Custom Baits - Forum
Soft Plastic Bait Making => Color Cook Book => Topic started by: jmatheny9 on 01/02/14 13:22 UTC
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Anyone have any colors they have consistently caught river smallmouth on? You don't have to give exact recipe just general idea :p pictures would be awesome
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watermelon red
watermelon red
watermelon red
did I mention watermelon red?
also -
smoke purple
pearl blue
cinnamon green
watermelon red
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I've got the watermelon red down already but thanks! Is the smoke purple just smoke with purple flake?
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yeah - 1 drop x2 black + large purple flake - if you want a hint of excitement, add small red flake as well - see - http://custombaits.com/index.php?topic=4332.0
for watermelon red - use x2 watermelon brown (2drops per ounce) and large red/small black flake.
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Thank you sim. I'm gonna have to try the smoke out on a lil toad sticker
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Green Pumpkin, just a bit darker than normal. In the K-chub with garlic sent added. Crushes them.
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Funny.....there was a Jmatheny9 who posted a great two color in another thread that would be a great smallie color.....maybe add a hot orange tail to the one.
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Ctom you can't tell me you don't want to expand your knowledge every chance you get!
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Try your two color body with an orange tail. Talk about the fish later.
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Alright I'll try to figure it out tomorrow. We should be having a snow day so I'll keep you posted. What color orange are you thinking? Same as belly color?
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Watermelon (with a drop or two of brown) red flake is my best smallmouth color.
And 2x what CTom suggested... The above with an orange tail. Or cut up one of your 2 color earthworm color that you posted for tails.
Fished wacky.
Also, black with blue flake.
I'm going to shoot some in "Mo-milk"...that just
Looks too good to pass up!
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I like the look of MO Milk but I've never done any good on bright colors. Only natural buggish colors
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I like the look of MO Milk but I've never done any good on bright colors. Only natural buggish colors
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When fishing smallmouth with bright colors you need to fish them fast. Natural colors you would fish slower. Example. You can not crank a bright color spinner bait or crank bait to fast. A smallmouth can out run any speed you can crank it. The bright color just gets his attention.
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I like the look of MO Milk but I've never done any good on bright colors. Only natural buggish colors
To go along with what Lamar has said, keep in mind that fish do not see colors the same way we do.
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A good bright color for smallmouth is "ElectricSnot"...green chartreuse (or yellow chartreuse) with rainbow glitter (black, red, green, blue...whatever to got).
Super wacky worm color.
I've also done surprisingly well with white wacky worms and really well with white minnow baits (like a grub or 4" carrot). The bright colors are good if they are on the bed (or just about ready to bed) and you often just see the worm disappear without feeling anything because they are hitting it and running towards the boat (direction of retrieve).
FYI...The Freedom Fry mold is a super smallmouth worm, especially wacky but I also like to fish it Carolina Rig or Lindy rig (for us Northern folks).
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imho i have allways had good lucky with greenpumpkin and smoke or smoke with hologold and black flake
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Welcome aboard wallyc.
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thank you ;D
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I fish NEPA for river smallmouth. I use a 5" GYCB single tail grub knockoff moldalmost exclusively for smallmouth and walleye kill it in the winter. My favorites are green pumpkin brown with the micro moss green glitter and a little black flake and i doctor the tail with a chartreuse zoom marker, light green pumpkin green or smoke with blue and moss green flake also tail doctored with marker, and a straight up chartreuse grub with black flake when the water is dirty...but by then in warm water I might be throwing a chartreuse spinnerbait.
Did I mention accenting with chartreuse...man, they hate chartreuse...gives me nightmares....
Im going to go against the grain here and say that I have never had nearly as much luck with watermelon red in this part of the country as I have with green pumpkin, green pumkin w/ green and blue variants, and various smoke concoctions.
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We trie a little bit of chartreuse with black flake lizards last year and did alright. I will give the green pumpkin with green and blue a try
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The straight chartreuse really only works well in cloudy water. In clear water I just accent the tail a little for a bit of flash when that grub tail flutters. If you aren't fishing with at least one rod with grubs tied on then you aren't really smallmouth river fishing...IMHO. I used to fish tubes for years but grubs are just more versatile. You can drag them, dead stick them, jig them, or swim them. I use them 90% of the time in my favorite mentioned colors.
I will be honest, those colors are fairly negotiable most of the time. Sometimes I just melt up some old plastic that is kind of close and go to work. I feel like most of the time the presentation of the bait and location are so much more important. I used to obsess over color nuances, but have in recent years spent that obsessing time learning more about smallmouth behavior and how that relates to my local waters.
I used to carry dozens of colors of each bait. Now I limit myself to three shade. Blacks/smokes, medium greens/browns, and whites/brights. If I can't catch them with one example from each of those categories, then color wasn't the problem that day. Sometimes guys think if they could have just found the subtle shade difference that was hot that day then they would have slammed them. If you aren't catching them with three shade examples, then you need to evaluate the rest of the fishing equation.
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Thanks chase. This year is going to be a huge experience trip. I know how to catch them where I am at, and a lot of them. But I want to try the new things, things other people around me haven't and improve on them. Adding in to account phases and conditions to it. My hope is to keep an extensive record on it throughout the whole summer and write something up for everyone on the forum. Some things may be useless but it's worth a shot. I appreciate the tips with the grubs, as I don't use them... Ever! They will be put to use this year though, do not doubt that :)
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The straight chartreuse really only works well in cloudy water. In clear water I just accent the tail a little for a bit of flash when that grub tail flutters. If you aren't fishing with at least one rod with grubs tied on then you aren't really smallmouth river fishing...IMHO. I used to fish tubes for years but grubs are just more versatile. You can drag them, dead stick them, jig them, or swim them. I use them 90% of the time in my favorite mentioned colors.
I will be honest, those colors are fairly negotiable most of the time. Sometimes I just melt up some old plastic that is kind of close and go to work. I feel like most of the time the presentation of the bait and location are so much more important. I used to obsess over color nuances, but have in recent years spent that obsessing time learning more about smallmouth behavior and how that relates to my local waters.
I used to carry dozens of colors of each bait. Now I limit myself to three shade. Blacks/smokes, medium greens/browns, and whites/brights. If I can't catch them with one example from each of those categories, then color wasn't the problem that day. Sometimes guys think if they could have just found the subtle shade difference that was hot that day then they would have slammed them. If you aren't catching them with three shade examples, then you need to evaluate the rest of the fishing equation.
In general, I agree with you - we often overthink what we need to catch fish - I still carry a good selection of colors - here's why.
My wife and I fish ALOT of grubs - its our 'go to' bait - for along time, we kept losing 'tails' - we'd get the nibble, react, and pull back a tail-less grub.
We blamed it on 'little monsters' every time - you know - tail biters, smaller fish - gills and the like.
One day - we switched colors - blue -> brown, etc - we started catching decent fish - same area, same everything else - just a color change.
Lesson learned -
If you're getting bites, but not hooking up - the fish like everything about what you are doing EXCEPT the color - and a relatively minor change can help the fish commit.
Similarly - I've had days where "smoke purple" would not produce - but "smoke purple red" would - again - everything else being equal.
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watermelon red
watermelon red
watermelon red
did I mention watermelon red?
also -
smoke purple
pearl blue
cinnamon green
watermelon red
hows this for watermelon red? Made a few dozen today(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/22/gy5aze3e.jpg)
-Jeremiah
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Looks spot on.
To that color I add 1 (or 2) drops of X2 cinnamon for a watermelon/brn with red and black flake.
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Mine is 6 drops of bears watermelon with black and red .04 flake and some fire red 0.008 to give it that extra little pop in the sun. Hard to see in the picture though
-Jeremiah
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Thats a good watermelon red - I prefer X2 Watermelon Brown as my base - but that'll get their attention for sure.
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The reason I did it more of a green is because when I fish the lizards, they start out dark and they catch fish. But after they get tore up and the color fades is when they really work wonders. Could be a confidence thing, could actually be true but who knows! I will try both soon
-Jeremiah
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This is my most asked for smallmouth pattern.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/22/epydupug.jpg)(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/22/e7eteham.jpg)
#CBBDARMY @CustomBaitsByDrew
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Drew....those are sick. Absolute masterpieces.
Jmath....I can just see some gold or green hi lite in that watermelon plastic. I can close my eyes and just imagine what red hi lite would do. I'd give it a big lump. Then I'd omit the small red and bump up the amount of the .040 red and toss in a pile of .015 copper. That red hilite would have even Andy getting nervous....without any brown.
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Drew....those are sick. Absolute masterpieces.
Jmath....I can just see some gold or green hi lite in that watermelon plastic. I can close my eyes and just imagine what red hi lite would do. I'd give it a big lump. Then I'd omit the small red and bump up the amount of the .040 red and toss in a pile of .015 copper. That red hilite would have even Andy getting nervous....without any brown.
next week I'll show you how it turns out :)
-Jeremiah
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"That red hilite would have even Andy getting nervous....without any brown."
Maybe not...I think part of why my watermelon/brn looks so brown is the red flake is bleeding! :(
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In general, I agree with you - we often overthink what we need to catch fish - I still carry a good selection of colors - here's why.
My wife and I fish ALOT of grubs - its our 'go to' bait - for along time, we kept losing 'tails' - we'd get the nibble, react, and pull back a tail-less grub.
We blamed it on 'little monsters' every time - you know - tail biters, smaller fish - gills and the like.
One day - we switched colors - blue -> brown, etc - we started catching decent fish - same area, same everything else - just a color change.
Lesson learned -
If you're getting bites, but not hooking up - the fish like everything about what you are doing EXCEPT the color - and a relatively minor change can help the fish commit.
Similarly - I've had days where "smoke purple" would not produce - but "smoke purple red" would - again - everything else being equal.
Thats interesting Sim. I always enjoy hearing about others experiences. I personally have had the opposite results. I can usually switch colors of flake or various shades of smoke, green, or brown and really don't see a difference in catch ratio. However, the chartreuse marker accent gets me considerably more action. Funny though, a chartreuse poured tail doesn't work as well as the marker. I wonder if the tail pour is too gawdy and the marker just gives it a hint of glow in the water.
Drew, that is an amazing bait. If I'm throwing a crank or jerkbait it would have that color pattern with the chartreuse and a olive colored or black back. I have never seen that particular back color before...interesting...
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Thanks Chase, the chartreuse vein runs into fluorescent orange that meets fluorescent pink then is topped with black lightning. All of the colors involved are laid over a pearl base that basically turns them into candy fluorescents. This and it's blue version are not only my top selling colors but also top producing.
#CBBDARMY @CustomBaitsByDrew
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Here is the blue version (Blueberry Lemonade) and some of the spoils that come with.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/30/u3u4e8a3.jpg)
Pro Staffer Hunter Gregory from The OSU fishing team takes the win with some fat girls on CBBD
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/30/u2u5ara5.jpg)
#CBBDARMY @CustomBaitsByDrew
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Where are you getting that black, that is crazy
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It's two kinds of masking put together.
#CBBDARMY @CustomBaitsByDrew
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Ok sure looks good
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You are an artist my man...Thats like the sistine chapel of crankbaits. So much going on there in those colors.
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Thanks Chase!
#CBBDARMY @CustomBaitsByDrew