Color question for the bassaholics

[Cooter]

Gonna be fishing Shell L in WI this weekend which has quite clear water. I'll be picking up some tubes, craws, and a few grubs beforehand and wanted some opinions for color choices - again, clear water and I'll be chasin smallies. I'm gonna guess natural/subtle colors but lookin for opinions. Thanks, later.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Greens-Watermellon seed, OR waternellonseed/Red flake

Browns-Pumpkinseed.

Are probably my go too colors for clear water.. I have quite a few more... Like if its overcast I will reach for june bug...

[SluggoMaster]

For worms, red shad has worked well for me in clear water for some odd reason. Otherwise, like Dietz said, watermelon and browns are good colors.

[Slyster]

Don't laugh at my avatar.. try bubblegum in clear water... sometimes when other things are slow I am sometimes surprised.

[RK]

Hiya -

For smallies, especially when swimming grubs and worms in clear water, I really like translucent colors like smoke, smoke/pepper, blue smoke, clear with silver or gold flake, clear (no color at all - hard to find but dynamite on clear water w/pressured fish), or laminated colors like translucent greens or blues with clear or smoke. If the smallies are fish-eaters (feeding on perch and shiners rather than primarily crayfish) swimming grubs and worms can really rock. The exception to the subtle translucent colors is burning grubs during mid-summer when the water's warm. Then, 5" grubs in loud colors like white, pearl, solid chartreuse or school bus yellow are good.

For tubes and craws, white, smoke or clear tubes for fish-eaters, pumpkin, watermelon, or black/blue flake for bottom hopping.

I honestly don't use craws much for smallies other than tipping a hair jig with a 3" power craw once in a while. If I use craw-like baits on a football head or something I am more likely to use a Brush Hawg with some of the flappers pulled off, or a Berkley Sabertail Bug. To me a tube is a better craw imitator than a craw-shaped plastic anyhow, especially of spooked crayfish that scoot up off the bottom then swim back down. If you ever want to see what I mean, catch a crayfish, lift it about 3' off the bottom, let it go, and watch it swim back down...

One bait style which not many people seem to use that can be great for smallies (and largemouth too for that matter) is a boot-tail grub like a Northland Mimic Minnow, Sassy Shad, or Lunker City Grub. Swim them slow and they sort of wobble along and thump a little. One of my standby baits for cold fronts or cold water...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Daze Off]

Nice craw imitator in any water can be green pumpkin/orange swirl - can find it in tubes, craws, senko knock-offs, brush hogs, etc.

Daze Off

[Cooter]

I saw a Yum brand craw imitation that looked very lifelike - anyone tried these? Thanks for the help so far guys. I figure between some soft plastics and husky jerks I'll have things covered, now I just need the weather to cooperate.

[TNFL]

I personally like the browns. Any ever use Waterdog? its kind of a brown mucky-yellow swirl. I use it all the time on a lake with 11 ft visible (alledgedly).

[bassman222]

Quote:

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I saw a Yum brand craw imitation that looked very lifelike - anyone tried these?

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Yum Craw Bugs............My favorite craw imitaion. They are hollow so you can use tube insert jigs and are very life like, I have great success using these.

[Cooter]

Cripes bassman, I just got back from Gander and looked at them and passed...your post was very untimely! Maybe I can make another stop tomorrow - thank goodness yesterday was payday....gonna pay out the you-know-what for petro this weekend Thanks much, you bassaholics are quite the crew!