Well, let me tell you a little
secret that most anglers don’t know!, and that is; "You don’t
need a multitude
of colors in your arsenal." That’s right! and let me say it
again..... "You don’t need every color that you see!."
Now, some anglers may suggest the comment; "well my partner and I
use this certain color on this certain
body of water, and it catches a lot of bass" or others may say;
"I saw this magazine article from one of the
top Pros, and he said to use this; yellow, spotted, half stripped,
7", curly tail, floating, thing-a-ma-jig plastic
made by so & so, and I saw a picture in the magazine of the 14 lb.
bass he caught off of this certain plastic
bait, and now I’ve really got to have some of these." Now before
we get started, let me explain something to
you. The Bassin’ Industry is a "Multi-Billion Dollar
Industry" in today's world and growing more and more
every day. Most of the Pros that lecture these "Bass Seminars"
have an obligation to their sponsors to
demonstrate, promote, and to advertise their sponsored product (Nobody
gives anything for free anymore!).
For example, attend one of
their fishing seminars and just see if they don’t try to sell you on a
"certain
product", or the technique that they may use with this
"certain bait." There are more Outdoor TV Fishing
Shows, Outdoor Magazines (related to freshwater fishing), Bass
Tournament Organizations, Bass Fishing
Sites (on the Internet), Bass Fishing Clubs, Bait and Tackle
Manufacturers, Bass Boat Manufacturers, Rod
Companies, Reel Companies, and it goes on and on and on, as there ever
was before. (That’s probably why
Bass Fishing is considered to be America’s #1 freshwater sport!) And
ALL! of these companies are in the
market to make money.
Now, let’s go even a step
further, okay? What sells all of these products? Hmm, let’s see now,
advertisement (Marketing) and promotion are about the two best ways of
selling a product that I’m aware of
and I’m sure that there are more, but first let’s concentrate on
these two for just one moment. Let’s talk
about fishing shows to give you an example! I’ve co-hosted several TV
Fishing shows in the past and let me
tell you that "Most" of the time, (Not All!) but
"Most" of the fish that you see being caught on the show are
caught prior to the actual filming of a show. Yep! now you might ask
yourself; "well I saw the guy set his
hook and then reel in the bass." All I can say to you is this;
"Don’t believe everything that you see!" with
today’s editing equipment, professional camera personnel, and the
right camera shots anything is possible.
So let me explain how it
works; #1, you cast out the sponsored bait product (whatever bait or
baits the
show is sponsored by, keeping in mind that the fish were actually caught
prior to the show, and in most
cases on totally different bait). #2, while you start your retrieve, you
rare back with your rod like you just got
a strike and pretend to set the hook! (on actually nothing at all). Then
the camera will stop filming. #3, then,
you simply reel your sponsored bait back in to the boat, grab a fish (in
the case of a bass show, a bass) out
of the livewell and place the hook of the "sponsored product"
in the fish’s mouth. #4, Next you place the fish
back into the water (with ease, and always keeping the slack out of your
line), then you let the fish swim
away from the boat. #5, then at this time, the camera starts rolling
again and starts filming you fighting the
fish back to the boat!...(Really quite simple!) That’s how Most! of
the filming is done.
It’s not so much the bait,
or color, or technique used to catch the bass during the filming, they
just want
to show you how much bass all of these "certain baits" can
actually catch! (but do they really?), that’s called
Marketing, OR!, take a look at the packages of most of the baits today.
They have to look appealing on the
shelves to the consumer (this is called Packaging). Just keep this in
mind!, most baits on the market today
are made and packaged to catch anglers and not so much the fish.
Now, I’m telling you this
because of all the different products and especially all the multitude
of COLORS
that you must decide on which ones to buy. Okay, let’s get back to the
colors...... First of all I want you to
understand that I am NOT saying that a certain color of a plastic bait
will or will not work under any different
circumstances, but I will say that you don’t really need no more than
approximately 2 dozen colors of
plastics to catch bass on any body of water throughout the United
States. Now stop and think a minute!
There are, without
exaggeration, on today’s market thousands of colors and combinations
of colors when
it comes to plastic baits. Remember what I just said! I said only 2
dozen colors, and not hundreds of different
colors!, whew!, what a money saver, Right!..... And, if you usually fish
deeper than 20’ depths most of the
time, you don’t even need to have that many colors. The reason is, is
because the deeper a colored bait
drops through the water it starts to loose the color of the bait itself.
That’s right, the deeper it goes down into
the water the color spectrum starts to diminish. In other words, if you
had a multi-colored plastic worm and
you cast it out letting it drop to a 25’ depth, the colors of that
multi-colored plastic worm would be "Shades
of Grays and Blacks" in that depth of water.
Just like scuba diving, when
you get down to a certain depth everything looks Black and White! Well
the
same goes for colored plastics (Now, how many colors does an angler
actually need when fishing these
deeper patterns?) It doesn’t matter what color you throw into 20’
plus depths because "All Colors" will
basically all look the same on the bottom. The only difference now will
be is your shade variations.
So, why buy hundreds of
different colors of plastic baits when they will all loose their color
at deeper
depths? (Makes no sense to me!) So there is a lesson to learned!,
probably the most important factor to
keep in mind when fishing with plastics is; "The Presentation"
of the bait is what really counts! and not so
much the color....... I teach my students presentations, techniques, as
well as colors that they can use
anywhere so they can be highly effective when it comes to catching bass
on any body of water!
For more information on
colors, baits, presentations, techniques, equipment, and just about
anything you
might want to learn about bass fishing, you owe it to yourselves to
enroll into my 3-Day "On-Water" Bass
Fishing School. You will not only learn what equipment, baits, and bass
related items are really necessary
to have but also how much money you can actually save yourselves by
knowing what not to buy when it
comes to baits and equipment.......Until next time.....Take Care &
God Bless!
"The Bass Coach"
(518) 597-4240