The Color Quest: Looking For Magic in a Bottle!
By Chuck Bailey
Some say that love makes the world go round, but in the crankbait world the driving force appears to be color. Nine out of ten times, when a partner’s crankbait starts catching fish, the first question we ask is “What color are you using?” Equipped with well developed eyesight, human anglers are a visually stimulated lot. If you doubt that, just open a crankbait catalog or walk down the aisle of the local tackle store – an artist would salivate over the palette of colors displayed there. Here color is king!
But should it be? And perhaps more intriguing is “How did color come to dominate (and complicate) the angler’s world?” Is there any sadder image than a beginning angler standing glassy-eyed and overwhelmed in front of a bewildering and endless display of rainbow colored crankbaits, mumbling “Look… at …all …the …colors”.
Hardbait enthusiasts are eventually led to the crankbait version of the ‘chicken and egg’ query; what came first, the thousands of color options that manufacturers put on the shelves hoping to create demand, or... insatiable anglers demanding more colors?
When a crankbait angler begins the long journey called the “Color Quest”, they are smart to seek out a guru. This week I climbed the mountain of angling knowledge and found a wise sage and guide in Jim Binns; a long time prostaffer and well known southern outdoor writer. When Jim speaks, it’s good for those seeking ‘color enlightenment’ to listen and take notes.
Though eager to start exploring the technical side of color selection, Jim stopped me and suggested we look first at ourselves as anglers. Having studied the psyche of fishermen, he began with this premise: “When it comes to color, anglers are often looking for ‘Magic in a bottle’. And that’s why we have 700 colors hanging on the wall”.
MAGIC IN A BOTTLE
When asked to expand on the term “Magic in a bottle”, Jim pointed to the increasingly popular angling logic that suggests - when everyone on a lake is throwing the favorite local colors, a fisherman looking for an edge will want to throw something different. Figuring the fish are getting conditioned, these calculating anglers seek a new color combination that will give them an advantage in a competitive tournament, or put more fish in the boat than their partner.
“Now whether that logic is right or wrong – that’s where their confidence level is," says Jim. "So if they switch to a neon blue with green sides and an orange dot, and they suddenly catch five nice fish, guess what they’re going be throwing next time? And all their neighbors are going to hear how they used this ‘Halloween’ color, and the neighbors are looking for ‘Magic in a bottle’ too.”
So enamored with their new ‘secret’ discovery, it never occurs to the anglers to ask this question: Could those five good fish have been caught using some of the old faithful standbys that have worked for so many years? Never-the-less, Jim says that lure manufacturers are aware that “There’s a niche market made up of 20-30% of anglers that are looking for the ‘Magic’.”
On the other hand, lure makers also know there’s another group of anglers who have tried the magic approach and overtime have concluded, “I can get just as many hits if not more using basic colors, such as your shad, crawfish, chromes and metallics…” In other words, color is not their primary concern when choosing a crankbait, and over time they have developed a simplified and renewed confidence in the standard combinations that reflect the natural forage unique to their region of the country.
MORE IMPORTANT THAN COLOR?
What’s more important than color? Jim says, “If a fisherman is walking into a tackle store… the first thing they need to decide is what ‘size’ of that bait is more effective for that time of the year.”
Taking his home lake of Toledo Bend, (or any of the local pressurized lakes in the later part of the summer), Binns explains, “These fish have been probably pounded on quite a bit, so your colors, to me, aren’t near as important as the size of bait you’re throwing.”
“Say, I’m throwing a lipless crankbait like a Rat-L-Trap in shallow water, it’s got to imitate the size of the forage that the fish are feeding on – or close to it. Coloring, to me, doesn’t have near the value as the size of the bait.”
“If you are throwing a ¾ ounce crankbait, and the fish are hitting little bitty minnows closer to the 1/8 ounce size, you’re most likely throwing the wrong bait. But if you’re throwing a smaller crankbait that matches the small minnows the fish are feeding on, you’re right on target. And I don’t think, (really and truly), that color is going to matter a whole lot, if you’ve got the right profile and presentation for that bait.”
“And remember too; a fast moving reaction bait permits only a certain amount of time for the fish to pick it up – and to decide ‘I’m going to hit it’, or ‘I’m not going to hit it.’ Whether that bait is gold with a black spot, or gold with a purple spot, or gold with a chartreuse belly… the fish’s reaction window is going to be pretty narrow and if it is to strike, that decision has to be made quickly.”
WHAT ROLE COLOR?
When considering the faster speed at which most anglers fish a crankbait, (and the rapid presentation's powerful ability to sometimes draw a strike from fish that would not otherwise hit it), one has to wonder if color plays a role at all. “Perhaps a minor role,” says Jim, “If you throw a crawfish color lipless crankbait knowing that you have some crawfish that in your lake, that’s fine. But you know, (and I hesitate to say this because nobody is going to believe it), but I have never seen a crawfish swim by my boat at 50 miles an hour.”
Ironically, if an angler underestimates the importance of size, speed, wiggle, vibration, and presentation, Jim says they will overestimate the importance of color. As they diagnose the reason for a successful day on the water, inevitably they conclude it was due to the color they were throwing.
CONFIDENCE
Is that all bad? “No, because if you feel like the fish’s reaction is due to that color, I guarantee you’re going to throw that bait much more often, and with more confidence.” And confidence is the key to fishing any crankbait, irregardless as to whether that confidence comes from fact or fiction.
With faster moving baits that wobble, vibrate, and produce extra sound due to rattles, the fish are more likely to hear with their ears and sense the bait with their lateral line before they see it. If a Texas angler is quickly retrieving a lipless crankbait, he may logically go with a crawfish color because, as Jim puts it, “…if the bass are used to feeding on them, maybe they catch a glimpse of that red pattern, and it equates to that little bitty brain of theirs ‘that’s natural’. …natural food.”
NATURAL COLORS
Jim elaborated on the use of natural colors, “If I had to zero in and say ‘OK, these are the colors you need to use…’ I’d ask you to study the forage in your local lakes. I suspect they probably have some shad or minnow type of baitfish and they probable have crawfish. Basically, those are the two primary colors that an angler needs to go with: a color that reflects the shad pattern, and a color that reflects a crawfish pattern.”
“It goes back to basics – ask ‘What are the fish feeding on?’ During the summer or early fall, these fish might be gorging up on threadfin shad or minnows, or whatever particular silver-sided forage you may have in your lake. So I think a person definitely needs a shad pattern. Now… that shad pattern can have gold, it can have orange, it can have red on it… who cares! The idea is to use a natural color that the fish are used to feeding upon.”
For the analytical angler traveling the "Color Quest" road, we may be tempted here to start carving in stone a set of color commandments, such as “Thou shall use natural colors, such as shad and crawfish, depending on what the natural forage in our regional lakes look like!” Right? Well, yes and no…
Before we rush to assume that ‘natural color selection’ is the holy grail we have been seeking, our fishing guru warns us to be careful. And he lays before us a crankbait paradox.
THOSE WILD COLORS!
When it comes to selecting all natural colored crankbaits, Jim says, “Well, I think that’s another one of these catch-22’s, because some days you’re throwing the natural pattern (that the fish are used to seeing and feeding on), but you still might not get hit. But if all of a sudden you throw a really bright or obnoxious color - it might offend the fish… and you may provoke a reaction strike that wouldn’t have come by just appealing to their hunger needs. So you have to be careful of alienating some of these colors that people think ‘Man that is wild!’ There may be times on your lake when the fish are inactive and where that wild color will pay off!”
Sensing our disappointment and increasing stress due to our inability to create hard and fast “color rules,” Jim quickly placates us with a generalization: 80% of the time you’re better off sticking to natural colors, while 20% of the other side “wild” colors may fetch a few reaction bites when the fish are not in a feeding mood.
A DIFFICULT TOPIC
When it comes to crankbaits, it appears that color is a difficult topic. Jim concurs, “Color is a tough topic for many reasons. For instance, I have some friends that have a color that is brown and it’s got white skeleton marks on the side of it - just like a skeleton. They will not throw anything but that color, because that’s what they’ve caught fish on every year and that’s what they go back to.”
“But I keep telling them, ‘You know… the only reason you’re catching fish is because that’s the only color you’re throwing.’ Fishermen need to ask themselves, 'If you use some new color and suddenly catch a fish, does that mean the other colors are no good?' Certainly not. But, that’s the beautiful thing about the fishing family; the lure companies will give you a rainbow of colors and the option to do whatever you’re feeling, and to match whatever level your color confidence is at.”
COLOR OPTIONS ARE DRIVEN BY?
If what our guru is suggesting is true, then some of us may have to retire our lure manufacturing “conspiracy theories”. Like… the marketing departments of every crankbait company keep coming up with new colors just to catch fisherman, not fish. Are the “700” colors on the shelves there to manipulate fishermen, or are the rainbow of choices there because fishermen demand it?
Binns is convinced that the endless color options are driven by fishermen, not marketing departments. He points out that it costs the crankbait manufacturers a lot of money to constantly provide a wide and changing variety of color combinations. It would be much more cost effective to produce their baits in only a few basic colors. But they cater to the demands of fishermen.
And Jim Binns ought to know. He was responsible for one of the most recent color crazes to strike the deep south in recent years. “Toledo Gold”. That’s the color that Jim began negotiating with Rat-L-Trap to make several years ago, and has now swept the region.
TOLEDO GOLD
Why a new color? Jim laughs and proclaims “Texas pride! I got Rat-L-Trap on the phone and said I think it’s ridiculous – every year you guys promote this ‘Rayburn Red’ color. (Rayburn Red is probably one of the hottest selling colors in the spring time down south - named after Sam Rayburn Lake.) I said, ‘I don’t like to fish Raymond Red on Toledo Bend’. There’s something there that is wrong!” Still chuckling, Jim continued, “We’re only 40 miles from the other lake so it ruffled our feathers to be using a bait named after them. We at Toledo Bend wanted our own identity!”
After Rat-L-Trap stopped laughing at this independent Texan, they started working with Jim to find a color tailored to the water conditions and forage unique to Toledo Bend. Jim’s keen eye had noticed that early in the year, the crawfish went through a metamorphosis where they change colors. And on his home lake, a golden color among the reds occurred that he was convinced fish recognized as food during the springtime of the year.
After several months of development, the prototypes were given to five pro-staffers who all went out and immediately caught fish on the new color. The bait has a large attracting eye, and the golden crawfish type coloring pattern. It also has a series of little white dots on the tail that “…in any water clarity, all those color features show up very well.”
According to Jim, when a limited run of “Toledo Gold” baits hit the market, the demand was overwhelming, and Rat-L-Trap worked overtime to keep up. “For a full season they were behind in production of Toledo Gold. And people at the tackle stores were signing yellow pads (waiting lists) with their name, and listing how many they wanted. When the baits showed up, people came down and got them. I’m serious. And this went on again this spring – it was the same way. Take a look; in the 2009 Rat-L-Trap catalog, ‘Toledo Gold’ was featured on the big cover inside.”
So the color market is driven by the demands of fishermen? “Always has been” Jim says matter-of-factly. “The market is set up to treat the fishermen with anything they want. And if you think a ‘golden shiner” is the best color instead of a ‘herring’ color for that day, it’s available.”
OTHER FACTORS
Are there other factors that assist in converting a new entry into a color phenomenon? “Absolutely!” Jim admits. He’s is convinced that the 20 to 30% of the anglers out there who are always looking for that edge, (that “magic in a bottle”), play a big part. In as much as there was a regional marketing campaign, the real trick to gaining color popularity came after a few local tournaments were won on Toledo Gold.
“The people in the tournaments were catching fish on it,” said Jim, “so their club members were starting to pick it up. It rapidly caught on, and now, when you hear the name ‘Toledo Gold’, fishermen conclude that if you’re fishing Toledo Bend, you better have a ‘Toledo Gold’, because everybody else does.”
And there appears to be an element of luck or divine intervention involved too, admits Jim. “Let’s say we would have hit the lake a month early and the bass were not yet feeding as aggressively - this color might have fallen flat on its face.” Apparently success comes through a complicated process where many unique elements all come together and align in a mysterious way.
Would the world have survived without Toledo Gold? Probably. But fishermen demanded it, the planets aligned, and now it plays a key part in the confidence of fishermen down south. Ironically, our guru has suggested that color is one of the least of the success factors in a crankbait’s ability to catch fish, and yet he himself was responsible for the new color craze sweeping the lakes south of the Mason-Dixon line.
COLOR CLARITY?
As fascinating as our 'Color Quest' journey has been, complete clarity and enlightenment has not occurred as hoped. To which Jim reminds us, “Lets go back to basics; a lipless crankbait is just a shad-shaped hard piece of plastic which has no appeal to the fish until it comes through the water.”
“And the basic retrieve angle and the speed of the lure is what produces that attractiveness – and a very tight wiggle. The water that is breaking around the bait causes the vibration, and that is what is appealing to the fish. Add rattles to the inside that imitate the same sounds that schooling bait fish make, and you have a deadly effective crankbait. When retrieved in the right way – fish will mistake it for food.”
Notice, in Jim’s last statement, he didn’t even mention color. And it would be easy to conclude that “The color is just not that big a deal.” But you’ll never convince the fishing world. As Jim explains, “To be honest with you, I think there will always be fishermen just waiting for the next Toledo Gold. And tomorrow it may “Tilapia”, or maybe it’s “Sucker”. Whatever the new color is, if two or three people start catching fish on it, it’s going to be worth the investment.”
Rayburn Red, Sexy Shad, or Toledo Gold… whether the fishing world needs it or not – it thinks it does. And the lure manufacturers will respond by feeding our hunger; our never ending quest for confidence, ...a need for a faith in a color that will give us 'the edge'. Which is why there will always be fishermen looking for ‘Magic in a bottle’.
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Jim Binn’s is a well known prostaffer and outdoor writer for fishing publications in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and even Florida. His work was read for years in the “Louisiana Sportsman”, and later Jim became the editor of the “Texas Sports Guide”. A multi-species angler, Jim is now retired. And while he continues to write, he focuses predominately on the Louisiana and SW Texas regions. He now spends most of his fishing time in southern Toledo Bend.
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