Cloudy, overcast conditions change water visibility and fishing strategies quite a bit.
Certain lure styles and colors perform much better on cloudy fishing days.
To maximize your fishing success on these days, it is important to know what color lures you should be using.
On cloudy days, water visibility is drastically lowered. In order for fish to see underwater, they need light just the same as we do on land.
Cloudy weather reduces the amount of light that enters the water. Even in very clear water, overcast conditions create low visibility water.
This means you need to use lure colors that stand out and have high visibility.
There are two types of high visibility lure colors. Very dark colors and very bright colors.
Also Read: Best Color Lures for Sunny Days
Dark colors have high visibility in the water because they create a lot of contrast to the water.
This defined contrast creates a clear and visible silhouette even on cloudy days.
Using dark colors in dark water might seem counter intuitive at first.
But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Fish won’t be able to see every detail of your lure, but they will see a clear shadowy silhouette.
Bright color lures create visibility the exact opposite way of dark colors.
Instead of contrasting the water, bright colors reflect as much light possible out to the fish.
The more a color reflects light, the brighter it will be.
Even though there is not very much light entering the water on cloudy days, very bright colored lures will reflect almost all of this light.
This makes it easier for fish to see the light coming off your lure, and allows them so see it quite well.
Black is as dark as it gets. The color black, which is really the absence of color, creates the largest contrast and most visible silhouette of any lure color.
I really like a plain black color when fishing with:
Through my personal experience, these are the three lure categories that perform best with a black color.
Black and blue is one of the most popular lure colors amongst all anglers.
I don’t think anyone really knows why it is so effective, but for some reason, adding a little bit of blue elevates most black lures.
My favorite black and blue lures are:
Also Read: When to Use Black and Blue Lures?
Sometimes bass do prefer a little bit of color in their prey. A dark red still heavily contrasts the water, but adds a bit of enticement.
As you can imagine, dark red lures will work best if bass are feeding on crawfish.
For this reason, the best lures for dark red colors are going to be those that are fished deeper in the water column.
Dark purple is not a very realistic color pattern. I can’t think of any baitfish or aquatic creature that is purple.
But dark purple contrasts the water while adding a little bit of pop and flair. This color works best for very aggressive, cloudy day bass.
These bass are not super picky about what color their prey is. Something that catches their attention works great.
Also, most people don’t throw purple lures, so purple can be a great color for highly pressured bass. Favorite lures:
Orange is a very visible lure color. Orange is also slightly natural because lots of baitfish and crawfish have orange bellies.
When using orange colors, I mainly throw lures that are erratic and cover water. Lures such as:
Pink is very bright and stands out like a sore thumb on overcast days. Pink seems to work especially well during the winter and on rainy days.
I always have the most success when fishing pink finesse lures. I never really throw crankbaits or other aggressive lures.
To be honest, I have never really been a fan of chartreuse colored lures. But I can’t deny how effective they are during overcast conditions.
Chartreuse is about as bright a lure color as you can use. It works best when fish are very aggressive. Especially before a storm system or cold front rolls through.
Bright red is obviously the inverse of dark red. It has a little bit of contrast and a lot of light reflection.
Similar to dark red colored lures, I like keeping bright red lures down towards the bottom.
The brightness is dimmed enough to appear more natural while still being able to reflect light.
Colors aren’t the only thing bass can see underwater. Bladed lures are my favorite lures to throw on an overcast day.
The spinnerbait is my favorite, but any blade that adds flash and catches some light will work great.
If you are using soft plastics, you can easily throw on an underspin to add a blade.
I have the most underspin success when using paddle tail swimbaits.
There are even some hard-plastic lures that have underspins on them.
Also Read: Best Lure Colors for Smallmouth Bass
Cloudy days reduce water visibility by reducing the amount of light in the water.
In order to make it easy for fish to see your lure, you either need very dark colors or very bright colors.
Select the exact dark or bright color based off the lure you are using and the behavior of the fish.
Lure color makes a huge difference in the number and size of fish that you catch.
Test out and experiment with the above colors to have the most success.
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