[oldschool]

A black and white crankbait does not necessarily represent shad, it is however the maximum contrast color combination in poor light conditions, like night. What you may have experienced was a hot reaction bite and you may not have tried other high contrasting colors. Chartruse and brown are both in hot color range, brown is close to red and chatruse is close to yellow/green. Think of primary colors; red, yellow and blue, everything is a mix of those colors. Chartruse/brown can be a crawdad color in off color water or a sunfish color. Shad colors are silver with purple/chartruse, therefor black/white maybe  closer to a shad, under poor light. Blue/chartruse may have been the ticket if sunfish were the prey or silver/purple for shad, only the bass knew and you had a couple of very good days on the water.
Tom

 

[oldschool]

Jim, At least I managed to post something on this board! In regards to crank baits, camo can be detrimental at times and blend into the environment so well that an active bass may pass on the lure and go after an easier injured real bait fish. Years ago we used cranks with vertical strips in cover and horizontal strips and spots or dots in open water. Adding small dark dots like blue to a chartruse back crank or black dots to green back swimbait seems to trigger bites in clear water situations. Sometimes these small modification can make the day.
Tom

 

[oldschool]

Color can be deep topic related to fishing and specifically bass fishing. Loren Hill's research to develop the color C-Lector is not generally accepted by the science community. My personell beliefs on this subject vary and conflict with experiences. Some years ago there was a study project done to determine if bill fish could determine colors, there is lots of money behind bill fishing! The results were that bill fish are color blind as we know colors and all predator fish in general are color blind, as hard as that is to believe. What may be close to the truth is fish see the ultra violet color spectrum in lieu of mixes of primary colors like we see. Several years ago I was catching bass on the Colorado river lakes using a dark red with purple blood line vain worm, then they stopped biting the worm. The bass would bite the original hand pored lot and not the new batch. the only difference was the dark red dye had been changed by the manufacturer. I contacted the mfr and asked if they had any of the original dye lot, the had some at a distributor and I bought it. The dark red worms came back to life and I was back into catching bass again on that worm. A similar thing happened to he Lew Eppinger company with their red and white striped spoons. Eppinger's paint supplier changed dye suppliers and the red / white spoon sales dropped off dramatically, until Eppinger discovered the problem. The human eye apparently sees colors differently than fish. Maybe someday we will know what they see, but until then we need to keep an open mind on the color subject.

 

[oldschool]

I thought only western bass fisherman were crazy enough to own every color combination worm ever made. Yes, the very first Creame worms were night crawler brown. Black, purple and brown worms ruled for the first decade or so, then 1970's Creame came out with the Scoundrel color plus, a brown that turned purple under water. Blood lines followed, then hand pored salt & pepper flakes, neon, etc. etc.
Aaron Martens may be the best worm fisherman on the tour and he is color blind! Aaron only fishes 3 colors; shad w/ translucent purple, Aaron's magic a green/blue/brown combo and People worms a cinnamon/blue-purple combo. Aaron can't see the flakes and could care less what they are. Maybe we should re evaluate what we are doing, although it would take all the fun out of looking for the flavor of the day. I agree with the contrast statement and is the reason my most product hair jig over a 30 year period has been a combination of black back, purple mid section and brown belly. Never have seen a crawdad that color, however those giant bass love it. All I need to do is determine through trial & error what color trailer to use; brown, purple or black...sound familiar?  like the original Creame worm colors.

 

[oldschool]

Somehow we have gone from lure color to soft plastics, I guess that is a natural path because of the variety of colors. Looking over the number of plastic worm boxes in my boat is revealing, 18 number 3700 and 6 number 3500 Planos filled with soft plastics! This may seem a little over the top when you also consider they do not include the bagged higher quantity storage or the night stuff. I first separate the boxes into colors; shad, green, brown, purple, cinnamon, oxblood and red. Then into sizes like 3 to 5 1/2", 6" to 7" and large worms over 8", plus boxes for Roboworms. Creatures by manufacture like Yamamoto, Reaction and Zoom and 2 additional swimbait boxes. The fact that I'm constantly up dating all this inventory and storing the old stuff starts to put bass fishing into focus, we believe that all these colors and sizes are essential to our success and must have them in the boat.
Not long ago a friend of mine was winning bass tournaments and won the Ranger boat he fishes with using a 5/8 oz. football jig with gold 4/0 Mustad hook, purple or brown vinyl skirts combined with brown, purple or black 3" pork trailer. The fact that is all he fished for over 20 years is amazing, when you consider he placed high enough to cover his entry fees and won a few tournaments each year. Maybe we should take a hard look at fishing simple. I can't even figure out how to reduce my worm boxes by one, let alone by 20.
TY

 

[oldschool]

Only 4 years and 3 months late.
Bait fish that school may have bright coloration to fool or alarm the bass and think it's one big fish instead of a school of small fish.
The lake I fish, Lake Casitas, hasn't had a hatchery rainbow trout planting in several months and the bass no longer react to trout color swimbaits. Amazing in just a few months how bass can change color preference depending on the available prey fish.
The jig bite has remained good however and that makes me a happy camper.
Tom