Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:05]
A
Welcome to the Salt Strong podcast disrupting fishing entertainment as you know it. Prepare to laugh, prepare to get to know fishing legends in a whole new and unfiltered way. And on occasion, you might even learn a thing or two about fishing. Here's your host, Joe Simons.
- [00:23]
B
Like diamonds, Black fishing lures. Black fishing lures. Luke, you got a couple in your hand. There you go. And talk about the truth behind these black. I'm talking about all black lures. Talk about the science behind it. There's an article we'll give them some Credit here. Outdoor life.com when just Googling, you know, what's the science behind black lures? And we'll talk about that article which has been looks like shared thousands of times. Actually pretty popular. Dion, I think because it was pretty eye opening on why black lures work. Before we get into that though, you know, you've heard of Slam Shady and for those of you who've been around for a long time, you might remember the science behind Slam Shady and it's similar to this one. And in that book what fish See and also the Scientific Angler. Those were really kind of the two books that highlighted why white is probably the overall just best. And it was, you know, white or pearl loaded with some sort of sparkle like silver gold, which we have both in Slam shade if you don't know the story behind it. But one of the main reasons why Luke, you recall is that because that white will kind of blend in and take on the color of whatever water same if you're in Tampa and you're clear water and meaning not clear water the city, but very clear water, the pinfish look different there than they do up in like Jacksonville or in Georgia where the water's different. These bait fish tend to do the same thing. They kind of take on the the color of the water. And that's what white and pearl does.
- [02:02]
C
So yeah. And that's what all fish do, even catch a catch a redfish like a, like a pumpkin redfish and put in live well after a little bit in a white live well it lightens up. And so the fish will naturally especially bait fish, we're talking about the prey. They'll just naturally take on the color of the water. And yeah, white is so good because what the fish see, the only color fish see is the color of the water, right? With the water that's in between them and the white, the white backdrop, if it's green water, they'll see a green lure which is the same color as the bait fish. And The. The flash on Slam Shady is a big deal because now it doesn't blend in too much where, like, they see the right color, but a little bit of flash that it stands out. So. So overall, this. This has been awesome. And I've been doing a lot of color tests over the years where I'll have, like, if, say I'm testing this, this particular color on the ticker lure, two rods, the exact same rod, exact same reel, exact same line, same everything except for the color of the lure, same rigging, of course. And I'll do three cast switch, three cast switch, and just fish for, you know, a few hours or however long I'm fishing and log. Log the results. And it's actually surprisingly rare when there is a difference. But I have friends. There's.
- [03:16]
B
There's been differences. Not just a huge difference where you caught ten on one and one on the other.
- [03:22]
C
Yeah, until recently, I. I had zero where. Where one color caught fish and the other one did not catch anything. So it's. What I've. What I've learned is that if we're spending much time on color, like, we might be overthinking it. That being said, there have been some findings that have seen some consistent trends where one color is out producing the other. Again, both colors usually will work, but there's definitely some trends on. On sky. Right. The clarity of the water and how bright the sky is seems to be a big factor in. In having one lure consistently outperform the other.
- [04:01]
B
Y. And before we get into that, before we get into that, where I'm going with this is two things. One, we want to make very clear, because someone will be listening to this.
- [04:10]
C
Like, I can't believe you guys have
- [04:11]
B
been selling me on sl. Now you're saying black's the thing. The reason we went with Slam Shady is because of that book and just because it's. It's been proven. And that's why Slam Shady, I believe, has got, you know, more documented species than any other single lure and lure color out there that. That we've seen. I mean, it's. It's might be a couple hundred now. I don't even know what the number is. It's bonkers. So we're not saying that Slam Shady goes away. It's still our favorite. It's, in my opinion, still the most overall consistent. But right behind it, in both of those books, they talk about black, that just a black lure. The same reason a lot of bass anglers, when they're getting into bass fishing with just an old Worm, a senko or whatever it might be, the tend to go with some sort of dark purple or black. It does work really, really, really, really well. So I just want to preface that, that we're not saying don't do slim shading. I'm, I'm still.
- [05:02]
C
It's my go to.
- [05:03]
B
It's what I start with. But I know there's gonna be someone listening that says, I can't believe you guys been saying slam shades the best. And now it's black. So all that being said, now go for it. Yeah.
- [05:11]
C
And it's situational, so if anybody, you know, there's. When in doubt, go white because as we mentioned before, it blends in with the water. And, and it's hard to go wrong if your bait is mimicking the color of the bait target. But yeah, so. So more recently, I've been doing a lot of just light versus dark comparisons. But before this one, this is called black silver about to change to black ice. Before this one came out, I was using Turd Ferguson on the tweakers pretty much all winter long. And that has been the most telling color experiment because I've been using the tweaker and they're, they're very weedless. They have great darting action. And so I'll actually use two of them. So I'll use a tandem rig called the Sidekick rig, where both lures are riding side by side and basically bouncing off each other. And so that's just a way to present two different colors with the. At the exact same time, with the exact retrieve, everything the same. That's when I started seeing disparities. And, and it came from. It was basically the, the clarity of the water. Basically the, the, the ability for the fish to see versus Nazi was the big decision point on light versus dark. But what was crazy is that it ended up being the opposite of what I've been taught and like, what I've heard on like, TV shows my whole life. Probably heard it as well, where dark lures use them at night. Right. Use them in dark water when it's cloudy. What I've been finding is the exact opposite. So the, the brighter the sun, like no clouds in the sky, and the clear the water, the more the dark one wins. And, and it's been consistent on early mornings. The lighter color is almost always winning early. And then the darker color will come back and usually win, depending on how long I stay. Once the sun's up and then a fish in the evening, the opposite fish in the evening, the dark color will start out winning. And then the lighter one will. Will start picking up, you know, closer to twilight and even at night too. Granted, I haven't done a whole lot of night night tests yet. That'll be coming up soon now. Now that I have some of the plugs like the skinny Lipper having the same color, my favorite night thing does look good. Yeah. My favorite night nighttime lure is this wake mullet for. For buzzing shallow flats for reds and snook and big trout. So I'll start using this one against the Slam Shady at night to see. Really. To see what. What matters at night. All I know is that Slam Shady definitely worked great at night. I've been using. I've been using Slam Shady, like, currently fishing. If I'm actually, like, fishing for real, Slam Shady is still what I go with because it's just proven to work. But I'm starting to really gravitate toward these. These black lures and the darker ones. It started with the jerk bait. This is the Polk County Tweaker. And. And basically this is the one. This exact one I actually caught. It was. That was in the Chazwisky River. It was after my camping trip where I. I camped out on my boat while exploring some. Some waters up in the. In the Chaz, which is really cool country.
- [08:25]
D
And.
- [08:26]
C
And the last day I decided it was. It was class calm, very, very clear, not a cloud in the sky. And it was a really tough bite. And so I was, okay, let me. Let me pull out the tweaker, which is my favorite lure when it's. When it's calm and clear. And I did the black versus the white, basically Slam Shady versus this, this black ice. And I caught a full slam on this, and I caught nothing on Slam Shady. That's. That's the only time I've ever actually got. Got beat up with Slam Shady. But again, crystal clear water, not a cloud in the sky, and I was having to go super slow, so I was basically like dragging bottom, like. And I. I don't know what. I don't know why it was such a big disparity, but I got a red snook trout and I had a flounder get off right at the boat on the black and nada on the Slam Shady. Granted, I did have some strikes on the Slam Shady. I just didn't. Didn't get a hook set.
- [09:21]
B
What's the science behind it? Is it like this article talks about, you know, everything underwater is backlit, you know, and I'm super bright day. I mean, we've been down there, you know, free diving and stuff and you know, 12ft of water less and it is bright and I would, I would, I haven't done the test but I would have to imagine I could see a black lure way easier than I could a white lure going through when it's that bright outside and that clear of a water like in the Keys.
- [09:46]
C
Yeah but, but that science because. Yeah. The reason why, according to the research I've been reading, the reason why black is featured a lot is because it gives off the best silhouette obviously like for, for redfish, sea trout, snook, flounder. They're all predator, they're, they're all English predators. So they're, they're almost always on the bottom and, and feeding up right looking up. But again when I got, when this black one did the best relative to white, it was on the bottom. So those fish weren't looking up at it, they were looking side view. So, so this, so I guess my finding was, wasn't quite addressed in that at least in the research. But, but again the, the, the main draw on black according the research is out there is just that it offers the best silhouette. Obviously you can see this very good on my, on my white backdrop, whereas this doesn't stick out quite as much. It's just casting a silhouette. So if you're using a lure that's the right size of the prey that they're feeding on and the right shape, they're going to see it and immediately identify it as food and strike it. One of my personal thoughts because I've been doing a lot of. I've been doing these tests in Charlotte Harbor, Tampa Bay and then the, the Chaz like the nature coast and, and this black has been consistent again consistently doing better when it's clear and calm. I think part of it, most layers I'm fishing are high pressure. Is. It's just something different. I think they just, they just aren't really afraid of it yet. Is, is just one, one just hunch and, and, and, and then more recently I've just recently I haven't done enough testing with the plugs with the skinny lipper to, to say one way or the other. But so far it's about dead even. And what I've been testing it against is the, is the, the full on natural mullet just to see if, if the black can outperform like the super high def. This one's obviously pretty beat up but, but so far it's about even. However the natural has had the bigger fish. So now but the Blackley's doing surprisingly well.
- [11:54]
B
One thing it mentioned in this article, which it seemed like it was a little bit leaning more towards bass fishing and he's talking about flies and stuff. He did mention the word snook in there, but there's a lot of fly fishing. And this was another thing that on the science of it for bass fishing. So when these fish you mentioned, Luke, are looking up from the bottom, looking up, there's either sun or a moon, you know, that's creating the light. And anything that's dark is going to have in general a clear silhouette. But he says also leeches, hellgramites and stoneflies are very common aquatic forage for, for a lot of the freshwater species. And all of them are black and so are beetles. So our big ants and spiders and basically most of the big terrestrial insects that are, you know, crossing the water around lily pads and stuff are dark or black in that case. And so his point was, hey, one, it's creating a silhouette and two, these bass in particular are used to seeing things that are really dark in, in general. So I thought that was kind of interesting and it is true. Like you know, most of our, our hardcore fly fishing friends that, that tie a lot of flies, they always have like a black or black and, and even people swear for snook and tarpon like that's a go to fly. Is that that and same with you, right? That the reason we came up with this was black. It was, it was one of our go tos that seemed unstoppable as a confidence lure for bass fishing.
- [13:24]
C
Yeah, that's how it started. So it was a Renegade. I, I'm still upset they don't make them anymore. But as a renegade worm. I was a die hard bass angler when I was younger and Renegade made this worm that was this exact color. So it was black with, with little small silver flex. I'll kind of twist it. You can see the silver flashing and it was amazing. It was by far my, my best lure I've ever thrown and I couldn't find it for a while. And then we're actually my. It was. My dad and I were on the way down to, to Boca grand and we for just a day of fishing we stopped by the Super Walmart that's in Inglewood. And I remember like it was a whole, a whole you know, pin of them or whatever, like 10 of them on the pin. I grabbed all 10 of them and that was the last time I ever saw him. I, I've obviously since used them but, but anyhow, it was always for bass. I never even considered it for saltwater until this. This Turd Ferguson color on the tweaker has been consistently catching great fish.
- [14:24]
B
To be clear, Turd Ferguson is, is
- [14:26]
C
brown, like turd brown, but it's, it's a dark lure like that. That's when I started doing the dark versus dark versus light. And, and then I was like, all right, well, this dark is actually doing pretty well. Can't get much darker than black. But let's, let's at least spruce it up a little bit with some silver flash. And that's, that's really how it started. But like, so far in testing, it's been solid even. These are available for sale. So the tweakers in this color right now, they're called black silver on our website. So it's the, the tweaker we have it and then the 2.0 we have, we have that color in those profiles. And then we're getting all the others coming soon, including the plugs, but that'll be probably a month or two out. Yeah.
- [15:04]
B
And we'd love your feedback. Try them out yourself. Let us know what, what you're finding. If it's in certain water clarities, if it's night, super bright out, et cetera. We're, we're always trying to figure out what is working best in different scenarios and the science behind it. Remember talking to Hollywood one time we were fishing with him down in Islamorada, and we always like to just talk, you know, old school lures with. Anyone who's been fishing for that many decades is a pro. And he had mentioned there, there was an old, I think it was a Johnson silver minute. Yeah, the, the spoon they used to make an all black one. And he's like, you can find it every once in a while. He's like, that would catch the biggest snook out there. Which doesn't make any sense. Right. Because I mean, part of, at least in my opinion, is an. As a person, part of the appeal of a spoon, either gold or silver, is it's got a lot of flash and it's causing some commotion and vibr. Both, you know, visually and, and just throughout the water and it seems like black would defeat the shininess, but maybe it's that whole silhouette of that, that backdrop on certain days because obviously the keys. Crazy clear water. So I'm wondering if that's. That's something.
- [16:22]
C
Yeah, I mean, you can't put it past it. I, so far, again, I went from not thinking Black was even going to be an option to now it's, it's, it's, it's bumping up the, the trust scale pretty quickly. Particularly like, even like this lure here. I'm getting it rigged up. I'm going out tomorrow at a bay port. I'm taking the, the paddle board out, the motorized paddle board and it's going to be calm and clear. And so this right here is on my number one, my number one setup too.
- [16:52]
B
Cool. Also, speaking of science, if you guys haven't checked it out yet, that Peter D underwater course, Underwater World of Insure saltwater fishing is out there. It's live. It's only for, you know, lifers and VIP members. Or if you went and bought it separately, check that out. We are getting some crazy reviews meaning like people like mind blown. Like I can't believe someone finally put this together and there was, it ended up turning into a movie. And I'm blanking on the name. I wish I had it in front of me. But it was a underwater bass fishing essentially a movie. They turn it into like a, almost a full length movie. And that was like mind blowing to people because no one had really studied bass underwater. And that was, you know, a big thing that, that Johnson did there who wrote the book Scientific Angler. He spent so much time and he was a part of that, that whole movement to get that out there. And Deke spent three years building this, this course and really, really, really amazing. So I make sure to get that. And for you lifers, I know a bunch of you upgraded here recently, maybe even right now, depending on when you listen to this, we're at the tail end of it. Thank you guys so much. It means the world to us that you guys are lifetime members and we had that really cool rod. That thing is awesome. I, I, I don't need to pay for Lifer because I'm already a lifer, but I want to pay for it just to get the rod. But I, I did hear because people would ask, hey, I'm already a lifer. How can I get that lifer rod, that, that custom rod there? And we are going to make it available. It'll probably be later in the year. These things are essentially handmade. I mean they're, it's not like they go through some production line where they're making thousands in an hour. They do take a while and we will have some available at a good deal for you lifer members. So stay tuned for, for that. Meaning if you didn't already get one in this Latest lifer offer. I know you got your own gift prior to that, so just want to thank you guys and take a moment to do that. It's been a wild week here with all the people upgrading to VIP and Lifer and, and getting this course. So really, really cool. Thank you guys.
- [18:51]
C
Yeah. And I'll just, just to put perspectives, that rod that Joe's talking about, it's the, it's the slot machine which is an amazing rod. It's made in Texas, made in usa. And we talk, we've been talking about lure color a lot. If you want something that actually impacts catch results, focus on getting a really good rod and not so much the lure. So this, this rod, it is by far the best rod I've ever used for, for anybody who's serious about catching big fish with lures, it has the best feel of any rod. We've, we've, we've made it all about performance to the point where like the, the mass production rods, they'll never do it. We, we, we didn't put any paint on it. Which, which gives it number one incredible light feel is literally it's 4.4 ounce. The medium power one's 4.4 ounces for a seven foot six medium power rod. Fast action with the full court grip. That's unheard of. Like no other, no other rod is that light while still having power to get hook sets with, with like weedless soft plastics. And it just effortless casting all day long. It is absolutely amazing. If you're serious about getting better particular with lures, get a good rod and don't worry about the colors. Just get one, get slam shady color and you, you will not get Scott, you're going to be catching some fish. So, so I just want to make sure that the perspective is always there. I know this is all about color, but that's pretty far down the chain. It's, you know, get good rod, good feel and then just worry about depth control with your, with your lure and then the right, the right retrieve, the right motion. If you get those two right with a rod that you can feel what's happening on the business end, you're going to be catching a fish consistently.
- [20:34]
B
So and that's assuming you're in the right spot, which our members are because again, they know about the 9010 and have smart fishing spots and a community backing them up, et cetera. So the spot trumps it all. And even this article did tie that in. He's like, you know it, you know, fish are not like us. We look. I think the example in the article was like a hamburger. We could see two different hamburgers. One that's, you know, been sitting there at Wendy's for 24 hours and one that's like a custom made. And you're like, oh, that looks soggy. Like, I'll take that one. Like fish don't think that way. They're looking at a silhouette. They're looking. Does this look like something that I want to eat? Is it moving the right way? They're not looking at the color. Does it have eyeballs on it? That makes us feel good. More and fuzzy. But that's not what catches the fish is Luke said. And as this article talked about.
- [21:19]
C
So yeah. And in those color contests, the times where I saw the biggest disparity is when I was throwing the Sidekick rig where they had the two hamburgers to check out and pick the right one. If it was just one lure itself. That's when the color didn't seem to matter. Or they, they saw a lure that looked like the meal that they're targeting and they went up and ate it. They didn't care if the color wasn't. Was it perfect? So. So yeah. Just don't make mistake. I used to buy every color of every lure and I used to throw thinking that it mattered a lot. And the biggest finding is that it really doesn't matter much most of the time.
- [21:57]
B
Yep. But you should go get some black ones because everyone's going to have a different confidence lure as well. For me it is slam shady. But I, I bought some of these black ones and just because you never know and if slim shit ain't working and nothing's working, I'm gonna go at least try that. So I do think it is fun for anglers to try stuff, but to be a repeater, we like to keep it simple as well. So Luke nailed it. You don't need all that stuff. And even if you do have it, when you do go out, just take the bare minimum. I don't think you need a whole. You know, I'm ironically wearing a bass pro shop the T shirt I had for a while. You don't need a whole bass pro shop aisle of lures and jig heads to go fishing for these of these fish. Keep it simple. Other than that, we'd love to hear your feedback. If you've had any sort of good luck, bad luck, any sort of specific results on different colors and especially if it's black, let us know in the comments down below. We'd love to hear about this was not a. A sermon of us saying, here's the,
- [22:57]
C
the truth about it.
- [22:58]
B
We're. We're giving you our truth, what we've seen so far. And like, like fishing, it's a never ending puzzle that we just keep getting more pieces every. Every trip.
- [23:08]
C
Yep. Yeah, I'm gonna take these over to the, like, Sebastian area where I used to fish back in the day. The water's usually pretty murky, and so I'm gonna do that same black versus white and see if the slam shady ends up winning most of the day. That's my hunch, but only way to find out is to go. And it'd be a good excuse to go back to the old stomping grounds.
- [23:26]
B
Amen. All right, guys. Well, good luck, Luke. Keep us posted and we appreciate you all big time. Comment down below and we'll talk to you on the next episode.
- [23:46]
D
Find us on the water. If there was a way been said my power he wrote the book on catching big reds and 20 pound snook I wish I knew all the things he knew today for he's the reason why we are this way and he put fish in our souls to stay.