All The Chatter About Color

It's no secret- I'm a big Chatterbait fan!

It has become one of my go-to techniques in fishing, especially when I'm fishing shallow, dirty, water with plenty of cover.   

Being known as a Chatterbait aficionado through Sweetwater, I get the question from fans quite often- "what are my favorite colors for the Chatterbait?"

Though there is a wide variety of color patterns that Zman produces, I'm a big fan of keeping it simple, so here are the three color patterns that I use to cover all my Chatterbait fishing:

Green Pumpkin

Green Pumpkin is an excellent choice when fishing around grass, and for bass eating bluegills.

If I were to be forced to choose one color for the Chatterbait it would have to be some shade of Green Pumpkin.  

The reason that GP is so effective is primarily due to the sort of places that Chatterbaits excel at catching fish, which is usually around some sort of grassy cover.  I really like to fish around submerged vegetation like hydrilla, or milfoil, and the forage that usually inhabit these areas tend to blend in with the green environment.  It also has the ability to be visible, as well to look natural, in many different water clarities.  

Another reason I think GP is so productive is because it is a great imitator of a bluegill, which big bass love.

So, in general, if I'm fishing around grass, or I believe the bass are feeding on bluegill, Green Pumpkin is going to be my choice.  

White or White/Chartreuse

White is excellent for bass feeding on shad, and for fishing around hard cover in muddy water.

While Green Pumpkin is best for fish feeding on bluegill in grassy environments, a white, or white and chartreuse combo is best for situations when schooling baitfish (like shad) are prevalent.  

If I am faced with a situation where bass are using hard cover, like wood, or dock pilings, to ambush shad, some sort of white combo is an excellent choice.  

Black and Blue

Black and Blue is perfect for dark, tannic, stained water.

My final choice is probably my least used color, but it nonetheless needs to be part of your arsenal because there are situations where it will outmatch the other two colors.  

Usually, I fish black and blue in the same type of waters I fish the Green Pumpkin Chatterbaits, however, when I am fishing water that has a very dark, tannic, stain to it, I will go to the black and blue baits because they really imitate the forage in those darker waters well.  

In the end, color choices come down to confidence, and even though these three colors are guaranteed to catch you fish in almost any condition, the best thing you can have confidence in when it comes to color, is confidence in your color selecting abilities and not the colors themselves.  

Learn what colors tend to maximize success under various conditions and use that experience to recognize similar situations in the future and you will begin to unlock the key to choosing the right colors.

Keep Fishing!

-Sonar