A few years after we put out the original five lure colors for catching ahi, four more colors have consistently made it into the spread. We are always experimenting, and most of what we try comes and goes, but these four stuck. If we were fishing a tournament tomorrow, or you invited me on your boat and I did not know what colors were biting, these are the four I would bring along with the original five.
I get a lot of skirt color ideas from the really good fishermen I know, and none of these combinations are new. But most of us only get five or six poles to run, so every color has to earn its spot.
| Color | Top skirt | Under | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Salmon | Blue frost, Yamashita U-11 | Blue salmon, Yo-Zuri SPL-1, with a dark purple inside | Our own combo, built off an old timer's blue frost combination |
| Pink | Pink silver | Pink yellow white | Old school; today we run the Amaebi, which is predominantly pink |
| Black and Blue | Black and blue, Yamashita | Orange and white | Two colors in one; run it when you do not know what is biting |
| Blue with Black Dots | Blue with black dots | Purple yellow pink | A favorite of the fisherman who taught me to mass produce lures |
Those are the skirts as I run them. On most of these the exact underskirt matters less than the top two.
We made this combination up, but it originates from an old timer's combo: the blue frost skirt over a glittery blue, yellow, and pink. When I watched that original run in the water, all I saw was pink. So I kept the blue frost top, put a blue salmon under it to keep the blue, and ended up with the Yo-Zuri YO-64 dark purple inside to calm that belly down. That is the Electric Salmon.
The skirt codes: the blue frost top is a Yamashita, code U-11. The blue salmon is a Yo-Zuri, code SPL-1. For the inside, I have run the YO-64 purple, the purple Mavis, which is the Yo-Zuri B1S, black pink, and even creamsicle. They all bite, and I have a couple skirted with just the blue frost and the blue salmon, and those work too. It is that light blue pressed against a slightly different blue that gives the lure its color in the water.
To me this lure is a mixture of ice blue and blue salmon, and most times when one of those is biting, so is the other, so the 9 inch Moke Electric Salmon is a steady runner whenever the bite is on a blueish color. We also run it on the 7 inch Ali'i Blue Frost, a miniature H1 head, longer and heavier than most 7 inch heads, so it stays stable in rough water.
I do not know why pink was not in the original five video, because we have run it for years. Back in the day it was simple: a pink silver over a pink yellow white. These days it is the Amaebi, which is predominantly pink. We also ran the Firecracker for a long time. You do not hear much about the Firecracker because it is a four coat paint job that my wife Lisa does, and with our son she does not have as much time, so we only make them when she can paint.
Pink earns its spot when the ahi are feeding on shrimp. A friend brought an ahi to the boat with its belly full of shrimp, and that is exactly the day you want pink in the water. Pretty much everything in the ocean eats pink.
The Amaebi color itself came off the docks. If you have ever eaten fresh amaebi at night, right after it is caught, the juice falling into the water makes an electric blue luminescence. That is what we are trying to mimic with that paint, which is also why I pair it with a blue frost style skirt. The blue frost is basically a UV blue.
This one is a black and blue skirt over orange and white, and I run it on a cut face head. The theory behind it came from the fisherman who gave me the combination: when you do not know what color the ahi are biting, this is basically two colors in one. From one side it reads close to an ice blue. From the other side it reads black silver or black salmon. Either way you are covered, and that combo definitely bites.
The black and blue skirt is a Yamashita. My backup has an old school Kajiki skirt in pretty much the same color, so do not stress the brand. I also run the same combination flipped over on an invert head, in a purple blue, and that one makes the spread pretty often too.
If you follow our YouTube channel you already know the blue dots. This is a newer color for me personally, but the fisherman who taught me how to mass produce lures has run it for years, and it is one of his favorite skirt combinations. He runs black and pink under it. We run purple yellow pink under ours. The same friend who gave me the black and blue combination runs this one a lot as well, and when fishermen that good keep a color in the water that long, I pay attention.
Besides the pink, I do not think anything here completely replaces the original five. You could fish just these four and do very well, or stick to the original five and do very well. The codes for the original five are in our skirt colors and codes guide.
One more change since the original video: back then I was not running any cut face lures, and now they are in our spread on the real nice days. They do work for ahi, and the main reason I do not like running splashy lures is that splashers tend to catch marlin, and I do not like dealing with marlin. If you are new to our fishing and looking for a place to start, any of these four colors, or any of the original five, will put you on the right track to your first ahi.
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I walk you through how we build every lure at our shop in Hawaii, from the balanced lead insert and the star paper inlay to five passes of paint and the tuning box. It is the same process I showed on camera with the H-1 fish head and the 9 inch Ice Blue Moke Bullet.
The blunt bullet is a shorter, fatter bullet head we designed to skitter along the surface. Here is when I run it, why I put two skirts on it instead of three, and the 7 inch skirt trick that squeezes more action out of it on a small boat.
I get asked all the time whether the trailer hook needs to hide inside the skirt. It does not, and there is a good reason: marlin swat the back of the lure first, and a hanging hook that flops at trolling speed looks like a fish tail. I also cover when to size up from 9/0 to 11/0 and 10/0 hooks based on skirt bulk.
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