Lure colour for trout

This Irish band has changed the usual word ‘red’ to ‘green’ in its song, to encourage overseas Irish to celebrate Ireland whenever possible. The song pops into my head each time I tie a green lure or soft bait to the end of my line, and recently that song has been in my head a lot because green lures are catching plenty of fish.

Why is green so popular with trout?

My opinion: first it is a natural colour, so is perceived as edible; secondly, green is seen well in deeper water; next, it contrasts nicely with other colour shades; and lastly, being darkish is a good colour in low light such as dawn and dusk.

Over the years I’ve leaned towards green a lot, especially spinners, which I imagine represents escaping insects and bugs. Naturally, I select lures and spinners for movement and action first and only secondly decide on which colour is best for that lure on the day. I find a lot of top anglers have a limited range of lures, but lots of colours and sizes in those lures.

Horses for courses also come into play with lures, particularly colours, but green seems to be an all-rounder anywhere. Green also appeals to both brown and rainbow trout, which is an added advantage. Even my silver salmon ticers and Zeddies have green prism tape on them, and it is a colour I use a lot when selecting soft baits. Trout have a limited range of colour vision, so it is best in clear conditions. It is said that at four metres and beyond, distinct colours are not visible to trout.

Some colours suit different types of water and times of day better. Black suits dark conditions, white gives excellent visibility in stirred and dirty water, red suits clear, shallow water, while in bright conditions flashy yellow and orange lures work well.

Two green lures I always carry are the green Panther Martin spinner and the green Mepps Thunder Bug spinner. The Panther Martin is good in deeper water while the Mepps runs shallow, which is useful where weed may be a problem. I often fish them together, meaning swapping over when water depth changes. The Panther has a bright-green blade and lighter green body while the Mepps has a green body, green dressed hook and bronze blade.

Good places for spinners like these are irrigation dams and ponds that have weed and shallow rocky bottoms. Recently, however, I was surprised where such small lures can still do well.

Lake Tekapo is a large lake located in the central South Island. At first glance, it appears a dirty-blue with limited shoreline vegetation. I fished there recently for the very first time, as previously I had always believed I knew better spots to catch trout. My change of mind was because I enjoy chasing landlocked salmon and in the last few years Fish and Game have been releasing fingerlings into the lake. Many of those little fish are now bigger fish of 1kg or more.

I parked beside the Lake MacGregor outlet into Lake Tekapo and attached a 28g silver and green wedge and whistled it a long way out into the lake. Two hours later I conceded defeat. There were no salmon about. This is the way when fishing for landlocked salmon: it’s all on or all off.  If the shoal is out there you go home early with a bag or you realise, today is not the day. They will turn up at some point.

The wind had got up, so I wandered along the shoreline to a sheltered spot that had a large gravel bank behind it. The wind was howling over the top, and like me, two grebes and a flotilla of black teal were hiding under the bank. I tried a few more casts with the Ticer but no salmon there either. Time for a radical plan.

Brochures said good-sized brown, and rainbow trout also lurked in the lake, so I needed to target them instead of absent salmon. It looked too deep for the Mepps, but some weed on the treble of the Ticer indicated it wasn’t really deep. I attached the six gram green Panther Martin and, using the advantages of a tailwind, long rod and braided line I whistled him a long way out into the lake. I knew his florescent green blade would be obvious in the silty water.

It seemed to take ages to retrieve the lure, but in the last wave, a swirl of silver indicated something had tried to eat it before my Panther Martin escaped. On the next cast, I slowed down when approaching the same spot and whack! A big fish engulfed the lure right under the rod tip.

A solid brown trout jumped twice before ripping line off the reel. It put up a dogged fight, but one thing I know about the Panther is that trout don’t nip it, they engulf it. Gradually I worked the fish into shore and landed a beautiful jack fish that pulled the scales down to 2.55kg. He was bleeding from one gill (yes, hook right down there), so I kept him for the pot.

The trace was frayed and nicked, so I replaced it and retied the little, mangled Panther. On the very next cast I was hit again, this time just two winds into the retrieve. A rainbow this time, which proceeded to jump all over the lake before finally giving up and asking for mercy. No blood this time so I was able to slip him back into the lake to grow bigger. As The Script would say, I had painted Tekapo green. My Irish ancestors would have smiled.