Always use unpainted ball head jigs.

Soft plastics are my go-to fish catchers - many colors work.
Pearl white, pink laminate, chartreuse with orange and black, smoke with gold and black flake, bright white, translucent chartreuse ,
shad color (black back/ pearl belly), pumpkin.

Crankbaits: many colors

1st mention of Crankbaits. Does any one have pictures or recommendations?

I do very little cast & crank..... but there was once I caught a very large crappie on a bass crank bait. That said, I'd want to attempt cast & crank if the vertical jig isn't working.

Plus #1. Also Chartreuse and Black.

Jiglyf jigs are not made to catch fishermen. They are made to catch fish.

3 lbs. / black tail with any color of head; chart seems to work pertygud

Always hot pink jig heads. (I powder coat my own.) For body, Monkey Milk, blue ice or chartreuse and black. Always do well with them.

I'm certainly not the best crappie fisherman on the board but I generally have some dark colors and some light colors. Yellow, white, chartreuse, black, blue, blue metal flake. I have had great luck with the cheap feather tail jigs Walmart sells. Paint a black stripe down the sides with a sharpie on either the white or yellow jig. Caught my biggest last year with a 1/8th ounce one in yellow tipped with a minnow.

Note: Color - hue - not as important as color brightness when it comes to enhancing lure action regardless soft or hard lures. Ribbon Tail grubs have an amazing tail whip brought out by bright colors from a greater distance than black. My thought is that the longer a fish sees a lure in action, the longer it holds its attention. The longer the fish focuses on a lure, the more chances it become aggressive towards it as long as the combination of lure shape/ action/ size and presentation (type of retrieve) is within range.

Bright colors challenge a fish to a duel seeing as how the colors contrast the most with the background - even in low light.
Black is fine, but for my money laminates and bright colors rule!

Again, jig colors never important. Between my buddies and me, we caught over 234 fish in 4 days using unpainted jigs.
My largest was a 2 3/4 lb bass caught in 3' in the pads.

Again, jig colors never important. Between my buddies and me, we caught over 234 fish in 4 days using unpainted jigs.
My largest was a 2 3/4 lb bass caught in 3' in the pads.[/quote]


My wife "pot licker " and I caught 339 whitebass in 8 hours using that pink and white jig posted above.
We kept our 2 man limit and caught and released the rest

how much fun was that~~~!!!~~~perty gud day-b4-burfdy present~~~!!!~~~fish fry 2dy???

My wife "pot licker " and I caught 339 whitebass in 8 hours using that pink and white jig posted above.
We kept our 2 man limit and caught and released the rest


[/quote]

[quote=crapyetr]how much fun was that~~~!!!~~~perty gud day-b4-burfdy present~~~!!!~~~fish fry 2dy???

Too much fun! Our arms and shoulders were sore and our fingers were raw after that. we definatly would do it all over again!
This was a couple of years ago during the whitebass run on choke canyon/Frio river.

We will be fishing tonight for her birthday

I'm not fishing super clear water, but so far, I have yet to have a day where color really mattered all that much.

I randomly tie on white, chartreuse, pink, and orange jig heads and change soft plastics throughout the day. Either they eat nothing or eat everything.


I have seen times where a 3" walleye grub catches them better than the smaller lures and vice versa.

I think it was Mr. Ernest paty that first coined the phrase " color doesn't matter until it matters " I find this to be true!

size is more important than color,...IMO.

That's what she said

Me and WillieFindum RIP fished with Ernest Paty one day shooting docks at Cedar Creek a really long time ago. Ernest said color doesn't matter. But me and Bill noticed every time Ernest lost his, or it got too chewed up to stay on right, he reached into an old coffee can and pulled out a plastic black and chartreuse.

True story. It made ALL the difference. at least for me and Bill that day it did.
I expect Ernest probably could have caught them on anything including a soggy cigarett butt.
But, he sure did seem to gravitate to the black and chartreuse every time he reached into his coffee can that day.

I personally don't think it makes any difference if the head is plain or colored.

Another time, my son and I were fishing bridge columns at Fork. We weren't catching any at all. We watched a guy wearing them out and as he was leaving I asked him what he was using. I can't recall the color now, but whatever it was we didn't have any. Brown and yellow maybe, or blue and yellow - who knows now.

Anyway I dug through all my plastics boxes and used a razor blade and either super glue or a lighter to stick the two colors together.
BAM, we started catching them on almost every drop. I think it was likely a blue front and a yellow curly tail on the back

I can't begin to count the times after fishing with Ernest that day, that Bill and me said to each other "Color doesn't matter (as long as it's black and chartreuse)"

Ernest if you see this, thanks for the lesson and the memories my friend. Hope you and your darling bride are doing well and enjoying those grandkids. Heck, I bet you probably have greats by now!