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Hope you’ve been whackin’ a bunch of slabs! Back with a little-shorter Target Crappie this week because we're on the road, seeing some new techy stuff coming to the fishing world. It is sweet!

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"Camo" baits for pressured fish?

I came across this post from Jay Kumar's BassBlaster with Great Lakes Finesse's Dan Miguel talkin' about how for clear-water pressured smallmouth bass, guys like to use bait colors that blend in with the water. 

GLF just came out with that sick-looking 'spicy melon' color (above) that blends in with the clear water Dan fishes on the Great Lakes. Real quick, here's what he said about it:

> "...we wanted a color that blended in up north in the clear water. When the sun hits the water, there's an ocean-like green turquoise hue to the water. Basically we wanted a color to blend in to that environment to make those fish feel like they found the bait.

> "...the colors that match their surroundings seem to produce the most and biggest fish consistently.

> "I'm a firm believer that you want the fish to feel like they found the bait rather than make the bait be so obvious to the fish. I think sometimes you make the bait too obvious to the fish and that turns them off.

> "Especially the bigger pressured fish. They want to feel like, Ah I see you, I got you."

Interesting deal! Begs the question – should we fish more "camo" colors? Especially for clear-water black crappie?

Just like those smallmouth Dan is talking about, black crappie can get real finicky, so why not start fishing colors that "blend in" with the water a little more?

Maybe throwing baits that the crappie feel like they've found could be a game-changer when you're on those big groups of fish that just won't bite? Something to think about anyhow.

This whole deal made me think of all the sick colors the Bobby Garland Baby Shad has that could blend in with your water – here are a few:

'Outbreak'

Could be the deal for dirtier or tannic water! Maybe dye that tail and give it a real baby bluegill look. 

'Sonar beam'

Looks like it could blend in well in that green-blue clear-ish water on lakes like Sam Rayburn, TX, and the TVA lakes. 

'Blue Chrome'

For the folks in some real blue water?

Btw, don't pass up those Great Lakes Finesse baits for crappie too! A bunch of their baits are crappie-sized and will catch 'em! Check 'em out here on Tackle Warehouse.

Ever caught 'em on just the plastic??

No clue what happened here, but this is a pretty dang good testament to the toughness of Z-Man ElaZtech plastic! 👀

That fish on the "no hooks" pattern was caught by Jimmy at Rawr Fishing on a 3" Z-Man Slim SwimZ on a 1/12-oz Z-Man Finesse EyeZ jighead.

If you haven't fished with the Z-Man baits yet, that ElaZtech plastic is super tough and super-stretchy, and if you don't break off or change colors or shapes, there's a good chance you can catch a limit of crappie on 1 or 2 baits. Sounds like a winner to me!

Also, fwiw that post reminded me that the way that ElaZtech is made, the colors have an interesting hue/sheen to them – especially the pink baits like the one in the vid.

Some are almost translucent and have a different look to them, which is why I like to toss them in my black crappie rotation to get a few more bites out of a brushpile, or to turn a pile on when the fish are being stingy.

Here's a couple of pink colors I like of the Z-Man Baby BallerZ:

'Coconut ice'

'Electric chicken'

Don't sleep on pink, man! Even Steven Tyler knows what's up! 🤣

More urchin action!

I've been pretty stoked since BaitFuel announced their fall release of their 9mm Nano Spike at ICAST, and I got even more stoked to fish it when I came across this post from Lake and Trail Okeechobee!

Couple things I notice:

1. A big thing in the bassin' world is that urchin-style baits that hold that form tend to be favored by guys – because it moves more water and has more "stopping power. When I saw that vid, it looked to me like the Nano Spike does a great job of that. Let's see if the slabs like it too!

2. In that video, when the bait is just barely being twitched, it looks like those tails move just enough without looking unnatural (if you can say an urchin looks natural 😅). It's got me excited to long-pole some timber with that thing. 

Per BaitFuel's Bailey Boutrie in a recent TC, it'll catch both blacks and whites well, but in my opinion the movement of the bait + the water displacement + the BaitFuel scent and powder on the Nano Spike = a dirty-water big white crappie match made in heaven!

Red > chatreuse in muddy water?

Check out this tidbit from MS guide Hayden Jeffries on Jeff Foxworthy's (yes, that Jeff Foxworthy) Mossy Oak Gamekeepers pod:

> "I try to stay as natural as possible when I'm picking a jig just because a crappie eats something that's fairly natural most of the time. But when you start getting into the mud, you have to start playing with different colors.

> "After studying it, I'm going to say red shows up the best. If it's just super, super muddy, you can't see your bait. As soon as you drop it in there, they can see red.

> "Chartreuse...actually turns white when you put it into muddy water, and so it's harder for them to see that."

"Every jighead has its purpose. If you’re losing fish, [it] doesn't mean you have a junky jighead. It just means that you might be using a jighead that’s got a little bit too small or maybe a little bit too big of a hook – or maybe your bait's taking up too much of the gap."

– That tip is from pro bass angler and crappie fanatic Brandon Lester from a recent YouTube vid on dealing with finicky summer crappie. Good food for thought there!

Check out the these absolute brutes caught by the winning team at the Wappapello Crappie Club Small Fish Tournament. Caught by the team of Hill and Green. 

Their (I believe 5-fish) bag came in at a whopping 0.83-lbs! Bet we all have some fishing buds that would do pretty good in a tourney like this! 🤣

National Professional Anglers Assoc.

MN-FISH