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Location: Lincoln Park, Mi | I've been doing custom lures for a few months now. In that short time I've noticed a significant trend. Order after order is to take very detailed and expensive lures and to change them to simple 2-toned color schemes. No stripes, gill markings, nothing, just two colors and eyes. Is all that detail and flash just sucking us in with no fish to show for it? Can anyone say for sure that gill marks, stripes, painted vs 3-D eyes, or scale patterns made a difference? My opinion, even before I noticed the trend, is that especially in trolling situations, fine detail is, for the most part, pointless. Definitely some exceptions though. IMHO, fish mostly need a color that is visible and distinctive in that depth and clarity of water and the lure has to have a realistic/appetizing action. Any other opinions? |
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Location: Upper Sandusky Ohio | I think a certain amount of flash is important. Even if it's as little as as some prizm tape. Bait fish just have that eridescent appearence to them that flashes when they scatter. |
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Location: Lincoln Park, Mi | Now, that's one thing I do believe in......... the holographic or fading flash. Especially along the lateral line of shiners and other baitfish. I think the color transition along the lateral line area is important, but gill marks and such are a waste in most situations. |
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Location: Upper Sandusky Ohio | I agree with you on the real Intricate details. I don't think it's needed at all. I had a famous Lure maker tell me once that more fisherman are caught on fancy finishes than fish, and if you look at his baits,(Reef Runners) the detail on eyes, and gills are not that detailed. I believe what make his baits work so well is the Profile, and base colors |
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| I'm not a big troller, but when I did spend time trolling abit, I thought the most important thing was to have a strobe effect created by the colors of your lure. Mostly, I thought those were best achieved by lures that had what I called a front to back roll to them. Something that looked like a real minnow or bait fish that seemed to move from front to back.
Of course, what do I know, I took up bobber fishing because it was more productive!!  |
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| Terroreyes, I've been custom painting cranks for about 10 years now and selling tackle for close to 20. Dang I am old. When I first started everybody wanted all the fine details like you mentioned. During the past 2 years most guys and gals have gone away from the detail and are asking for the same thing your talking about. 3 or 4 color cranks. "THANK THE GOOD LORD". Several years ago I painted up a bunch of fine detailed cranks and then the same basic colors with no detail. I came up with the same basic results you did. Although I will say that when handlining quite often I do see a difference in stick baits that get the tiger striping. Other than that for me no noticiable difference. I also agree with your comment about the visibility at different depths. But would throw in the thought of contrasting colors on the same crank. I have a lot of cranks that go to Eire and it seems a lot of the captains want contrasting colors. Hutch |
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Location: Rhinelander | This is a subject the Muskie guys over at MuskieFIRST have taken to the limit of what we know about fish vision and color, water clarity/depth and color,and more.
General consesus is that as a result of the fish's eye structure and the physical properties of water and light, fine detail is irrelevant; in fact, most cases the fish can't see it at all. I have always been a strong proponent of contrast so the fish can pick out the bait against the background. |
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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Terror.
Being you just arrived I brought back to the top a thread I posted a few days ago. "Is it what their not seeing" is the title. Might be some intersting insight for you...and then maybe not. |
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Location: Lincoln Park, Mi | Thank you. Lots of good info. I'm becoming more and more of a believer in white bellies. When I paint my cranks, I usually paint the belly either white or silver and then rock it back and forth with all the colors on to make sure the white flashes in and out. Too much or too little belly color and you don't get that "flash" effect. |
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Is all that detail a waste of money?