Have you ever wondered what color bait?to use on a cool fall day in stained water?? Me too.

?Ken Cook, Bassmaster champion (1991) and former fisheries biologist presented a simple?strategy for determining a color selection.? I'll try to break it down in a similar style to the way it was presented to me.

Water Clarity

The first thing Ken suggests is to get a good reading on the water clarity.? Try this.? Take a white lure and let it out over the side of your boat, lower it to the water surface, slowly lower the bait into the water keeping track of how many feet of line you are letting out.? When you can't see the bait anymore multiply the number of feet by two and you have your clarity depth.

Double the depth to account for seeing the light through the water to the bait and back.? Pretty simple.? Knowing the visibile depth helps you determine where to fish (for sight fishing) and what colors to use.

• short sight distance - brighter/higher visibility colors
• longer sight distances - natural colors