Big Indiana Bass

I was chatting with John Mills, local crankbait maker and custom painter, and he was telling me about some interesting testing he has done concerning color combinations on identical baits. Here is his story:

Living in east central Indiana, I do a lot of smallmouth fishing in the three main rivers in my area. Most of my fishing is done using crankbaits about 80% of the time. Maybe not always the best choice, but it is what I enjoy most.

The subject of color, color patterns and the detail of crankbaits  is always a main topic of discussion anytime fishermen get together, so I thought I would do a little testing of my own to see if it really makes any difference.

The testing was done with a 3 color bait, one of my personal favorite colors, but using several variations of the same colors. The baits used were the same Model 'A' Bomber square bill in the 2” size; no alterations were made except for color. The colors used were dark brown, chartreuse and orange, and no other details were added.  All the colors were airbrushed and no topcoat was used, since I would be repainting them often and a little paint loss was no problem. I tried to make about the same number of casts with each bait before changing each bait, and at any given session they were all the same color and pattern. I've been experimenting with these baits over the last couple of years, and have found a few interesting things.

1. The order that the paint was applied made no difference in the ability of the bait to catch fish. Brown back, chartreuse middle, orange belly, or any combination to these colors on the bait. No eyes, gill or fin detail was painted on these baits, just the color order. Also tried a couple with the colors painted from front to rear. Doesn't matter.
2. While doing these tests I made a small cut on the bottom of the lip each time a bait caught a fish so I could keep a record of each fish caught by each bait. At the end of all this I found that 2 of the baits had caught over 90% of the fish. 1 bait caught 55% and 1 caught 35%, and only 2 of the others caught more than 2 fish.

I have since made the same tests, on the same baits using a firetiger color combination, black, orange and chartreuse, and got exactly the same results.

My conclusions are that action is far more important than most other factors, with color being way down the list.

John Mills, a.k.a. "Whittler"

Anybody disagree? We've all heard of "magic" crankbaits that have some unknown but obvious fish catching ability that seems to outproduce all the other identical baits in the box. I can certainly attest to having seen this with many of my original Poe's baits that I've thrown over the years, as well as having a couple Bagley baits that have produced more than their fair share of tourney money for me. I even had one particular Bomber Fat 'A' in a firetiger pattern that produced a bass of over 9lbs. out of Monroe for me, along with several other 4's and 5's, until I lost it. Didn't think too much of it, just bought half a dozen more at the tackle shop. Problem is, I never did catch many more fish on any of them over the years, and certainly no giants, to the point where I finally sold them all on Ebay. Coincidence?

So where does your confidence lie - color patterns or action?