Ever been out fishing with friend and both of you are using the same type of lure just different color patterns. Can you explain why a particular color pattern will either catch more or the only color catching them?

This happen a lot to me. On a trip someone catches the first fish, the 1st question asked will be, "What color?" Changing never fails me. Even if i just change to the same color on a different type of lure.

I'll second that, have been there many a time. pete

[hazmail]

Swede, weren't that suppose to be our little secret? I hint at it and you let the cat out of the bag.

La Pala /Swede- This probably should be in a new topic, but I suppose it comes under

[LaPala]

Pete, Maybe if someone start a thread on color we could go to some length about it. Lets keep this to action or color.

There will always be different opinions about this as we are also talking about different base conditions. Clarity of water, sunny or cloudy day, target fish species,...etc etc. We could do it this way maybe we'd get more conclusive answers.

Action or Color or Both?

1. Gin clear water, sunny day, man made dam, fishing for bass

2. Gin clear water, sunny day, river system, fishing for walleye

3.Murky water, overcast, man made 1 acre pond, fishing for catfish

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.

..... and so on and so on

[Mr.J.]

I find this an excellent subject open to much debate.

For me I find both action and color play an equally important role.

My favorite lure of all time is called a BullDawg. The action is amazing and has always produced the best for me both in quality and quantities. When one color is not getting me results I don

[Vodkaman]

I agree with you, that monster certainly does qualify you as a sucessful lure designer, congratulations.

It looks like a combination of hard bait and soft bait, using the soft bait as the active component. I would love to see a close up pic.

This thread has taught me that action is paramount, but if the lure is the wrong colour, the fish can get fussy. I too have witnessed this phenomenom, fishing for perch. They are known for preferring red. My tests appeared to confirm this fact. All the trout that I caught were on a silver and black striped lure and the lime green caught nothing. All the lures were the same size and same model.

This test was performed over five evenings, last October. I rotated the lures every 20 mins. Hardly conclusive evidence, but a definite trend.

[Mr.J.]

Actually to my surprise the whole bait has action.

It wasn't planned that way. My intention was for the wooden part to run true and straight and the tail to provide "the action" but by some fluke the body had a bit of a wobble to it so the whole lure has a very dynamic moton.

Once I am at a point where I am ready to show it off I will, but not just yet, one more thing to work out but I am now at a point where I feel I can offer up points and tips to others on this board.

Fishing is just at the peak period up here in Canada for pike and musky so once there's ice in I'll have the time to add to the vast knowledge of this board.

Hopefully we'll still have open water in December, the girls (fish) are starting to fatten up this time of year.

Fish on.

[smirkplug]

Thanks for all the feedback, and i still want action as a first choice when im out on a lake, then when i find the right color, i often repaint the plugs that have the right action the color im most comfortable with for different sitiutations. I guess it never ends,

[smirkplug]

One more point as i get older and more blind is i started painting the tops of my topwater plugs red so i can see where the heck they are. Im tired if seeing a fish swim by and saying to my friends "look hee's got somthing in his mouth, then realizing its my lure !!! also out west stripers and white sea bass are suckers for pearl white, and calicos in mexico are suckers for red white red, if that helps anybody.

[Snax]

Without a doubt, action (and shape/size) before paint. I've caught so many fish on my baits while testing them out in the bare wood stage. The size/shape and action is what will do most of the triggering on active fish. Now there are times when a certain pattern can outproduce others. Perch would be a good example of this where I live and fish. I'm pretty well known for painting realistic styled baits but I spend the most time during production on making certain that they swim right before they ever see a drop of paint.

[6_feet_deep]

I'm new to this site and I find this topic of discussion a very interesting one. I fish for Largemouth Bass and live in NC. I am by no means ready to join the Classic, but do consider myself a bass fishing enthusiast and just recently started painting plugs for pleasure. Needless to say I've been thinking alot about color & action of plugs here recently.

I guess my two cents on the subject would have to say that both action and color are equally important when fishing for largemouth. Each may play an important role over the other on any particular day, but the inconsistencies day to day are very consistent. What I mean by this is that each fish within a species, I believe, follow certain instinctual habits. Those are consistent, but I think they also have daily habits and those are very inconsistent and change from week to week or day to day or hour to hour even.

I believe that a largemouth, on some days, will bite anything that comes in front of them...regardless of color or action and I think that same fish can become very picky the very next day or even later in the same day. We all know that there are many factors in fishing...what type of moon, barometric pressure, rain or shine, clouds or clear, stained or clear water, outside temp., water temp., time of year, time of day, and the list goes on and on and on. I think all of these factors determine action or color or both on that particular day, but that may be different the next day.

I guess, for myself, trying to place importance on action or color over the other is like trying to pick my favorite between mid spring or mid fall.

[woodieb8]

depending on whats needed. we do trolling cranks. its action then color.. bottom line is go fish period the fish will let ya know.

[MR KNOW IT ALL KIND OF]

Hey 6 feet are you a FORD or Chevy guy!! I got the lure your lookin for!!

[mark poulson]

In my large mouth bass fishing I've found that these two basic lure attributes, action and color, are important at different times and in different circumstances.

Action is key on reaction baits, lures that move quickly and elicit an instinctive reflex strike. A lure going by so quickly that the bass either grabs it or misses out. Fat bass grab it, skinny bass don't and starve.

Color is critical in slower moving baits, which are typically fished deeper, and trick bass into thinking they are food items. At that point, an erratic movement can trigger a reflex strike, because the bass thinks the prey is escaping.

Aggressive bass will nail a fast moving lure. I've found it has more to do with the season than the individual fish.

Fish in a cold front or high pressure situation, especially in clear water, will follow a slow moving lure, but won't strike unless the color is right. That's why, out here in SoCal, we fish drop shot and split shot and light Carolina rigs with weightless plastics when it's tough. But in late winter, spring, and summer, we can throw chatterbaits with the best of the "good old boys" from the southeast, and hammer the agressive, high metabolism bass.

Action in a soft plastic, if it's subtle, like the Basstrix paddletail or the fluke, can combine the two, but, even then, you may get bit for different reasons during different seasons on the same bait.

[6_feet_deep]

Very well said mark...down here there are certain times of the year, like now, when one week the lows will be in the 20's and the highs in the low 40's, but the next week it will be lows in the 40's and highs in the 60's. Who knows what the next week will bring...these are tough games to play with fish. These are the reasons why I agree with you about action and color both being important for different presentations and situations. There have been days on High Rock Lake that you could put your boat in with the brightest sun imaginable and temps in the mid 40s early in the morning and by the afternoon you couldn't see the carpet in the boat because of snow and freezing temperatures. Better yet the drought we had that caused it to drop almost 24 feet within a week or two...being a shallow lake, fishing was truly crazy. Bt we certainly don't deal with the pressure that you guys deal with and all of the deep clear water.

Either way there is nothing like going out in spring when you can flip a jig into a bush and battle out a hungry 8 pounder...I know, I know, 8 pounds is nothing to you guys that have 19 pound hybrids, but down here we have mitchell reports on fish...hehehehe

[6_feet_deep]

Hey 6 feet are you a FORD or Chevy guy!! I got the lure your lookin for!!

Whatever will get me to the lake fast ...What lure am I lookin for Tater?

[mark poulson]

Geez, my hands hurt just reading about snow!

8lb fish are great where ever you fish, east or west.

The guys who catch big fish out here, I'm talking teens, may go a month without a bite, throwing big swimbaits, depending on the season.

For guys like me, when the conditions are right (rainy and windy) our odds go up, and so we throw the swimbait.

But the dedicated big bass fishermen out here throw big all year, from hot to cold, and from crystal clear to chocolate. They are dedicated, and that's why they catch the monsters they do.

There's a video out, "Big Bait Posse", that the big fish guys from Casitas put together. If you want to see some nice fish caught, take a peek at it. I think it's on sale online at Basstackledepot.com.

[Kribman]

I would say flash might be as important as paint or action. A good sharp flash can get almost any fish to bite!

[338muskie]

OK I troll mostly muskie. I have one type of lure that catches more muskie them the other. I've got about 10 colors of it. The one color gets more hits them the other. I gotten more of the same color and it still get more hits then eney other color. So I think it has something to do with the color.

338 Muskie

[smirkplug]

Dear 338muskie, doesn't that one lure have better action than all your other lures ? If you tried another type of lure with your favorite color would it get bit as much as your one favorite type of lure in a different color ? I hope you have alot of fun deciding and comparing.