AlabamaFishing Atlas
Four fishing lure types: jig, spoon, plug and spinnerbait

What Color Lure Should I Throw Today?

Clear water, go natural. Stained, go chartreuse. Muddy or dark, go black and blue. Pick your lake, tell us what the water looks like and how deep you’ll fish — we read today’s sky and sun for that lake and narrow it to three color families.

Photo: R. Henrik Nilsson · CC BY 4.0
What does the water look like where you are?
Greenish or tea-colored, 3–6 feet
Light
Live at Lake Guntersville: night.
Depth you’ll fish

Throw these colors

  1. 1. Dark / black-blueblack, black-and-blue, junebug, dark blue
  2. 2. Natural / translucentgreen pumpkin, watermelon, brown, translucent shad
  3. 3. White / bone / pearlsolid white, bone, pearl, pearl-blue
Why

• Lightly stained sits between the clear and stained rules, so the Atlas blends them: natural and white first, a chartreuse back-up. (Our blend — the sources only define clear, stained and muddy.)

• Night: most expert night anglers throw black or dark blue.

Colors fade with depth in clearer water — first gone to last
1. Red
2. Orange
3. Yellow / chartreuse
4. Green
5. Blue

How we pick

Widely used angler guidance, not science and not a guarantee. Each rule names the source it came from. Weights are the Atlas's own way of combining the rules when more than one applies. Light is our own cutoff: sun below 6° under the horizon = night, below 10° above it = dawn/dusk, 70% or more sky cover = cloudy, from the National Weather Service hourly forecast for that lake.

Clear water: fish get a good look, so lighter, translucent and natural colors (green pumpkin, watermelon, translucent shad) are the standard call.

Moves: Natural / translucent +3, White / bone / pearl +1 · Source: Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026); Shane Beilue, Game & Fish (May 12, 2025); BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Indiana DNR's clear-water list: white, pearl-blue, purple and yellow combinations.

Moves: White / bone / pearl +1 · Source: Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife

Solid black also shows up well and looks natural in clear water.

Moves: Dark / black-blue +1 · Source: BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Stained water: brighter, two-tone contrast — chartreuse, black/chartreuse, black/yellow — and solid white are easier for fish to find.

Moves: Chartreuse / fluorescent +3, White / bone / pearl +1, Dark / black-blue +1 · Source: Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife; Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026); Shane Beilue, Game & Fish (May 12, 2025); BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Lightly stained sits between the clear and stained rules, so the Atlas blends them: natural and white first, a chartreuse back-up. (Our blend — the sources only define clear, stained and muddy.)

Moves: Natural / translucent +2, White / bone / pearl +2, Chartreuse / fluorescent +1 · Source: Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026); BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Muddy water: dense, solid colors — black, black-and-blue, black-chartreuse — throw the clearest silhouette; bright chartreuse is the other common call.

Moves: Dark / black-blue +3, Chartreuse / fluorescent +2 · Source: Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife; Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026); BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Bright sun: chrome, silver and gold catch the light and flash.

Moves: Chrome / silver / gold flash +2 · Source: Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife; BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Cloudy sky: solid white or bone, and fluorescent colors, stand out when there is no sun to flash off chrome.

Moves: White / bone / pearl +2, Chartreuse / fluorescent +1 · Source: BassResource (Apr 18, 2022); Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife

Dawn and dusk: dark baits — ideally with a bright accent — give the best silhouette when visibility is poor.

Moves: Dark / black-blue +2, Chartreuse / fluorescent +1 · Source: Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026); Shane Beilue, Game & Fish (May 12, 2025)

Night: most expert night anglers throw black or dark blue.

Moves: Dark / black-blue +4 · Source: Wade Bourne, Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Jul 30, 2019; updated Apr 3, 2026)

Spring with off-colored water: red shows up well in runoff stain and matches the crawfish bass key on as water warms.

Moves: Red / crawfish +2 · Source: BassResource (Apr 18, 2022)

Red is the first color water absorbs, so the deeper you fish the less a red bait reads as red.

Moves: Red / crawfish -2 · Source: NOAA Ocean Exploration; Sierra College / LibreTexts

Deep in stained or muddy water, silt and tannin-stain soak up blue light too, leaving a yellow-green-brown light — chartreuse and a black silhouette hold up best.

Moves: Chartreuse / fluorescent +1, Dark / black-blue +1 · Source: Sierra College / LibreTexts; University of Minnesota Water Resources Center (LCCMR brochure)

Order colors lose their color with depth. Clear water follows the NOAA order (red first, blue last). In stained or muddy water, silt and dissolved stain also absorb blue, so blue drops out early and yellow-green holds longest. The depth scale on the strip is illustrative — tied to the visibility you set — not a measurement.

Pair it with today’s water temperatures, the lake conditions and lake levels.

Sources

Sources checked 2026-11-09.