Original Rapala/Fav. Bait question

For all those who posted about the original rapalas, I'm assuming all those were the silver/blk back models, maybe a red gill, not sure. To be honest I dont know if there were many different colors but it has to do with colors (especially red) fading to shades of grey to fish, especially at night. Consider this: There are infinite shades of grey, from white as the strongest point of grey to black as the weakest shade of grey. Just how many shades does a bass distinguish? And where would our fav color be in the grey sprectrum Think about what color of your favorite lure had to do with this.

When we refer to original rapalas, we are referring to the original floating twitch bait. Not a specific color, but that style bait. However, with that said your post has been discussed on a different board here recently and the argument always comes down to... we arent fish so we dont really know what they see, but we can study the anatomy of their eye, which does possess the parts needed to distinguish color. We can also study the physics of light in water which states that as you go deeper into the water column certain colors are filtered out more than others. This is also affected by water clarity... Basically, the shorter wavelength colors filter first, then the deeper you go the higher frequencies start to disappear. This is why Red fades to gray so quickly. At night these conditions are amplified due to the lack of light present. This is why most people swear by Black lures at night, to give them the most contrast against all teh shades of gray.

My personal belief is that color does indeed make a difference during teh day, and even more so in clear water, but only to a point. Basically the whole bait needs to be easily visible in the present water conditions so the Bass can locate and attack. Painting scales and stuff on a bait moving as fast as a crankbait is a waste of time as teh bass will never even get that good of a look at it.

[QUOTE=walkeraviator;438974]When we refer to original rapalas, we are referring to the original floating twitch bait. Not a specific color, but that style bait. However, with that said your post has been discussed on a different board here recently and the argument always comes down to... we arent fish so we dont really know what they see, but we can study the anatomy of their eye, which does possess the parts needed to distinguish color. We can also study the physics of light in water which states that as you go deeper into the water column certain colors are filtered out more than others. This is also affected by water clarity... Basically, the shorter wavelength colors filter first, then the deeper you go the higher frequencies start to disappear. This is why Red fades to gray so quickly. At night these conditions are amplified due to the lack of light present. This is why most people swear by Black lures at night, to give them the most contrast against all teh shades of gray.

My personal belief is that color does indeed make a difference during teh day, and even more so in clear water, but only to a point. Basically the whole bait needs to be easily visible in the present water conditions so the Bass can locate and attack. Painting scales and stuff on a bait moving as fast as a crankbait is a waste of time as teh bass will never even get that good of a look at it.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, but I know what you are talking about. Maybe I asked the question in the wrong way. What was the color of that favorite lure everyone speaks of. I'm wondering how many were white, grey, silver, black, or mixture of.

I am pretty sure the orginal colors were Silver/Black, Gold/Black, and Silver/Blue. None of them had red on them. The red under the nose was added later on.

OK thanks

I can say that right or wrong when I fished Jerkbait/twitchbaits in Florida I always started out with Gold/Black. Mainly because of the Golden colored Shiners down there. I have caught a lot on silver/black as well. Red was never a consideration.:)

In the Orginal floating model I threw and still throw the Silver/Black model, have caught thousands of fish on this lure, actually is a go to when I need a fish or two, also have lost a ton of these to Hybrids down at the spillway at Barren, never ha dmuch luck on the gold/black up here, tried it not as much sucess on it.

I always use originals as topwater baits. never tried em as a shallow crank. Who does this? does it work?

Yep it they work as a shallow crank. You need to tie the Rap knot to make it work right. I have caught a lot of fsih on it by just slow reeling it in just barley under the surface. I catch alot of fish like this, but I mainly use it as a top water.

the org rapala and a 6inch lizzard first two [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]artificial [/SIZE][/FONT]baits I ever used. they worked well for me 15 years ago i caught hundreds of fish off them but i cant say i use the rapala now But i still got two in the tackle box one gold and black and one white and black.