Tying with "UGLY" colors

[jifigz]

So I've been tying a ton lately for all fish species and I just started packing my warm-water boxes because they were looking a little barren. I'm a huge fan of clouser minnows and use them a lot for just about any fish. I generally tie and fish more natural clousers but I just tied up a few size 10 clousers in some bright, hideous color combos that I'm going to attempt to use for everything, but I have crappies and bluegill mainly in mind for these flies.

What are your favorite ugly and unnatural color combos that you find to be effective? I've tied many ugly combos over the years and I've caught fish on them, but they just don't spark as much confidence as natural colors do for me.

 

[RLeep2]

Depends if a light/pale or sky blue is considered unnatural or ugly by the here assembled.

If so, I've had good luck over trout, panfish, bass and even a few northerns with a Clouser in sky blue over white and also the same blue over smoke ( sort of a pale watery gray).

FWIW..

 

[NewSal]

50% of my nymphs are tied with bright orange included. definitely not natural

 

[redietz]

I once tied a deer hair bass bug that was purple in front and yellow behind, with a purple marbou tail. It worked just fine for LMB. To my surprise, however, it also took several rainbow trout that they stocked in the pond where I was fishing.

 

[jacob]

I go to some of my favorite color schemes from crankbaits and rapalas- some favorites are “hot steel” which is a purple back, orange belly, and chartreuse lateral line, “Texas shad” which is a green back and orange belly, fire tiger (we’ve all seen that a million times), red and white, and “clown” which is chartreuse, white, and red.

To get some cool ideas, look at what the spin guys are throwing! Some of my best fish, trout and otherwise were caught on these crazy colored rapalas and crankbaits when I used to do a lot of spin fishing. I’m a steamer junky so I am always going back to these type lures for color scheme ideas. I love tying barely legals in the above color schemes- the barely legal / laser legal platform makes replicating the rapala colors easy. I tie mini ones too and contoversely call them “pre-teens” haha

 

[Dave_W]

jacob wrote:
I go to some of my favorite color schemes from crankbaits and rapalas- some favorites are “hot steel” which is a purple back, orange belly, and chartreuse lateral line, “Texas shad” which is a green back and orange belly, fire tiger (we’ve all seen that a million times), red and white, and “clown” which is chartreuse, white, and red.

To get some cool ideas, look at what the spin guys are throwing! Some of my best fish, trout and otherwise were caught on these crazy colored rapalas and crankbaits when I used to do a lot of spin fishing. I’m a steamer junky so I am always going back to these type lures for color scheme ideas. I love tying barely legals in the above color schemes- the barely legal / laser legal platform makes replicating the rapala colors easy. I tie mini ones too and contoversely call them “pre-teens” haha

This is good advice and I agree completely. ^

 

[Dave_W]

"Fire tiger" is a popular color for jigs too and I often use this with Clousers: Chartruese over black with some orange at the throat or back at the bend as a tail works well. You can also take a black magic marker to the Chartruese overwing and "bar" it like the lures you see with black stripes (think of the Borski "slider" style bonefish flies for a good example).
This FT color scheme really seems to work when there is some stain in the water.

Mix a splash of red into your natural colored Clousers as well.

 

[JerryC]

I've tied Clousers in red over white and green/chartruese over yellow brown or olive over orange and fire tiger. Like jacob I look through my non-fly fishing catalogs for ideas on popper colors, my bait fish patterns I tend to do them in natural colors, except for fire tiger which I figure depending on the shape can imitate either a perch or sunfish.