Color

Pick the color from the water, not from the catalog photo

The ranking decides the lure. A separate rule paints it. Clear water keeps the bait looking like food. Stained and muddy water asks for a harder silhouette. Night goes dark, except for a salmon bead and a shrimp, which goes glow.

• Baitfish

  Clear sunny: silver. Clear cloudy: white. Stained: chartreuse. Muddy: black and chartreuse.

• Natural plastics

  Green pumpkin until the water is muddy, then black and blue.

• Metal

  Silver only in clear sun. Otherwise gold, including stained and muddy.

• Shrimp

  New penny in clear water. Chartreuse once it stains. Glow at night.

• Crappie

  White in clear water, chartreuse in stain, black and chartreuse in mud.

• Topwater

  Bone in clear sun, white under clouds, chartreuse in stain, black in mud.

• Salmon beads

  Silver in clear water, pink once it stains. Night does not flip this one to black.

• Night

  Black for almost everything else, including a natural bait that would be green pumpkin by day.

Size steps up in the surf or a strong wind: a 3/8 oz spinnerbait becomes 1/2 oz, and a 1 oz bucktail becomes 1.5 oz. The retrieve and the rig stay with the lure.

Trout chart·Bass by temperature