Tackle Tactics » Rigging-Guides » Species Colour Selection Guide

Species Colour Selection Guide

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When it comes to soft plastic colour selection many of us have our favourites that we fish with for particular species and regardless of the conditions or the environment that we fish, we would be happy to have this arsenal of colours at our disposal. These colours work for us and we build confidence in them... so if they're catching, there's generally no need to change things up. When we target a new species though, selecting a starting point in terms of colours can often be tricky (especially with ZMan's comprehensive colour range!), so with the assistance of our Pro Team around Australia we have assembled a colour selection guide that gives you five go-to colours for some of Australia's favourite target species. This is a great starting point and a solid base from which to expand your kit of colours.

Yes, variables such as water colour, water clarity, available light, environment being fished and so forth will impact our colour selection, however you will find that most anglers have a selection of colours for targeting a particular species that also tick off some of the general colour rules that anglers follow. You will find this with the colour selection from our Pro Team, ticking the box for the variety of conditions where you will encounter that particular species.

General Colour Rules

There are a few colour rules that anglers often follow when fishing for different species, in the many and varied environments that we fish.

Bright Days / Clear Water - Natural, lighter coloured plastics.
Dark Days / Dirty or Darker Water - Darker, silhouette colours.
Plan B - If neither are working tie on a fluoro colour and you will soon have a selection of favourite fluoro colours, some of which may become the first plastic tied on for some species.

When there is heavy sediment in the water or dark tannin waters are being fished, anglers will often select a plastic that has glitter / fleck added to catch the available light and increase the visibility of the lure in the water. This is also sometimes utilised when targeting bluewater species, with the glitter creating a natural scale flash of nervous or fleeing bait.

Other theories include matching the colour of the water with the plastic, as bait will often be camouflaged to blend in with the environment, along with closely matching the profile and colour of the bait, 'matching the hatch' with the soft plastic.

UV / Non UV-reactive Plastics

You will also find a selection of UV-reactive and non UV-reactive colours included in our Pro Angler go-to colours and this is again due to the conditions being fished and the target species. Without even realising it anglers often gravitate toward a UV-reactive colour when fishing darker days and dirtier water, along with species that commonly reside in these environments. The opposite occurs on bright days and in clear water, where a non UV-reactive colour will often excel, especially when targeting species that commonly reside in this environment.

A prime example of the effectiveness of both UV-reactive and non UV-Reactive colours comes with Australia's number one bream plastic, the ZMan 2.5" GrubZ. ZMan's Motor Oil is a UV-reactive colour that dominates the bream tournament scene and yet another extremely popular colour choice for fishing tournaments, and one that also has claimed tournament victories is ZMan's Bloodworm, a non UV-reactive colour. Clear water and bright days often sees the Bloodworm colour come into its own, while the Motor Oil / Midnight Oil colours dominate on the darker and dirty water days.

You will find that in most of our Pro Anglers five go-to colours for each species there will be a light natural colour, a darker silhouette colour and a fluoro colour, along with both UV-reactive and non UV-reactive colours. On the ZMan section of the Tackle Tactics website you will find both a ZMan UV colour guide and also UV colours are highlighted in the colour chart for each soft plastic model.

We hope this guide assists you when selecting colours for new target species, maximising your chance of getting the bite and bending some rods. Fish on!

ZMan Species Colour Selection Guide | Download