How important is the color and detail on the top of a surface plug?

[Rock Hopper]

Mike,

Just a quick reply: All white works 90-95% of the time. Occassionally we will use blue/white, yellow/white and red head/white but there is always a lot of white.

What hasn't worked for a lot of us here in LI: mack patterns (blue or green), olive, green back/white even though we get a lot of sand eels, spearing and bunker which have these colors.

I know guys who fish the Yo-Zuri surface cruiser exclusively for top water and they take it out of the package and spray paint it all white, right then & there.

Eye's make a difference for strikes and the bigger they are the better. I buy big doll eyes and epoxy them over what comes with the plug usually.

Just my 0.2 cents.

Kadir

[NIB]

How do Lime green bucktails work out there?
i NEVER Ever use mack patterns.we rarley get em.
There was this one time a small mac bottle was the ticket that was maybe 8 yrs ago.
They love that Mackeral stuff in the ditch.

[Flaptail]

Originally Posted by NIB

How do Lime green bucktails work out there?
i NEVER Ever use mack patterns.we rarley get em.
There was this one time a small mac bottle was the ticket that was maybe 8 yrs ago.
They love that Mackeral stuff in the ditch.

How many chartreuse fish have you ever seen? I never saw one and fish chow that color. And though you don't get many mackerel down there the bass know them well from there travels ( kinda like ethnic foods, or Chinatown versus Little Italy, no schezhuan in Little italy but no eggplant parmesan in Chinatown either but in your travels your going to pass through and stop to eat whatever is on the local menu!

[JFigliuolo]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

How many chartreuse fish have you ever seen? I never saw one and fish chow that color. And though you don't get many mackerel down there the bass know them well from there travels ( kinda like ethnic foods, or Chinatown versus Little Italy, no schezhuan in Little italy but no eggplant parmesan in Chinatown either but in your travels your going to pass through and stop to eat whatever is on the local menu!

True, but I'm not getting mu-shu in little italy or god forbid, eggplant parm in china town.

[Mike P]

I've caught fish in Moriches and Shinney inlets on every color bucktail imaginable. The last year I fished Moriches regularly, the hot color was purple, with a red trailer. Lime green had its moments. I remember a couple of times I wrecked fish in Montauk on lime green. Yellow used to be hot in June when the blowfish came in.

My really secret weapon for Moriches was an Upperman head, tho. Plenty of times I was outfishing guys 3-4 fish to 1 when I was using an Upperman and they went with the SB. I would never let anyone help me by landing a fish--I'd hand them the rod and climb down to unhook it myself

[Fish_Eye]

Tried wading up on a pod of bait last night to get a better look .. I move ,, it moves,,I move ,,it moves..

Tagger you're observations show the schooling ability of bait when they sense (feel/hear) a threat.

Baitfish such as herring, alewives and anchovies are considered “hearing specialists” because their swimbladder, lateral line, and inner ear are all connected and they also have a pair of prootic auditory bullae which acts as pressure-to-motion transducers. This helps explain why when one moves they all move simultaneously. Recently they proved that American Shad can hear ultrasound of 180 kHz and Gulf Menhaden also have ultrasonic hearing. What does this all mean? Don’t drop the tackle box in your tin boat when you’re trying to snag bait, or don’t crank up the Aerosmith tunes or you’ll drive away the fish.

Stripers have medium hearing yet their lateral line can determine the direction of the current and the presence of nearby objects, as well as sense vibration. Their lateral line functions best within the zone nearest the sound source, the inner ear performs best in the far edges of the near field and outward. Their lateral line does not respond directly to the acoustic-pressure component of sound fields. In the case of vibrating sources, the lateral line is only directly stimulated at very short distances from the source where the generated acoustic field behaves like an incompressible flow. Unless your lure or live bait offering is close to the striper it is likely to depend on its inner ear to detect and direct it to the source of the sound. Therefore, in dirty water a popper, spook, or lure that creates a lot of surface splashing and vibration will be first heard, and then “felt” as the striper locks in on it and then strikes.

Bait such as herring, alewives and anchovies have a distinct hearing advantage over stripers however, at periods of low light, and changing lighting conditions like dusk and dawn, the striper’s excellent vision gives them an upper hand (fin).

And yes, stripers spend lot of their time looking up for prey.

[John E]

[QUOTE=NIB]How do Lime green bucktails work out there?
[QUOTE]

Very well

[riverrat2]

I totally agree with NIB, keep it simple. We are talking about fish! Fish don't care if it is pearl with a strip of pink and a black fog around the eye. Black at night is all you have to know and if you are catching fish during the daytime 90% of the time color definetly does not matter.

[DaveS]

Originally Posted by NIB

How do Lime green bucktails work out there?
i NEVER Ever use mack patterns.we rarley get em.
There was this one time a small mac bottle was the ticket that was maybe 8 yrs ago.
They love that Mackeral stuff in the ditch.

Mackeral patterns are the one that I have absolutley zero of. There's a spot here in NJ that used to get filthy with tinker mackeral every summer. Bass and weakfish would go ape**** on these things and if ya snagged tinkers, ya caught fish. Well I got the notion to try a mackeral finish bomber, the small one, and could not for the life of me catch a fish on it. Goto the schoolbus or chicken scratch and catch fish. Go figure eh? Even up in New England waters, i tried mackeral and couldnt buy a fish.

And I agree with Habs, color matters and I also always start with white. Even with shad bodies, if you aint tossing the right color you will get squat. NIB, how many times do you see guys with the McKala shads up on the bridge and the guys using all pearl are outfishing the guys with blk/pearl 5-1? Granted technique plays alot in to it all, as does skill, but I'm a firm believer in the right color will catch more fish.