I've gone down the same road hitch color investigation a few times. What's funny is that if you ask different people who have seen hitch to describe them, invariably you get different responses. Greenish, bluish, whitish, bronzeish, etc.

There have only been two other good pics of hitch online in the past, one was on a scientific website that had a bunch of pics including a large female hitch (no longer online). That fish was mainly silver in coloration, a hint of cream/gold and a black back. The other hitch pic is on Chris Youlden's baitfish gallery on this site, I think it came originally from a pic in the ncbf photo gallery, but anyway that one is basically silver with grey/blue tones.

After hearing so many different reports on their coloration, I can only speculate that the hitch is a fish that can vary in coloration, probably in response to water clarity and surrounding colors, just like bluegill and crawdads do.

Urban's pic above (and you can clue me in if I am wrong) probably came from deeper water with bad clarity like less than one foot. Most fish look paler than normal when brought up from those conditions. That same fish in the pic might look considerably different in the spring over grass beds in clear water.

I do agree though that I've never seen a pic or heard a description of a hitch as being brown, and a lot of hitch imitators are primarily brown. It's probably because they guys making the baits just haven't seen a hitch before and are relying on descriptions... which of course vary a lot :)