It seems to me that I heard somewhere someone famous said; "Ninety percent of what a trout eats is 5/8" long and brown." With that knowledge in mind, what would you tie?
I think I would start with a bead head pheasant tail nymph.
What Color of Fly?
It seems to me that I heard somewhere someone famous said; "Ninety percent of what a trout eats is 5/8" long and brown." With that knowledge in mind, what would you tie?
I think I would start with a bead head pheasant tail nymph.
Or a Hare's Ear
A size 16 Dai-Riki 135 scud hook with 70 denier UTC brown olive tying thread makes a neat midge larva that has worked for me everywhere I have fished it. The t.c.t.k. - twelve cent trout killer.
Next in line would be a soft hackle pheasant tail. Probably just like Joe's p.t. nymph except for the bead head and wing case, substituting a hen soft hackle.
John
The fish are always right.
I really doubt that it matters.
Color is so subjective, and our understanding of how color is percieved by another creature so small, that it's really just a matter of choice.
I do know that I catch more fish, many, many more fish, on the colors I have the most confidence in.
Buddy
It Just Doesn't Matter....
The best expert on that is the fish. Try different flies in different colors and let the fish tell you. Sciencetist can tell you how many rods and cones a fish's eye has but not how his brain interpets the imformation he recieves from them.
Fred
I just read Reed Curry's book and according his studies color does play a big part in what the fish feed on.
The San Juan fish have to have the right color midge or they turn up their noses - you have to experiment around between olive, black, cream, brown, etc. then when you have it just right you can catch a bunch for a while, then they want a different color. I think where their diet is midges, the fish are more particular than maybe they are for bigger insects.
I'm completely new at this, but one of the potential advantages of this situation is that I've been reading at a breakneck pace for the last few months. Take these thoughts with as many grains of salt as you need.
There are many different "theories of attraction", but among the most prevalent, the top three aspects are color, shape and size. As humans, we have no idea what the fish are looking for when they are feeding selectively, but those patterns that have the appropriate shape, size and color of the predominant food are the most successful.
When fish aren't feeding selectively, which is most of the time, they eat anything that "looks like food". A lot of caddis patterns are built against this idea because caddis hatches are more prolonged, unpredictable things, compared to mayfly hatches. "Attractor" patterns are also modeled in a similar way, the idea being to provoke a strike not because the fly looks like something specific, but because it shouts "I'm food!".
The bottom line is experiment and figure out what works. That's what fishermen have done for hundreds of years in our sport.
Jeff -
Most often the priorities are described, in the stuff I've read and the discussions I've heard on fly tying ( and consistent with my experience ) in order of importance, as size, shape, action, and color.
Surely some would place those in a different order of priority, but the majority view seems pretty clear to me.
John
The fish are always right.
I caught a fair number of fish this past summer with a size 10 or 12 scud hook, body of olive/brown or brown chenille, and a turn and a half of partridge as a collar. 30-second tie, and VERY effective.
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