The Purple Pumpkin

[CrappieJohn]

We are starting to see a lot of jabber about what seems to be working best now. At the stage of ice we are also starting to see the fish getting into the finicky bites which means we are needing to toy with lots of baits just to stay abreast of a decent bite.

Before the ice season even got underway I had stopped at JRs to get some tackle to fill open spots in the box and stumbled across a pumpkinseed bait in glow purple. It was a size 10. I got to use that bait on two different outtings before a bass decided to change ownership. On both of those occasions this particular color of jig was simply HOT and even outfished my heavily-relied on "red-glow"....in any style of jig. Well, Joel at JRs made me up a batch of twenty of these as a special order and I got them yesterday. I got to wondering how these looked when compared directly to other glow colors. I wanted to see what I thought made them better than the red.

I started by placing green, red, yellow, regular, orange, blue and the purple glow on a sheet of heavy white paper and charging them all equally at one time using a high-intensity halogen shop light.(Note: I did not use any specific brand or maker and tried to mix things up in that respect. My sole goal was to see what the different colors looked like when veiwed together under an exact circumstance and not a product comparison.) The paper with the attached samples was then placed in a totally dark room. What I saw was amazing. Indeed, I had a sheet full of color. The regular glow, yellow and green were well lit and their colors were fairly pure and cast some, but not a whole lot, of aura. The blue, of course, was the weakest of all the colors and shed a tiny bit of aura. The red and orange were absolutely ignited and threw a color band around each representaive jig for some distance. These colors really belched an aura even after they had a chance to "mellow" a bit. Now the purple....This one didn't show up quite as purple, red, or blue. Its sort of hard to describe, but to say it appeared as red with a blue filter might be the best. It had the fiery intensity of the red, but not with that bold aura cast around it. It was certainly much more apparent and visible than the blue.

I kept these jigs in the dark for half an hour and checked on the "available" glow every five minutes. The standard glow, the green, yellow, and blue wre still going strong at the 1/2 hour mark. The red glow was still there, but very faint. Likewise with the orange, but perhaps not as muted as the red. The purple was right in the middle for intensity. But....the once purple now was coming off as more red and without an aura!

What I saw under a very controlled atmosphere is might help to understand how different colors can affect your fishing and not just from the color aspect. I absolutely believe that the amount of area lit up around the jig when it is in the water, the aura, directly affects the fishs' perception of size or profile....what looks like a size 10 jig to our eye may come off as a size 4 to a crappie or sunfish. If this jig is a minnow or pumpkinseed shaped to our eye, it may look like a softball to them! And at this time of year, size IS relevant.

While we see the need to go micro about now, maybe it would be wise to vacate the glow venue for a while as well? At least in the most radical glow colors of the orange and red. Pink wasn't tried (I didn't have any), but I know from the past that it too has a bright halo around it and would fall into the red/orange realm. This purple though, without the radical perimeter show, showing an almost red, might be a do-able color. From experience I know that there is something about it that triggered the dickens out of the sunfish and crappies. It came off as the better color when even the red glow was doing well. Incidently, when this purple glow out-did the red glow the lures were identical in shape and size, and maker.

When I ordered these little guys I also had a few #10 glo-bugs painted up like-wise with a single eye. I have yet to use these baits, but when things are ok to a little larger profile and a vertical presentation these should turn heads too.

I'd like to see this color in a smaller, narrower horizontal jig. Getting a "reddish" glow with a narrow profile would have to be the ticket when the demands for downsizing hit hard.

The only down side to the purple glow that was apparent was the charge time....fully a minute in duration with the eight led light to really have it stand out. It might even be harder to charge than the blue. Temps while on the ice can come into play when it gets to lighting up the jigs and an even longer charge time might be needed if a person is outside of a heated house or portable.

This is not a common color, but one I think merits having on hand. I think it fills a niche that hasn't been looked at very seriously in the past.. I know I'm happy to have them back in my arsenal. I am not certain how many makers can provide you with this color carded up in the stores, but it can be put together without much trouble by any of several jig makers of larger size. Joel at JR's helped me out and I can think of at least one other maker on site who is a sponsor and could make them without much trouble. JR's is a site sponsor and their line of goods can be seen by going to "FM Sponsors". Again, I think this color of glow jig has a definite place in the box.....glad I got mine!

[Corey Bechtold]

Tom....were you wearing your special "Crappie" view glasses during this experiment?

That is a great piece of work Tom! Let us know how these newer colors work in different water clarity's/depths. And if your at it, which colors work for different species of fish as well.

May the force be with you,

Corey Bechtold

p.s.

sorry about the smilie! lol

[CrappieJohn]

Stand corrected Corey....I have had the "CrappieView" corrective surgery done and no longer need glasses. As for the purple glow. When I had the chance to use it those two times, it got the attention of crappies, sunfish , perch, and,of course, baaaaas.

On those two occasions the fish were on the red no problem but this purple was a 300 percent increase in action....as in a hit one right after the other as compared to a hit every three drops. I dug into other colors those days and found the red to be the only solid producer until I got the purple on there. I was talking to MJ about this and he has used the purple glow, but I'm not certain what kind of luch he had.

I think the difference is not so much the red glow, which both exhibit, but the lack of that huge corona which can be found around the red. When completely charged, the purple glow is almost a red with hardly any color radiating away from it and not making it look four times the size it really is.

That ring of fire around the red glow can, or could, be the culprit for people finding it a hard one to fish. If this is an issue with the fish and how they see things down there, especially glow jigs, they might be looking at the sun compared to the moon. Get my drift?

[Corey Bechtold]

I totally understand! One thing I must do is get that "Crappie View" corrective surgery for my eyes like you got! lol

Tom, you've got mail

Corey Bechtold

[Matt Johnson]

Purple glow can be phenomenal! If I had to pick the two best glow colors they would be red and purple, but purple is much harder to find then red so not as many people use it. Purple glow definitely gives off a different appeal than red, like Tom mentioned. It's something different to fish, just like its different to us. Remember the "big plastics" craze that swept the muskie world several years back? The time when big plastics were not as common as there are now and those that used them for muskies had incredible success? I kind of look at it in that sort of fashion. These panfish (and other gamefish) are less accustom to seeing purple glow, let alone purple of any sort, and you will see a lot of reaction strikes. Fish don't know, so they decide to eat. Tough for humans to understand, but it works wonders under the ice. "Curiosity killed the cat", well, in this case, curiosity stuck the fish

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[riverrat56]

Where can a guy get some of these purple glow jigs?

[CrappieJohn]

JR's Tackle is the only place I have found them, but there may be others who can put them together. Jr's is a site sponsor and they can be reached at jrstackle.com. They are real helpful.

[Down to Earth]

Tom,

I only saw #6 and #2 listed on JR's site. were the #10's a special order for you or do you need to stop in their store for those? Thanks.

Andy

[CrappieJohn]

Andy...Joel is good about helping people out with custom orders.

[decoy]

I saw them on line. Nice looking jigs. When I went to order a couple... Ouch, that shipping hurt. $8.95 for two jigs? Well, I'll have to wait unil I see them somewhere or can afford to make a good size purchase.

Too bad for me, I have to wait....

decoy