When last we spoke. I was telling you about downsizing my tackle selection and making more functional use of the limited space in my tackle boxes and boat. Among other things. I touched bitefly on the topic of having my favorite deep water colors and my favorite shallow water colors when using jigs. Upon completing the article. I realized I had opened a can of worms that could have been explained better and in more detail than the constraints of the article allowed. This then is my attempt at clarifying something that has taken me years to learn.

Actually. I am still learning as we speak. but I have been able to narrow it down to four basic groups for most all conditions. There are actually five groups and the name of the fifth group says it all. It's called "The fishing in a snag infested dark water river where I don't mind losing a ton of jigs cause I don't use this color or style any more or anywhere else, and beside the fish don't seem to care!" Like I said, the name of the fifth category says it all.

The other four are broken down in groups of two: Deep water colors and shallow water colors. So they go - deep clear water, deep dirty water, and shallow clear water, shallow dirty water. There are also many situations where some colors cross over due to cloudy or bright skies. This will be explained as I go along.

First off. I have drawn up a chart to help illustrate what I'm about to tell you as it may be extremely confusing as you read this. Trust me, it will all make sense. Also notice how on the chart, several colors cross over from shallow to deep and clear to dirty. It is also important to note that I don't use some colors as other colors have proven to adequately fit the bill in the make trying live bait a must. Muddy water is about the only time I like to tie on high action plastics and tip them with live bait.

I'd also like to point out that lightly stained water is approached with basically the clear water shallow group in the shallow water and any of the dirty water colors for the deeper zones.

I'd also like to let you in on something that I consider very interesting and very important to me, in shallow clear water and in the lightly tannic (tea stained) rivers that abound our neck of the woods, gold is the single hottest color day in and day out that I have ever sued. I can't even begin to explain why. When I am throwing live bait on a plain jighead, my first choice in these situations is almost always gold, followed by green.

As I eluded to before, blue is the most underfished color on the planet. Blue works great. You'll notice that I prefer blue deep and purple shallow. There are times that the two work better flip flopped from the way I have them listed. One of the most lethal color combinations I have found is a blue jig head with a purple fuzzy grub when tipping with live bait or a purple action tail (twister tail or an Orbit Tail) when covering water more quickly. This color combo works in stained water but is super hot in clear water, especially shallow.

On the accompanying chart I've also enclosed some of the better jig and plastic combos I have found. Again a blue head leads the list here too. Blue and pumpkin pepper is another one of those hot combos in clear water, both shallow and deep. Again, I don't really know why, I do know that an angler's ability to have a little faith in what is being thrown seems to do a world of good. I can sight only a few times that I caught fish consistently or at all on an offering that I had little faith in. As soon as I went back to something I trusted, I started catching more fish.

Whew, what a mouthful. As you can see, even with what I call a bare bones guideline and carrying colors over from one category to another, and have one color serve where another one is named, I still carry thousands of jigs. The average sane angler that isn't an obsessive/compulsive like me could get by with four or five colors and three sizes. And truthfully, I probably use that many colors and that many sizes day in and day out, but I know that the minute I reduce my selection, that's the day that everybody on the lake will be tearing them up on a color I don't have anymore!

See what I mean, I've gotta be nuts! Anyway, look this over a couple of times situation. As an example, black. I don't think I own a black jig, other than my bass fishing jigs, jig'n'pig jigs, odd ball pitchin' and grubbin' jigs etc.

In the situation where black is called for, I'll use smoked chrome, silver, and purple. Also of importance to my system is where the colors are listed as two tones, either color will also work as well as the two tone or a fuzzy grub body can be used to get the other color into the offering.

I have long thought that once you tip a jig with live bait, color really doesn't matter much. The only exceptions I'll offer is in dark or dirty water, the more flashy colors will also help fish join in on the offering. I personally have come across some instances where one color did seem to make the difference but most often these were in situations where live bait wasn't involved.

Okay, here goes - in the clear water shallow group, gold, purple, silver, green, gold & black, and silver & black. On bright sunny days add, smoked chrome, chartreuse and black and chartreuse and orange. On dark and cloudy days or at night add, blue (the most underutilized color), pink and white and green and glow.

Now, before proceeding any further, the chart has these above colors groups in these basic groupings by the conditions mentioned. Notice where the colors cross over and notice the jigs that appear constant. I know this is starting to sound like an algebra lesson, but look at this again and practice it on the water and it'll become second nature in no time.

On we go...clear water deep group, blue, orange and black, chartreuse and black, pink and white and green. On bright sunny days add, gold and black and silver and black. On dark and cloudy days add glow and green, chartreuse and orange, chartreuse and green and black.

Dirty water shallow, orange, silver, gold, pink and white, chartreuse and green and chartreuse and orange.

Dirty water deep, glow and green, chartreuse and green, chartreuse and orange, hot chartreuse glow, hot pink glow or any other glow color you may prefer. It is important to note here that the hot glow colors actually glow the color of the jig, not the standard milky green of the basic glow jig.

Also important to note, night fishing situations I prefer gold, silver, hot glow colors, glow and green and high contrast colors. Muddy water is approached similarly. Violent contrast schemes and big noisy plastics work well in muddy and don't be afraid to experiment and don't be afraid to loose a few jigs. In no time at all you'll be able to adapt to this system, or at least part of it. Learning can be hard but it will become second nature in no time. Watching my young son learn to eat with a fork drove this thought home to me. After all, we all had to do the same, and at the time it was a very hard and difficult thing to do. If you think this system is hard to learn, ask yourself when was the last time you stabbed yourself in the cheek with a fork trying to eat.