How much does leg color matter?

[ohiotuber]

I was talking to Jack Hise tonight & he mentioned that the fish wanted only black legs on his surface bugs the other night. I have NEVER had any success with legs of a contrasting color. One day, I lost my last white spider with white legs, which was just slaying large gills. I put on white with black legs & not another hit! Other times, same story. White on white, yellow on yellow (my favorite for gurglers), black on black, etc all work fine on spiders, beetles, poppers, & gurglers, but mixing body & leg colors just doesn't work for this old boy, other than, at times, white legs on a dark popper/sneaky pete. I am beginning to think it's a "confidence thing", & there's a lot to be said for that. What have your experiences been with rubber legs?
Mike

[Big Bad Wulff]

As far as I'm concerned legs on a fly make for silohette and that is about it. I don't think color makes much difference. I think that about body color also. If the fish are biting, they are biting.

[ducksterman]

But it's when they really don't want to bite.... that is the rub......

[DShock]

Mike,
Legs of most insects aren't variegated. The leg color would be light to dark, depending on water clarity. Tying on a little flashabou might get their attention.
Doug

[billknepp]

Humm...I tend to Never use legs that match the body color...They may be both of light or dark color but never matched...Might have to tie a few spiders up with matching legs and see if I'm missing something!...lol

[Rick Z]

Most of my flies have matching leg color. It just works better for me.
Since the matching colors work so weel for me I just don't try other combinations.

Rick

[SonOfMartin]

I use all black legs - on spiders, Madam-X, beetles, anything with legs - black. Don't have a real reason as to why, it's just what I do. I guess it's just one less thing to worry about when fishing and tying.

[bazakwardz]

The glare from my white legs after a long winter has been known to scare fish (and women).

[Buddy Sanders]

Mike,

I think that leg color is so unimportant that I NEVER use rubber legs on bass flies.

I've found that it doesn't matter to the fish, so I just leave them off. Speeds up the tying a bit.

Only patterns I use them on now are foam spiders and few trout flies....on foam spiders I use either black legs with black bodies or black/white striped legs with grey bodies (only colors you need).

Confidence is the key, though. If you have confidence in matching colors, then use matching colors and vice versa.

Good Luck!

Buddy

[Big Bad Wulff]

Legs for bass.... not important.

Legs for bluegill...........very important. Bluegill seem to love anything with legs.