Coloration Of Crawdad On The Rock

[troutgnat]

Just an interesting question here. Almost have of the smallmouth and kentuckys we caught Sunday were puking up crawdads or had them in their mouths. I was able to collect several of these and they were all of the same coloration. A solid green pumpkin(dark olive) across the top and back, fading into brown down the sides with orange near the bottom 1/3 on the sides and orange on bottom. These were craws taken from fish around pea gravel in 16' of water or less.

Im curious as to what color of jigs everyone is fishing and how well they resemble this coloration. I know crawdads change colors when they molt and depending on where they habitat. Craws in deeper water tend to be darker, etc.

I usually tend to throw jigs in brownish/cinnamon/purplish in color or green pumpkin w/ accent colors.

How about everyone else????

[smallmouthjoe]

I definably stay in the greenish brown area of the color spectrum. Even though I've had success with chompers Missouri craw color with a black trailer on cloudy, rainy days. Yesterday I started out with PB&J with a green pumpkin trailer and caught some fish, but later in the day I started throwing a Bitsy Flip in strike kings spring craw pattern (green and brown) and found it to work better. Could have been the color or maybe the smaller profile that did it.

[eric1978]

Agnew says to match the color of the streambed (or lake bottom in your case). I've always tried to match the color of the crawdads in the water I'm fishing, but since they are invariably close to if not exactly the color of the bottom, Al's method makes a lot of sense. If you are in clear, rocky water, go for a brownish color. If the water is more fertile and the bottom has more color to it, try a greener color. If the water is more stained than that, I'll try a darker color so the fish have a better chance of seeing it. If I see a crawdad and I have a color identical, I'll use it. Otherwise, close is usually good enough.

[alletec]

Net Bait has some really good colors of craw trailer for jigs that I have found the fish seem to hold on to longer the others I have tried. They have a multitude of great colors to match all of your jigs.

[Bill Babler]

Boy's remember that the acids in the stomachs of the bass will really add that orange/red/yellow tint to parts of the daddy. You may think I'm nuts, but just turn over a few rocks along the shoreline and check out the true color, before they have been eaten. Most often dark green pumpkin with a brown or cinnamon touch on the pincers and along the under side of the body cavity. It seem death, tends to color them up in the brighter hues. Especially the pincers and undersides.

Green pumpkin, with a cinnamon purple twin tail is just pretty hard to beat anytime here, or you can swithch it and fish a brown purple flash jig with a green pumpkin or watermellon candy twin tail. Any of those combo's are deadly.

Don't forget the black and blue after dark, or on very overcast cloudy days. I have not ever really seen a black and blue crawpappy, but the bass sure like-em.

Good Luck

[Wayne SW/MO]

The 2 most common colors I've seen in stream craws, available to Smallies, have either orange or chartreuse highlights under a green pumpkin color. They also have some black from time to time. There are about 35 species of craws in Missouri, but not all of them are available to the fish, even when in the same waters.

The jigs I dress myself are generally olive, green pumpkin or pumpkin with about 4 strands underneath of orange or chartreuse. The most productive for me is the green pumpkin with chartreuse highlights under.

[troutgnat]

Gentlemen,

Very useful information! Bill, thanks for the insight. I have fished both those jig colors for quite a while and never once thought to contrast the two colors like that. I always seemed to color coordinate the trailer to match the jig.............DUH.

[skeeter]

The "Long Pincered Crawfish" that are native to only the White River http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2005/05/ have what I consider a unique coloration. See the excellent pictures in the article from MDC and these match exactly the crawdads I get in my TR trap. Agree with Babler about the digestive juices in the Bass changing that coloration.

[Sam]

Well, I learned another new thing here. It's obvious, but something I just never thought about before.

At times I've used soft baits in colors like the crawdad pinchers I have to clean out of my live well - bright, light orange. I can't say I ever did very well on that color, but it seemed like it oughta work since it's the same color as a crawdad.

But that's the color of a DEAD crawdad, and one that's been in a fish's stomach. No wonder I've always done better with dark greens and browns (and as Bill says, black/blue at night). Sometimes it takes a little nudge for me to understand something I should have figured out long ago.

[Bill Babler]

Another meaningless fact is the color between the river/stream daddy's and the lake daddy's. Have trapped dads up flat creek and the James river for years, and most of those are a very light brown, to tan, with dark green outlines year around. They have a very heavy armor coat and very short heavy pincers, with a very bright orange outline on the exterior of the pincers.

Get down on the lake itself, and most all the dads are a green pumpkin brown, with a much softer shell and longer narrower pincers, in very dark green, until they are consumed or boiled and then they turn orange.

I will tell you this however. Those creek crawdads, are as mean as hell. and will pinch the bejeebers out of you if you don't watch it. The lake crawdads are much more docile. You can try them both for Kantucks, and you will catch twice as many fish on the lake dads, over the very mean fighting river craws. I know, I have done it since the 70's.l

When my folks owned our resort on LOZ, we would walk Rainey Creek. Deer Creek, Buffalo Creek, and catch dads and throw them in the deep holes under root wads and catch what at that time we called Green Trout. They were just SMJ'S. Always let them go even back in the late 60's as they were full of worms.

Fished crawdads, for the first time on Table Rock, in 1973, and they were the balm mostly for very big K's.

I should have looked back at Skeeters post, that is for sure a lake dad that is pictured. See how long and narrow his pincers are and how green and brown he is?

Our creek dads, look entirely different, as soon as I can get some time I will run over to Flat creek and photo one and you will see an amazing difference. Hope I can get there before next Spring.