So, just about every bait that comes out that says its a hitch or "Clear Lake" hitch color generally has bronze sides and a blackish back. This has always bothered me because Ive never ever seen a hitch with this coloration. The ones Ive seen have slivery sides with a blackish back, no bronze at all. And, Ive seen spawning ones too; yep, no bronze on them either. I decided to look into the matter and see where this bronze color for hitch has come from.

Turns out that in Clear Lake there are two types of hitch. One is called hitch (proper common name), and the other is a subspecies of the hitch and it is called Clear Lake hitch (proper common name). A deeper look into the issues uncovered the fact that Clear Lake hitch are either extirpated from Clear Lake, or they are present in very low numbers. Also, it is virtually impossible to find info pertaining to Clear Lake hitch, no pictures, no physical description, no nothing. Also, a co-worker informed me that he looked into this issue a few years ago and found that nobody that has worked on Clear Lake in the last like 20 years has sampled a Clear Lake hitch (I didnt verify this, but hes a smart fella).

So where all this is going is this. I assumed that Ive only seen hitch (since Ive never seen the bronze coloration), and that it is the Clear Lake hitch that shows the bronze color. This quote came from Moyle (2002): "When small, hitch are silvery with a black spot at the base of the tail. Older fish lose the spot and become darker, with the largest fish approaching brownish yellow on the back." The problem with this description is it doesnt say which species of the two gets this brown/yellow color. So, Im still confused.

My interpretation of the whole thing is this. Clear Lake hitch likely are gone from Clear Lake. That leaves hitch, and no hitch Ive ever seen have bronze in them, and Ive seen big ones (ones pushing maximum prey size for largemouth). All of the ones that Ive seen that are 12 inches and under (the size range I consider to be primary prey items for largemouth) are silvery. So why would I possibly want to use a hitch imitator that is bronze? I dont get it.

Maybe some of you can shed light on why most lure makers think they should paint their hitch baits with a bronze color.

Anyway, attached are two images of hitch that I caught by accident vertical jigging yesterday at Clear Lake. It was kinda cool, we found a school in deep water that, on the electronics, we thought were bass and/or crappie. Neat surprise when we brought the first one into the boat.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4511-Fish1.jpg


http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4512-Fish2.jpg