Less than Clear Water?

[Hawnjigs]

I kinda prefer jigs with natural white, gray, brown, black base colors in clear water, but often encounter reduced clarity conditions ranging from cloudy-stained-dirty-muddy. My current low vis choice would be JJ2s propellor jig for flash & vibration including some bright chartreuse in the jig body or head colors.

But, I've read that some prefer dark colors in low vis water or low light.

I'd be interested in how others deal with jigging in low vis conditions?

 

[AtticaFish]

In muddy water river fishin' - my first color pick is black by far for smallmouth bass. I fish so much super clear water that other than river smallie fishin, i have a rough time "catching" when i do get heavy rain that stains the water.

Big black jig n' pigs do well after dark for LMB, but i always think the size/disturbance of the lure is more important than the color after dark unless you have some filtered light coming into play.... full moon or other light source.

My 2 pennies.

 

[ragged edge]

Where I crappie fish the water is from light to moderate stain. Brown is the choice of color here and works well on Grand Lake in ok where the water is clear per inlaw

 

[StumpHunter]

I try to find stained water to fish over clear water. I have always fished with darker colors in stained water. Jigs with a chartreuse tail and black or blue or a combo with both colors body are good. This year I played with some light colors and found that lite grays and silver are good in stained but a pearl tail with a pink/yellow body caught more crappie this year for me than any of the other colors. I enjoy trying different colors and materials to see how the fish react to them under different colors water. You would think in stained water that a brown would not catch fish but it will and copper too.

 

[Ron Don]

Most of the bayous I fish are heavily stained to muddy as you can see in some pics Ive posted. As for colors It depends on the fish targeting. For panfish I do go with brighter colors: chart, Fl. yellow, hot pink. I also do well with white in muddy water.
For bass I go with the darker colors mostly. But chart works on them also.

 

[ScottV]

I usually fish Okatibbee reservoir in east-central MS. The water there is usually stained. We have a lot of red dirt around here and rains wash it in. My best colors there are black/orange or black/blue for some reason. I usually fish with around 6 poles with different colors but those two color combos seem to win out every time. Scott

 

[Hippel]

Here along the Gulf Coast, Black with some type of flashy tail is the ticket in muddy water.

 

[JSC]

Back when I was a kid I read an article about using black in stained to muddy water with the idea being that the black did not "absorb"(SP) the water color and made a silouhett (SP) lighter colors absorb (SP)... has proven true thru the years ... note when waters that are normaly stained to muddy all year round some of the lighter colors seem to come into play .
my 2 cents worth
JSC

 

[OKSTATEjiggy]

Where I fish here in OK the water is stained year-round, and I do well with sharply-contrasting colors like black/chart and flourescent colors while vertical jigging, and the same with the addition of a spinner while trollin' around. Here are some classics:



Also, don't forget black and pank.

Again, most of the places I fish in OK are always stained, so there probably are different factors involved than when the water goes through clear/stained periods...

 

[StumpHunter]

All great looking jigs OKSTATE. Nice!