Question for all

Just to clear the record my statement "I carry probably a hundred varieties of colors, tail shapes, lengths, transparent, translucent, opaque, floating, salted to sink, scented, and even eyes with rotating pupils." doesn't mean I carry all possible color schemes in worms. I mostly carry a few types of greens with and without flakes, purple shades, red shades, black, browns, white shades, and a few neon colors for when fishing dirty water and I must see the worm to know when it's getting lightly bit (disappears). By the time you multiply those colors by tail shape (paddle tail, ribbon tail, trick, etc.), and by those other features, I could lay out at least a hundred different worms. I definitely believe in one of those tail types being the ideal water displacer for the day or night. I use mostly ribbontail, curlytail, and paddle tail at night, and the quieter ones by day, the quietest in ultra clear water in lots of sun. I'd guess 90% of the time I have either watermelon red flake or purple tied on depending on depth, green for shallow, purple for deep. It's those times when a bite can't be bought on either that those other creatures are used. Sometimes it's a rare, weird one that does it. You know you have something special when boaters begin motoring over to find out what's working. "Good grief, Jim, what are you using?" They never have one. "Well, we're using Tequila Sunrise." I have to ask everytime "Well, are they biting it?" Of course the bass are not biting it or they'd have stayed put where they were. When watermelon red flake turns on I carry several bags of those, going through them pretty fast, especially when passing out a half dozen at a time to folks needing some. A color like that stays good sometimes weeks, then suddenly dies.

I've read all that about Martens, but other great worm pros have other favorites, too. They don't seem to agree much on an all-time "you must have" worm color pack. They don't tend to say much about which tail type they are using, and hesitate to get specific after a tournament too. Naming their standard colors is only a small part of the facts. Ever notice when they put out an article there is relatively very little meat to chew on? They might mention color and length, or brand, color and even model, or general worm rig like a "trickworm with a 1/8 oz ball jig". In Bassmaster magazine reviews of tournaments often brand of bait is "unknown". They keep secrets, and I think they stay on top partly by keeping the mouth shut as much as possible about what they actually do out there. A lot of good stuff will buried with them.

Green leafy substance!

Matching the hatch? It's more and more highly advised. Not particularly in color, but in length, bulk, and swim. Right now a 2 1/2" long Dare Devil spoon in the old red/white stripe is getting bit big time. It flutters down like a dying shad during this shad die off we're having. I never saw a threadfin colored like that. But they swim to the bottom sort of like that spoon, is about the size of a shad now, and sticks out in a crowd of hundreds of shad fluttering to the bottom. Maybe that red stripe looks like blood on a wounded dying shad.

An interesting thing to mention is this. At point 4 is a wide cove with shallow water in full shade all day now. Stripers by the hundreds are patrolling back and forth herding up baitfish in there, not letting them out. That keeps them in the coldest water, around 40-45 degrees, cold enough to make shad have a lot of trouble swimming, and at 40 they die. Smart stripers. They can handle the cold. It's a huge feed fest, and the bass are right in the middle of it all. The bass are smarter. They let the stripers do the heavy lifting out in the mouth of the cove while the bass scarf up hills of fish in shallower water.

Jim

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

I figure you are happy over that.

On Discovery Channel, maybe Animal Planet, I watched a piece on schooling baitfish. Very eye-opening. Come to think of it at least one school had a lot of pink come out all of a sudden. I just don't ever think I've seen a bit of color in inland schools. Their floating oil slicks do have shimmering colors.

One saltwater species groups up when threatened to form what looks like a huge shark or some other bad looking leviathan. Now how did they learn to do that? Makes me wonder about inland species like threadfin. They ball up so thick it looks like you could walk on them, or some other shape, or stretch out half a mile long in a narrow parade out in mid lake. Some college fisheries student ought to take that up for a Masters project. Actually very little is known about baitfish compared to say those trout. I've seen shad while diving, but up too close to make out an animal shape. The flash of their scales in unison gives one side of the school away. I figure when a school of predator fish threatens they make more than one change to their presence.