Examples:

   - White = Bright sun, clear water.

   - Chartreuse = Mostly sunny, rippled surface on the water

   - Fluorescent Orange = Mostly cloudy, chop on water surface, poop water surface

   - Purple = Twilight conditions, at dusk and dawn.  Very rough water surface

   - Black = Use at night.  The water surface from the fishes' view (underwater) is white.

What about using other colors?  Hundreds of other colors seem to confuse the issue but the main rule of light with light and dark with dark remains the same.  Many times the action or type of the lure can be as or more important than the color.

Another important point about color is once you get your lure about 15 feet, everything changes to shades of grey.  Black and white are still the same but most other colors change to gray as the sunlight filters down in the depths.  The clearer the water the deeper the colors will remain the same as on the surface without fading to shades of gray.  Your confidence in a particular lure  and color can also be a factor.  When you think something is going to work, you are more alert and more likely to catch fish.

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1.   Add twist tails, other soft body plastics and trailer hooks to make baits bigger in the fall of the year.  This is to match the food chain which is small in the spring and big in the fall.

2.   Use color blades to catch more Bass and flash blades to catch more Pike.

3.   Helicopter the spinner bait down to the bottom when regular retrieves don't work.  Cast it out and let it sink to the bottom while you count it down.  Keep repeating in the area but if the lines stops before your countdown to the bottom set the hook.

4.   When using trailer hooks (see Kit # 120A) point the hook up when Bass fishing and down when Pike fishing.  You can get a better hook set in a Northern Pikes lower jaw than you can in the upper.

The biggest reason people don't catch fish is because they are fishing where there aren't any.

Why?  Because they think there everywhere (which their not) or they think they know how to find them.

Here are the 4 most common methods used and why they don't work.

1.  Ask somebody - you might as well ask where you can find an 8 point buck on opening day.  Even if they know they are not going to tell you and they are not going to direct you to their favorite spot on the lake that may of may not productive anyway.

2. Use a fish finder - a fish finder can be great for locating fish suspended in deep water and for finding structure, weeds and other cover.  But what if the fish are in shallow water?  Your view won't have enough coverage of the bottom to tell you anything.

3.  Fish where the other boats are - That's the same idea they all had and that's why they are all in one spot together.  This point can be best understood when you see 15 boats in a small area and none of them are catching anything.  It just don't work.

4.  Troll to find fish - did you know that in almost any body of water, in terms of volume not just area, the 90% of the water contains 0 (that's ZERO as in ought, none, zip, zilch, etc.) percent of the fish.  All of the fish will be contained in only 10 percent of the water.  So about how much of your time are you wasting when you troll to locate fish? Duh 90%

It is absolutely amazing to know that most of the fisherman out there today do not know how to adjust the drag setting on their reels.

Sure, they know how to turn the adjustment and make it tighter of looser but that's the issue.

The drag setting on their reels should be set at 1/3 of the line test weight and with the rod in a arched, fighting fish bend and the friction of the line and rod guides included into the measurement of pressure.

Here's how to do it the right way.

With your reel mounted securely to your rod, thread the line through the rod guides and tip and attach the line to a spring scale and have a friend hold the scale while you raise the rod up putting a fighting fish arc in it.  With the slack out of the line begin adjusting the drag knob on your reel until the drag mechanism is just beginning to slip when the scale is reading 1/3 of the line test weight.

For example, with 12 pound test line the scale should read 4 pounds when the drag begins to slip.  With 6 pound test line the scale should read 2 pounds when the drag begins to slip.

It is almost unbelievable how much friction the pressure of the line against the rod guides and tip can produce.  If you have doubts about any of what is stated above try this,  hook up to the scale again, arc the rod and set the drag at 3/4 of the line test weight.  You will be able to feel the difference and see that it is set way to tight.  Now pull on the line right in front of the reel and see how easy it still slips from the drag.  Never check the drag here.

After some practice and getting the feel of this you won't need to use the spring scale at all.  Just step on the lure, arc the rod and set the drag.

This excuse has more holes in it than a minnow net.  Why? Because the fish can't break the line!  A lot of things can and do cause mono line to break but the fish is not one of them.  So what breaks or is harmful to the line?  Here are some examples;  heat and friction.  Bad Drag system or setting.  Bad Knot / knot efficiency.  Cheap line / not uniform.  Petroleum products / bug spray.  Abrasions / wear.  Ultraviolet damage.  Bad rod guides.  Bad reel pick up pin.  Saliva, use water to wet knot.  Underwater causes / rocks, etc.  "Bad sports" / If you and your fishing partner have a bet on the biggest fish, sometimes a hot cigar will do it.

All of these things and more can cause your line to break but the fish alone cannot break it.

Knot efficiency

A knot efficiency rating tells you at what point the knot will fail.  Most hand tied knots have an efficiency rating of about 50%.  This means if you are using a 10 pound test line and have a knot with an efficiency of only 50%, at 5 pounds of pressure the knot will fail.

It can fail by pulling apart of by breaking the line at the knot.  In this case, the line actually cuts itself.  Ever cut your finger on fishing line?  The line can cut line too!  The lack of uniformity in the tying of the hand tied knots can cause this.  The easy way to solve the problem is to use a good knot tier that provides uniform windings and increases your knot efficiency to over 90% at the same time.

At night or on dark cloudy days the fish see only the silhouette of the surface lure and the darker the lure the better.

On calm days the quiet plugs work best and on the windy days the noisier plugs work best.

Sometimes a fish will come from a considerable distance, just below the surface and making a wake.  This can cause near panic to the fisherman.  Stay calm and continue working the lure as you were before.

A top water plug placed near a fish can create a heart stopping explosion on the waters surface.  When this happens the natural reaction is to set the hook.  Don't.  If you do, your hooked fish to hook set ratio will be very low.  Many times a fish will blast the bait only hitting it with it's tail, to kill it and then hit it again to eat it.  The angler with nerves of steel who can wait until he feels the weight of the fish before setting the hook will catch more fish.

The fall season is when surface lures work best.  This is because, like in the spring, they are in the shallow water but now they are aggressively on the feed as they can sense the coming cold and winter.  Surface lures can be effective in shallow water in the summer but only after the temperature of the water has dropped from its daytime warm.

Accurate casting is needed and you should target where a fish is waiting to ambush prey.