# Color Me Purple



## McQ (Jun 8, 2004)

Color me Purple 

This little bit of information has a start that surfaced in a conversation with local fishing legend Big Jim McLaughlin about 15 years ago. We were attending the local ballet and during intermission the conversation turned to walleye fishing and color. My question to the big guy was simple; why is yellow such a popular jig color? His answer  with a gazzillion fishermen throwing baits every weekend and the majority being yellow; what do you think? 

That started a long involved process of logging baits used and their colors, 

I cataloged all my jigs, plastics and cranks. Not an easy task, I had 22 tackle boxes full of every conceivable lure on the market. 

The first step was to eliminate all the non essentials, truth be known  I was really only interested in walleye fishing so why all the bass, trout, salmon & pike/muskie baits. 

Condensing all this tackle into manageable size still resulted in an absolute crazy number of Plano boxes but it was a start. The next step was to bring a bit of order to popularity. I really thought I knew what worked and what was so-so. My fishing arsenal slowly came together - Boxes of bucktails (most of them tied by the big guy), jigs of an infinite variety, plastics in every color of the rainbow and styles from tubes to curly tails. More boxes of cranks and rings of harnesses completed the artillery. 

Now heres what 15 years of elimination, some changes and additions has brought me to. Yellow is still in my selections, so is chartreuse, gold and orange. Theres a bit of black, some blue, some green but what really stands out is the number and variety of purple that has found a home in my go-to selections. Im talking cranks, jigs, plastics and spinners. Why purple? 

Over the years and many different bodies of water, fishing conditions from beautiful to I should have stayed home a pattern has emerged. Tannin stained water calls for chartreuse, orange, pale greens and pink (the floros pop) but for some reason purple has worked its way into the mix. Being at the low end of the visabilty spectrum made me wonder why. Analyzing the pattern brings a few clues  a reasonable percentage of the rigs I tie combine purple with a hint of pink, blue or tan. Thinking through the natural food chain in most of the waters I fish suggests that smelt and cisco are a huge part of the forage base. Purples & blacks are my favorite colors for fishing deeper than 20. Could this be part of reason? 

Last year on a trout trip purple again came to the fore and this was a gin clear water, shallow fishery. Could it be that purple once again was a color in the food chain? 

I do know this, the most popular streamer used in Quebec is a Memphramagog Smelt. It has accounted for more Ouananiche (land locked salmon) and speckled trout than any other color. Not surprisingly purple is a dominant color in the pattern and I have fished these streamers behind a bouncer for walleye with success. 

I will be using combinations of purple with other colors throughout this season for my favorite eyes and am going to get more into fishing for Pike with bucktails, spoons and cranks.


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## boaterfisherdude (Feb 16, 2005)

my number one saugeye lure is and has been purple, who knows why but they sure do like it!!


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## liquidsoap (Oct 22, 2005)

that puzzled me for a while too...
Why do the fish hit purple baits???
What about yellow. 
And what the heck swims in the water thats hot pink???
We may never no..


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## peple of the perch (Sep 13, 2004)

colors like purple and black can be seen further away in water more than any other color


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