What is the Best Color Lure for Walleye?
We’ll just state the obvious. Fishing for walleye is just plain fun. Thrilling and fast-paced, catching walleye means an angler has to be quick-thinking when it comes to fishing this predator. That’s why we asked walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, to share his extensive walleye knowledge with us. A walleye master, Dale, has fished walleye from Arkansas to Canada and Michigan to Montana, and he doesn’t disappoint.
If you fish chartreuse 90% of the time, you'll catch 90% of your fish on chartreuse. There is not a magic color. It really depends more on what the water clarity is and what the conditions are. Walleye expert Dale Gilbert explains why.
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Video Transcription
Best Color for Catching Walleye
Hey folks. We're going to talk for a few minutes here about what's the best color rig or jig or crankbait. Basically, what is the color for catching walleyes? And it's a really interesting question because frankly, the best color is the one that's catching the fish. Right? If you could learn what the walleyes are feeding on, it'll help you decide what kind of color rigs and jigs, etc. that you want to use because I kind of like to match the hatch to some degree.
So if the fish are feeding in clearwater or feeding on shiners, little minnows, whatever, silver color things then I'm going to use things that are more of a natural color with the silvers and whatever to match that hatch. If they're feeding on perch, which is actually one of the primary forges preferred actually for walleye, then you get into things looking like this. The chartreuse colors, the chartreuse, a little bit of orange are really, really good colors. If they're feeding on crayfish, feeding on mayflies, things like that, or if there's really dirty water, then I really like to use things like this Ric's Jig here or this Fin-tech Nuckle Ball in kind of an orange and black color. These colors here are going to show up a little bit better in the dirty water.
Let the Fish Tell You What They Want
And typically what I'll do when I start fishing, if I have another person in the boat and we can fish with four rods then I'm going to put four different colors out there to let the fish finally tell me what they want. One of my favorites over the years has been this Ric's Jig. This is actually a pink white glow and that white glow, again it has a little bit better visibility potentially in the water. But I have caught a lot, a lot of fish on this pink jig. In fact, this is probably one of my number one go to colors and rarely will find getting into my boat that this isn't tied onto at least one rod.
Some of the things I've learned over the years in my passion for fishing and traveling all around the country is that when you have bright sunshiny days, the metallics and the shiny things like the silver blades, like we talked about the hatchet blades here are things to use on bright sunshiny days. If you have cloudy days, then you want to go to the little bit darker colors. The golds and the bronzes and those sorts of colors. It seems like a, even with crankbaits this chrome clown here is a bait that works really good when it's a sunshiny day, maybe not so well when it's a cloudy day. After fishing tournaments for about 30 some years, I learned that there's always fish biting somewhere, somehow. And bottom line you need to figure out what it is they want and it can change during the course of the day and it can change day to day.
Don't Be Afraid to Have a Little Variety
A long time ... one of the idols in the walleye fishing industry years ago, "Well, what's your favorite color?" And he answered to me he said, "Well, when you ask most people what they catch most the fish on they tell you chartreuse." But the rest of the story is they probably catch 90% of their fish on chartreuse because it's an all around good color considering what the fish like to feed on. But the reality is they spend 90% of their time fishing with a chartreuse so what's going to happen? They're going to catch 90% of their fish on that chartreuse. It's a good color, but sometimes others are going to do a little bit better. So don't be afraid to have a little variety, you don't have to get really carried away. If you got about six different basic patterns and colors you can have a really good start and generally find something that is going to work.
If you've got any questions or need any further information just stop by any of the North 40 Outfitters stores or check the website at north40.com. Thanks for watching and hope to see you again. Thanks.