My New Favorite Color

For years, I avoided “traffic cone orange” lures like the plague. Nothing that swims, flies or walks on the ground is neon orange, so why on earth would a fish eat it? I never objected to fishing chartreuse lures, mostly because they weren’t as obnoxious as the neon orange. But last December, I started to change my mind. I was fishing a Cape Cod Pond with freshwater guru, Roy Leyva, and we were hoping to get some of the broodstock salmon that had recently been stocked. Roy was more than patient as I picked his brain looking for tips or tricks for catching my first broodstock.  I was just about to ask if they had any color preference when he flicked open his lure box lid and I nearly had to shield my eyes from the neon orange glow emanating from within. He didn’t have to tell me that salmonids have an affinity for orange.  I scrambled through my own gear and found a gold-and-orange Bomber Long A and tied it on. Within 40 minutes, we’d both release a nice broodstock on orange-colored lures.

A couple weeks later, tossing a recently acquired orange-and-black Yo Zuri Pin’s minnow, a bruiser brown trout latched on – after I’d already caught a dozen solid rainbow trout on it. The following spring, trolling on Quabbin Reservoir with fellow OTW staffer Anthonyt DeiCicchi, the lakers and landlocks favored our black-spotted orange spoon 3 to 1 over other lure colors. And finally, just last Friday, while tossing a fresh-from-the-package orange and gold FishHawk Lures spoon (which are made in Providence, RI), a big-time brown trout smashed it, and gave me the most spirited freshwater battle I’ve ever experienced on Cape Cod, with a few water-clearing leaps and zig-zagging runs. Unfortunately, just when I had the trout beat and was walking it to the bank, the fish saw a submerged tree root and used it to relieve me of my spoon.

But while the fish is gone, the lesson remains: big trout and salmon love orange.  And so do I.