I know everyone fished differently and for different fish, but everyone also has bait colors that they seem to prefer to over others. I'll admit that I am a color junkie and seldom will fish a solid color regardless of the bait. I love tail colors, especially chartreuse, on some baits that are not so easily injected as split colors and for those that do lend themselves to split colors I find myself with a few splits that are great fish catchers.
The top two are Do-It's 1.5" Thump-Its in junebug and bluegill glitter in clear and obviously both with chartreuse tails. Depending on whether it is a clear day or cloudy one or the other of this bait will start my day, along with a simple purple/purple glitter/chartreuse tail that I show so often in pics, without exception. Usually, the fish will dictate whether a change is needed within ten minutes of beginning to fish and then it is a color change between the two. If a slightly longer bait is called for then one of the Keitech baits [the bottom two] but I still will stick with the colors seen in the Thump-Its. Sometimes the Crappies are just different and want a profile bait that resembles what they're eating and if it is minnows then a Jacobs 1.5"Minnow bait goes on the jig and one of the three colors shown will start that party, usually the chartreuse shad then the smoke over clear shad. Sexy Shad has its days and when it works it is generally a killer. Not shown are the
The two Keitech baits seen each have a different color of tail piece. Of all the possible color combos that could be cooked up the two shown seem to be the best two colors for me when I need to leave the chartreuse tail venue. As a rule, the orange tail/chartreuse body lords over the blue bait but when that blue/pink tail take off, like the sexy shad minnow, it's a fire storm.... there's just something about the blue that can be a super good color on certain days. I'll mention that for the orange tail I use Do-It's fluorescent orange and a Spike-It color called "firetail", equal number of drops of each. You can see in the picture that the orange tail color likes to leech into the chartreuse a bit, so I keep this color separate from others and in a bag.
I kind of live by the "every dog has his day" ideology so I carry at least a few of several other baits, in the colors seen or mentioned here, that offer a wide variety of profiles and sizes and actions as well as colors one would consider more "natural". The 2-3/4" Fat Fry is a good bait to have along. The 2-1/2" Mo's and 2"Rad Tad and 2-1/4" Beetle Bug add some crazy action to one's tackle package while a 2-1/4" or 2-1/2" Fry is always a great bait right along with the Crappie Fluke and the 2" Ripper. The 2.25" Helgie is perhaps the most natural appearing bait one can have along and I really like this bait done in natural colors. For those who haven't tried it the chameleon colors offered at Spike-It makes a super nice Helgie. On the other end of the sizes the Wax Wiggler's larger size is always a trick plastic if one has to down-size big time.
One may ask what tackle storage system I am using to hold all these plastics. The answer is simple and cheap. I use a 5-gallon pail and keep all the plastics segregated by name in 4"X4" worm bags. And I don't carry 50 of each bait in each color: ten max for my popular baits and colors, maybe two of each in the others. All of the bags get a spray or three of Gulp juice since the bags are leak proof. As I use and wreck baits I simply add a couple to the bags when I get home.
Bass anglers know how quickly a bass will differentiate between colors and may or may not hit. Panfish and Crappies are closely related, and I have seen where even a subtle shift in, say purple to junebug, can make a world of difference. It pays to have a fairly broad assortment of baits and colors.
