The Key To Picking Your Lure Colors
step up your lure game now
written by staff writer
Capt. C.A. Richardson from Flats Class is going green—and not just in the environmental sense. He says green is his go-to color for fishing for snook in the shallows and flats of Florida.
Richardson and Capt. Brandon Branch had planned on a day of grouper fishing in Citrus County along the Crystal River. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating and unusually cool spring weather with a couple of windy days had muddied up the bottom. Not exactly ideal conditions for catching grouper.
So, the pair of anglers headed inshore for a day of hooking snook. Richardson said the key is matching your lures to the bottom. In this case, Crystal River’s grassy bottom called for green lures.
“These are fantastic when you’re trying to mimic naturally minnows. They give a lot of flash and vibration and when you’re trying to cover water I don’t know if there’s a better bait.”
While the MirrOlure hard baits are good for midwater columns, Richardson said, a spoon is better when you want to get “down and dirty.” Using a watermelon-colored lure, Richardson said a spoon can stay closer to the grass and tighter to the bottom with the same flash and vibration as the MirrOdines. Be sure to check out some of C.A.’s custom MirrOdines too!
There is one exception to going green in the grassy shallows. When their fishing day ended on an overcast note, Richardson switched to a pink speckled topwater bait. He said the MirrOlure Top Dog Jr. “silhouettes real good” under cloudy conditions.
“Between the dark belly and the scaly sides, it’s really tough to beat this as a topwater at the day’s end.”
Although Richardson and Branch planned on a day of grouper fishing, they ended up landing plenty of snook.
“This was an unbelievable day of fishing. Understand green will get the job done when there’s no bait evident on the flats.”
Watch Flats Class S13:E8, “Snookerdoodle,” as an excursion out of Crystal River for grouper gets blown inshore & turned into an amazing snook day.