Tournament Tested: Seeing RED

Some anglers claim RED is the color of money

When red-colored hooks began to infiltrate the bass-fishing market several years ago, skeptics rolled their eyes in disbelief.

“A hook is a hook,” some said.

“Bass can’t see red on a hook,” others claimed.

Even the simple voice of reason pointed out that if you want red on a lure, you should switch to a red lure.

Wal-Mart FLW Tour pro George Cochran of Hot Springs, Ark., hopes his competition keeps rolling their eyes at the thought of red hooks while he continues to hook bass on them.

Cochran is not only a staunch believer in red hooks, but he has been trimming his crankbaits and spinnerbaits with a touch of red for years.

“I’ve always added my own red touch to baits,” Cochran said. “I’ll paint red eyes or gills on a crankbait. I’ll have companies custom-paint red spinnerbait heads for me. Any hair jig I use has to be wrapped with red thread. I’m convinced that red is simply a reaction color that triggers a strike response from fish.”

Cochran began painting his hooks red several years ago after a good friend admitted to taking a beating from the back of his own boat by an amateur angler that was using a crankbait with a red treble hook.

“They were using the exact same shallow-running crankbait in the same shad pattern,” Cochran said. “The guy in the back got hung up and his hook broke off. The only extra hook he had was a red treble. He put it on and started catching five bass to my friend’s one. What really caught my attention was when he told me that every fish his amateur caught was hooked on the red hook.”

Cochran, being a red connoisseur, immediately began painting his own hooks red. He was so impressed with the results that he contacted Eagle Claw and asked them to start custom-painting hooks in bulk quantities for him.

“Now the word is out,” he said. “It’s not that much of a secret anymore. You can even buy lures with red hooks already on them.”

Cochran is not the only pro who has a red hook habit. Ozark Trail pro Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., admits that red hooks work for him as well.

“There is something about a fish’s attraction to red in general,” Morgan said. “I’m not talking about just bass, either. The most convincing time I’ve seen red work is while crappie fishing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen red- or pink-headed crappie jigs outfish white jigheads in the same exact body color, fished in the exact same spot. I’ve seen it enough to know that there’s something to it.”

For Cochran, the proof of red’s effectiveness on fish also came from a different species: striped bass.

“Some of the first red hooks I got from Eagle Claw were red circle-type hooks for live-bait fishing,” Cochran said. “My son, David, is a striper guide, and I asked him to give them a try. He reluctantly tied one rod with a red hook, and the rest were regular silver hooks. Out of five live-bait rods out at the same time, the shad with the red hook would get bit first every time, no matter where it was positioned in the boat. Now he uses red hooks on all the rods.”

After Morgan’s crappie experience, he took a box of red trebles to an EverStart Series event at Lake Martin in Alabama for a test run on bass.

“I replaced the back hook on my crankbait with a red hook, and every fish I caught that day was caught on that hook,” he said. “So the next day I switched it to the front and, I kid you not, every fish I caught that day was on the front hook.”

FLW Tour pro Chad Morgenthaler of Coulterville, Ill., who prefers the Daiichi Bleeding Bait hooks, echoes the same discoveries as those of Cochran and Morgan.

“I’ve moved the red hook around on jerkbaits and crankbaits, and 90 percent of the fish I catch are always on the red hook,” he said. “I think it provides a kill zone on the bait for the bass to hone in on.”

“I call it a kill spot,” Morgan said. “It’s like the red dot on some crankbaits; it helps the fish know where to strike.”

“I think it has to do with the red gills of an injured shad,” Cochran said. “Years ago I worked for the game and fish department, and we used to feed shad to bass in captivity. Before we put the live shad in the tank, they looked perfectly normal. But once the bass started thrashing them, their gills would get enflamed with blood during the frenzy. They were obviously stressed, and that’s what bass key on.”

Interestingly, all three of the pros are far more likely to change the trebles of a reaction bait like a crankbait or jerkbait to red before they will go to a red worm hook on a Texas-rigged plastic.

“I like red hooks on shad-imitating reaction baits,” Cochran said. “I think that’s where the reaction response to red is most critical.”

“I don’t put red hooks on soft plastics,” Morgan said. “I just use them on my shallow homemade crankbaits.”

Morgenthaler likes red hooks on top-water stick baits like Zara Spooks or Lucky Craft Sammys and will also use them when nose-hooking a drop-shot bait.

Another thing all three of these red-hook enthusiasts are adamant about is using just one red hook on a bait. They contend that changing all the hooks to red lessens the effect of getting the fish to zone in on one “kill spot.”

With that in mind, these pros almost always put the red hook as the front hook on a crankbait or jerkbait.

So if red is so effective, why not just switch to a red lure?

“When I use a lure in a red pattern, I’m trying to imitate a crawfish, usually in the early spring when bass are feeding on crawfish,” Cochran said. “That’s a different situation than putting red hooks on shad-imitating baits to make them look like they’re stressed or bleeding.”

Not red-dy

Not all pros are sold on red hooks. Tyson pro John Crews of Jetersville, Va., does not put much stock in the color of hooks.

“I don’t think red hooks are a negative,” Crews said. “It’s not like fish are going to steer clear of a bait because it has red hooks on it. A lot of this game is about confidence, and black hooks work fine for me.”

However, Crews has witnessed something that lends itself to the theory that fish have a certain fascination with the color red.

“I was doing a seminar at the Hawg Trough – the big mobile aquarium used at sports shows – and a guy was playing with one of those laser-pointer pens. Wherever he pointed that red beam in the tank, many of the bass would go over and look at it. Several bass would even nip at the red dot like they were trying to eat it. It was pretty amazing.”