Paddle Tail Colors

[karstopo]

I’ve pretty much stopped using chartreuse tipped tails with soft plastics like DSL or BA. I think the chartreuse is either a neutral at best but more often a negative factor towards getting strikes and very rarely a positive.

Lately, I have been tossing Big Papa pure in DSL or Chicken of the C in the longer and smaller paddle tail and the pure color, no chartreuse. Hammertime, Green Moon are other favorites.

Fish really don’t need the chartreuse tail to find the bait even in somewhat opaque to mostly opaque water. If anything, many of these fish have memories of being hooked previously on chartreuse soft plastics and will shy away from them, anyway, that’s my working hypothesis. Fishing side by side in a boat with chartreuse tipped tail using fisherman or on the same trip in kayaks fishing the same water, non-chartreuse, more natural colors tend to win out again and again.

Anyone else shying away from the chartreuse?

[txanalogkd]

I will not say that I have shied away because I keep a charteuse tip DSL tied on; green or purple body.

You are on to something because for the last 2 years. I have had great success on swim baits that do not have charteuse tails. At some point, I will put a small spinner on my swim baits.

Great discussion!!

[Neumie]

The past year or so I've been thinking through adding some soft plastics without the chartreuse tail for fishing clear water. I don't think having chartreuse hurts, but throwing something even more natural in clear water just makes sense.

I really like how DSL offers many of their popular colors with or without chartreuse tails. I just wish their Burner Shad was more durable like their Southern Shad. Catching one or two fish per soft plastic gets annoying really fast.

[karstopo]

The past year or so I've been thinking through adding some soft plastics without the chartreuse tail for fishing clear water. I don't think having chartreuse hurts, but throwing something even more natural in clear water just makes sense.

I really like how DSL offers many of their popular colors with or without chartreuse tails. I just wish their Burner Shad was more durable like their Southern Shad. Catching one or two fish per soft plastic gets annoying really fast.

Yep, the burner shad are well named, you’ll burn through some $$$ in lures pretty fast if the fish are biting. I bought some more southern shad recently and often have two rods going, one with burner shad and the other with with the southern shad. If the southern shad works I’ll use those since they are very durable.

[SWFinatic]

I can’t say that I’ve seen any negatives from a chartreuse or yellow tail at least for redfish. I’m usually fishing in water a foot deep or sometimes less so most of the time I can watch the redfish inhale the plastic. I have used the H&H 3” curly tail #24 for years and caught a lot of reds from them. Sure some will turn their head but I’ve had reds turn their head at live shrimp too. That’s just how reds are. I think the H&H #24 is actually more yellow tail than chartreuse. Maybe that’s the difference.

[karstopo]

I can’t remember the last time I used a H&H curly tail.

My favorite H&H paddle tail by a long shot is their Queen cocahoe minnow in Tuxedo. Those have a big action.

[wittich]

Last year I was fishing the gin clear flats in Port Mansfield. All my lures were natural colors. I was catching a few, but our guide was throwing hot pink, Red/white and catching one trout after another next to me. He told me I should throw colors that the fish can easily see.

[karstopo]

Fixing to fish rockport

[wittich]

On Friday I hired a guide to fish artificials for trout in Corpus. All 10 rods were set up with either down south paddletail in white. Later on he switched to a black/ red soft plastic. When a soft plastic broke he would toss it on the floor of this boat. The all piled up in the back of the boat. In the morning when we stepped on the boat, there were probably already 25 soft plastics in a pile. 9/10 of these lures were white.

[karstopo]

Friday, we hired a guide for the greater Rockport area. Fished in Copano bay and other nearby areas, all while wade fishing tossing tops and tails.

Saturday, different guide and different nearby bay system, still tops and tails wading. Both days, we used our own rods, reels and lures.

First day, I caught around 20 trout and 2 redfish. Trout went to about 19”, the two redfish were rats. Maybe four or five of the trout I got went into the slot range. A couple of barely over the slot trout were caught by the other waders along with maybe 20 trout, a few in, but mostly below the slot.

Second day, I caught I’m estimating 25 trout to 22”, four slot reds to 26” plus a few undersized reds, and one 17” flounder.

Only tails I used were these two in the photo and the top used was a white skitterwalk. 95% of the fish caught on tails. Second day guide and by far the group favorite of the two guides mainly uses the DSL big papa pearl pure in the longer paddle tail. The other color in the photo was Hammertime by Bass Assassin.

My wading partners used mostly other colors, chicken of the C and Texas roach, all or mostly all with Chartreuse tails and caught I believe two slot redfish in the two days of fishing, but roughly similar numbers and quality of trout. One friend also caught Two flounder, one about 3.5-4 pounds, on Texas roach (black and gold/chartreuse tail).

[deptrai]

Mulletron is my confidence color. I catch a lot more Reds than trout.

[karstopo]

That Mulletron color is similar to one of my favorites H&H Queen Cocahoe “Tuxedo”. In my experience, that’s a good color for trout, at least in the winter or what would be our cool season when I tend to do most of my fishing these days.

I don’t think I have a set of trout colors and a separate set of redfish colors, but I might favor some colors in the winter cool season and different colors during the warmer parts of the year.

I might carry with me in the kayak eight or ten or so different colors of tails, but seldom use more than one or two on any given trip. The only time I might turn to a color outside my normal colors is if I see positive signs of predators feeding, but they are ignoring what I am trying or if I’m fishing in close proximity to someone else that’s catching fish on a different color and the fish are ignoring my offerings.