Colour of lure……

Does anyone have any opinions/experience of what colour of lure works better in what weather /water conditions?
For example:
bright sunny day = black lures
Dark cloudy day = White lures
Or Deep water use luminous, shallow water use fluorescent.
Please share your thoughts..

Does anyone have any opinions/experience of what colour of lure works better in what weather /water conditions?
For example:
bright sunny day = black lures
Dark cloudy day = White lures
Or Deep water use luminous, shallow water use fluorescent.
Please share your thoughts..

I try and match the lure colour to reflect the bait fish which your target species is likely to be feeding on.

Keep it simple is usually the best option.

Bright day, bright coloured lure. Dark day, dark coloured lure.

Theory is, on a bright day the sunshine penetrates the depths better to pick out the bright coloured lure. On dark days, the dark lure makes for a better silloutte (sp? ) for lurking predators.

I do like the theory of keeping things simple, though.

Bright day, bright coloured lure. Dark day, dark coloured lure.

Theory is, on a bright day the sunshine penetrates the depths better to pick out the bright coloured lure. On dark days, the dark lure makes for a better silloutte (sp? ) for lurking predators.

I do like the theory of keeping things simple, though.

I agree that its best to keep it simple, but I was out with Culdaff SAC yesterday, and while fishing over reefs for Pollack the normal simple approach of Rag being fished on a 6 to 10ft trace on a flying collar rig, was being out fished by a red tailed black jelly worm on a lead head hook, which was being fished from a spinning rod on the boat. The guy was just casting it out and letting it sink then retrieving it, he hit some good big Pollack. TBH ive never seen spinning from a boat before, and it got me thinking. The method mentioned above with the rag is normally unbeatable, but yesterday it just wasn’t working as well as normal. It was really overcast and dark yesterday which would tie in with what your saying about the dark lure being good on a dull day, so I wonder if the sun was shine’n would a fluro orange or Yellow jelly out fish the rag as well?

Transparent lure at this time of year in clear water. Deadly.

Bright day, bright coloured lure. Dark day, dark coloured lure.

Theory is, on a bright day the sunshine penetrates the depths better to pick out the bright coloured lure. On dark days, the dark lure makes for a better silloutte (sp? ) for lurking predators.

I do like the theory of keeping things simple, though.

I agree that its best to keep it simple, but I was out with Culdaff SAC yesterday, and while fishing over reefs for Pollack the normal simple approach of Rag being fished on a 6 to 10ft trace on a flying collar rig, was being out fished by a red tailed black jelly worm on a lead head hook, which was being fished from a spinning rod on the boat. The guy was just casting it out and letting it sink then retrieving it, he hit some good big Pollack. TBH ive never seen spinning from a boat before, and it got me thinking. The method mentioned above with the rag is normally unbeatable, but yesterday it just wasn’t working as well as normal. It was really overcast and dark yesterday which would tie in with what your saying about the dark lure being good on a dull day, so I wonder if the sun was shine’n would a fluro orange or Yellow jelly out fish the rag as well?

Who knows? Fish are weird.... Spinning a leadhead jellyworm from the boat over a reef is great fun. It's one of my all-time favourites. A good trick is to hang a strip of mackeral belly on the hook too - drives the pollock into a fenzy. Pat Robinson, who used to skipper The Cricket and was one of the first to fish that method, used to dispense with the jellyworm entirely. Strip of mackeral belly or back of mackeral, depending if he wanted bright or dark.

He caught an awful lot of big pollock that way.

i reckon all those bright colours in tackle shops are primarily for attracting anglers and separating
them from hard earned money.

someone was telling me recently they attached a bare lead to the reel line and lowered it to untangle
an overrun on the reel and they could feel big pollack grabbing the lead...so all you need is to
attach a hook to your lead for pollack

i know guys who have big plastic boxes of chartreuse, purple, gold, every other colour of jelly and shad
and when the see one guy catching on a particular colour they all switch to that and start
catching. I reckon the boat is just drifting in and out shoals of fish and colour doesnt matter.

[PaddyB]

Interesting opinion JW, and while a lot of people have anecdotal stories of Pollack practically jumping into anglers arms, the reality is often quite different. To use Sunday past as an example we were fishing over reef from a boat, and the usual technique of fishing rag on a 6 to 10ft flowing trace from an 8” boom was fishing quite slow and producing smallish fish, while another guy on the boat was spinning a red tailed black jelly worm with a mac strip and he was pulling in some nice big fish. There was some very experience anglers on the boat who I have seen pull 10 pollack out of the water in less than an hour using the rag/boom method while all around them are blanking. To fish competitively with those guys I think any advantage you can get will help, hence the question about colour of lure. I certainly don’t fancy my chances using just a piece of lead

Last edited by PaddyB on Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I certainly don’t fancy my chances using just a piece of lead

Thats half the battle Paddy,

Having confidence in the lure/method you are using.

someone was telling me recently they attached a bare lead to the reel line and lowered it to untangle
an overrun on the reel and they could feel big pollack grabbing the lead...so all you need is to
attach a hook to your lead for pollack

Ahhh but, yeah but, was it an old, dull faded lead, or a nice new bright shiney one?

I certainly don’t fancy my chances using just a piece of lead

Thats half the battle Paddy,

Having confidence in the lure/method you are using.

I know what you mean, as JW says it is comical to see people change their set-up after someone else on the boat lands their first fish! But rightly or wrongly in competitions, when you are limited to 10 of any species, the first one to land 10 determines when the boat moves on to target another species. There is a fine line between having Confidence in your set-up and being too stubborn to change when its not working. All I want from this thread is get other peoples thoughts on effects weather conditions have on type of bait or colour of lure. To gain a better understanding of what set-up I should choose to start with.

You would be amazed at what big pollock will take.
I have caught plenty on a small (Sized 14) salmon fly.

I have definitely found that it's not the lure you are using, but the speed.

If I fished the same fly at a fast speed I wouldn't catch anything, but a very slow jerking and I will be in fish all day.

The Jelly worm has much more action than rag at a slow speed.

black and red jellyworms are deadly also small orange shads i,ve caught lots of cod and pollockon these colours

i tend to use those colours as well, thought maybe we are all just copying each other

they have been making mackerel feathers with 6 different colours on them for more
than 40 years now, doesn't make a bit of difference to the mackerel though

pollock will take anything if they are around and you dont need fancy rigs to catch em , 4 weeks ago we were out off tuskar lighthouse for the day , i had the fancy rigs and the long flowing traces with various shads ,jellys and the rest and was totally out fished by two of my mates by plain and simple feathers. they took cod, bass, wrass, pollock and mackeral all in numbers and some good size fish too , and did they last out the slaggin!!!!!!!!

i use a shad or jellyworm with a different coloured tail than the main body.
prefaribly fire tails

Paddy i've found that leadhead jelly worm flicked away from the boat over shallower reefs a much more successful method than over deeper water reef or wreck, any where under 12 fathoms, particulary on a slowish drift the boom worm or jelly for that matter hasn't fished as well for me. As the boat drifts away from where you cast you then start your retrieve at a shallow angle which stays in the pollock's taking zone much longer than the boom and worm method which your buddies were using, i think it looks a little more natural especially if you replace the leadhead with a light ball lead and four foot of leader. At this point your almost into the flowing trace method but with a lot less lead and no boom it allows for a more natural presentation.

As Gerry says too, tip of your jelly with a long strip of mackerel or even do away completely with the jelly. When I first started fishing boat pollock it was with either a belly strip or back strap of mackerel on that light ball lead method and even now I've found that it still takes a better average size of pollock.

As for colour don't be afraid to change, some colours really don't work whilst others work for a few fish and you'll stop getting takes....change the colour and sometimes you'll start picking them again. I definetly have seen this happening whilst anchored fishing leadheads for pollock, two of us fishing two rods each were catching away on pink firetails when things started to go slack with only small plucks so changing to green chartreuse, a colour i didn't really rate, it was back into the fish again. My jelly colour preferences would be in order blk firetail, pink firetail, black, blue & silver, greeny yellow and blk with chartreuse tail. Hope this is of some help

Hi pete,

very interesting and informative post. My point about using the lead only was a bit tongue in cheek,
although in very deep water, 300 feet say, they will grab the lead presumably because there is
less light down there. On the other point though, just because you were not catching on pink
jelly worms, changed to green and started catching, how do you know a group of pollcak didn't happen
to arrive at the same time. Could it be confirmation bias (searching for or interpreting information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions) like someone who doesn't catch fish one day when the wind is from the northeast
and concludes this is the reason?