harness blades- trolling vs. drifting???

[Boatnut]

Ok, I know a lot of charter captains that drift exclusively often use just a plain hammered gold blade with red or green beads and do quite well. However, when we troll harnesses with inline weights, we tend to have about as many different blade/bead combinations as we do spoons in our box or at least I do.
My question is, If a plain hammered gold blade catches fish for drifters, why do we trollers need all those pretty colored blades? Or do we? Blades are fast becoming my latest "dependency". I can't hardly go into a bait shop without looking at their selection of blades just as I used to do with spoons.
My therapist has told me that i need to bring "closure" to this dilemna ASAP so would appreciate any input from both drifters and fellow trollers. :)

[Adam Bomb]

I wonder if the drifters do better with more simplistic set ups because they have the rod in hand and manipulate the action of the bait. It may be the motion thats the trigger moreso than the actual color of the rig.

I could be dead wrong on that, but i do know when trolling that on some days ive run identical bead strings with either gold or silver blades and theyve been dead, switch it up to a blade of color and it started to fire. It could be a metallic blade that incorporates color or an opaque colored blade thats the difference. So, i guess from my standpoint, i do think colored blades vs. plain silver/gold or copper can make a difference on some days...and on others, its certainly the other way around.

For instance, just this last week i fished clear, deep, open water and the plain ol #5 deep cup colorado or Willow Leafs blades in Silver, Gold or Copper defiitely outproduced everything else. I think it came down to the vibration of the blade for long range attraction, along with the brilliant flash those bare metal blades produced in the gin clear water. The walleye just seemed to love them. Now, i did have a metallic pink blade that was killer as well, so i think it was the metallics side of things that was really showing through.

Until i know the answer for sure ill probably find myself drooling at the tackle store and icreasing inventory with each visit.;):sorry:...Good luck with your theropy!:laugh:

[tracker 1]

Does anyone know were I can see some pictures of some of these harnesses. I would like to know how many beads you usually put on , also do any of you use the little floating beads to keep it off the bottom. How long do you make your harness? How close to the hook do you put your blades , so the hook doesn't interfere with the blade.

[Adam Bomb]

All of my harnesses are in the boat over at my Uncles, so i cant get ya a pic, but i can tell ya how i make mine. I run 6 6mm beads on my harness or two stack beads with a 6 mm in between. I add my quick change clevis and then add a red bead as my lead bead on most harnesses. Dont know if it makes a difference or not, but i started doing it a long time ago, and have just stuck with it.

As far as harness length, id say most of mine are right around 4' long when i run them behind inline weights or harnesses.