I rode with Greg Hackney at Fork. He did something that I had not seen other pros do. He was going to Texas rig a bigger Strike King cut Tail worm. He had a huge bag where the colors were fairly similar. He rigged one up then just flipped it over the side, took it off rigged another, did the same thing and rigged a third then fished it

His theory is he wants to be able to see it but not too good. He said “ I know if I can see it they can see it better, I don’t want them getting too good a look at it.” “I don’t want to see it good at more than about a foot or so”.

Most decent bass fisherman choose by water clarity. This was just a way to get that choice even better. They bit it. He had some decent ones on it.

Greg is a great Pro to ride with. He was struggling the second day as he couldn’t get to his best area with the wind up. Only needed 8 pounds. He said “ I am fighting demons, I know I can go to the bank with flipping the Rage bug and catch 10#. A couple coves over he had a shallow point which was the only gps mark he had. He caught them there. Lost two that he needed to put in the bait. Had a decent bag when at 11 o’clock he had 2 for 5#. At one point he just sat down and rigged and arranged tackle said that he needed to get off them and let them cook.

When you think about the color watermelon it basically looks like the water I fish most of the time. It blends in with its surroundings very well yet it gets bit a large percentage of the time.

One year after massive rains I fished Monticello and it was like light colored chocolate milk. The color we caught them best on? Pumpkinseed...

My buddy tied on an 8" curly tail worm T-rigged with no beads or rattles and commended to catching them. After his third fish I switched too. I would have bet the fish couldn't begin to see it but we did well 3 trips in a row on pumpkinseed in water that was so dirty the bait disappeared in the first 6 inches.

Never forgot that fishing lesson.

The water color on the surface is not always the same as the water on the bottom. Those old Color-C-Lector were popular for a reason

West Toho has off color water while East Toho has clear water able to see bottom in 5 feet .
On West I use dark colors JuneBug JB Red etc
On East light colors all the melons from Watermelon to Magic
Seems to work yet IMO Confidence is a major factor.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing that lesson and thought.

How can you see the water color on the bottom of the lake? Please explain how you can tell that.

You can't, thats why the color-c-lector devise was popular. It would read the water clarity l at the depth of the sensor that you lowered down on a rope. This is old technology that sometimes worked, You had to have some faith.

So if it was that good why don't all the pro's still use it? Seems like it would be a great benefit to catching more fish.

Many of the pro secretly still do but under fear of discrimination if discovered.

Really, with all the video coverage of the pro's I NEVER see them using one. Do they stop the video while the pro is using it to determine what color bait he should throw?

No, I’m just spoofin’.
(maybe)

Oh they are under contract to keep it under wraps, till they can get rope to lower the hand held slector

I seriously doubt that many people are still using the color selector.