TOPIC:

I got a kick out of the comment about the Hunter Boys custom painted J-13s in the Tackle Discussion that said the purple-ish one should be good for the walleyes lurking out there. I assume the responder was talking about the walleyes lurking about in the South End of Lake Michigan. 
1) There are walleyes in southern Lake Michigan, but in 43 years of trolling the southend, my walleye catch is zero. I know personally (and truthfully) of less than 10 being caught. 

However, that got me to wondering about purple lures in general. About 40 years ago one of the best days I ever experienced fishing for springtime kings was when I hopped on a friend's boat (who was no more experienced than me) and between us, we owned about a dozen lures. Planer boards were yet to be invented so we fished four manual downriggers and two flat lines. 

He pulled out a giant, #5 J-Plug, deep purple with a black ladder back and that lure caught 15 kings that morning. I found one to buy and use and probably pulled it 100 miles. It never caught a fish. I've had a couple decent days with Kevorkian spoons.  

I've been fishing Lake Erie for 30 years and we always did well with gold or firetiger colored lures - and still do. I don't think they even made a purple walleye lure so when the wild colors started showing up in the last 10 -12 years, I tried some purples and indeed they do catch walleyes. Never had one outfish my gold or firetiger ones, but it's fun to troll some of those gaudy Bandits and other lures. 

Just wondering if anyone has any "purple" stories - here, Erie, or elsewhere.   

Best purple story is 20 years ago in late August off #4 fishing is the afternoon as a excuse to drink beer that day (or vice versa). Couple of guys not familiar with LM fishing with me and we were, not surprisingly, catching much. One asked if he could pick a lure which of course he could (didn't mean i would run it but he could pick one) and reached deep into the box and pulled out a Pro King purple with black ladderback. Said it reminded him of his girlfriends swimsuit when he hit on her the first time. Well we had to run it after that.

10 minutes later corner rigger goes off, 25lbs King in the boat. The biggest caught on the Stroke of Luck so far.

 I fish Lake Erie more than I do Lake Michigan. Living closer to the south end, I find myself driving for three hours. Trolling bandits and reapers, I use purple colors all the time. Throw some chrome on those purple colors, money. there are times when I think an old sneaker with a hook would catch a walleye, so does color matter, I guess. Last weekend I netted 3 walleye at the same time with same net. One of the bandits was purple. Jigging the Detroit river I use what they call "pimp daddy" also a purple based bait. Now when I troll salmon, I don't think I even own a purple bait. 
just my two cents!  

Not so much purple but do you remember the old J-Plug colors. I think one was brown top another black top and a really ugly off green. All had the white glow bellies. Grizzly had some similar odd ugly colors.

Well back in the early eighties when the Kings ran in the port of Indiana, east side bay, those ugly ones did the number for kings. I was working for Bob Cash on his boat Raindrops. The kings had been really good but all the baits that had been very hot was now very cold. Nobody this particular day was taking fish. Bob told me to put on one of the ugly ones. I made some funny faces and did as I was told.
FISH ON! had to be a fluke I thought. Well that day ended up being a day to remember as we boxed out on kings. When the people left, I asked why I was asked to play with ugly baits. Bob's answer, well Ed I never have caught fish on those and since the regulars were dead I thought why not.
I worked as a mate for Bob for 3 seasons and we never caught fish on them again. 

Kevorkian has been good for me on dark rainy days.... usually that's about it.

Ed - I remember those "Khaki" J-Plugs and have caught a share of kings on them. The one I owned was only a #3 however so it wasn't huge. I remember early on, I only used the #3s - mostly in the spring and the #5s - mostly in the fall. Of course back then the lake was stuffed with various year classes of alewives (true) and in my mind - all the kings were about 18 pounds in the spring and in the low 20s in the fall. (Maybe not so true.)  I do know I had lots of loot from the Pepsi Contest held every year the middle two weeks of April - took a 20+ to be in contention for any weekly prize and 25 to win anything in week two.  Remember that contest?   

I still have a hand-painted #3 J-Plug that's solid flat black that takes a good number of coho in the spring and hooks the occasional king, as well.  

Close to half of the coho we caught on our first outing this year were caught on a purple flicker shad. It was called slick alewife. I only had one in the box, or I’m sure we would have caught more. For the record, there are more than one in my box now! The other 7 were thin fins.

Purple has always been a staple for me, I don't know what it is, but you will rarely catch me without something purple in the water.  

Last year our first limit day as a family came with more than half of the fish hitting a yellow/orange firedot dodger, with a purple crinkle fly.  Just always been a lucky color for me.

Talk about coincidence! I was looking for something out in my shop and in the back of the first drawer I opened were the exact old J-Plugs I was talking about. That khaki one sure is ugly - but you know, the last time that lure was wet there were no gobies in the Great Lakes. Now? Maybe it would be a killer!  

I don't have a lot of purple lures, but both my personal best muskie (52.5) and northern pike (40) came on pink lures. Double cowgirl JR for the muskie and a Super D for the pike. Caught quite a few smallmouth on bubblegum pink worms, and pink jerkbaits too. Very underrated color IMO


I do like the kevorkian type spoon for kings. And have an old fuzzy bear purple spoon that my wife calls "purple drank", it's taken a few fish for sure