... there was an interesting thread about priorities in fly tying and selection. My take is that color is the least important priority, following size, silhouette, and action.

As an experiment, I tied an FEB skwala with a flourescent red and bright white abdomen in place the of the usual drab dark brown and olive, speckled red legs in place of the usual speckled brown legs, and natural deer hair rather than died dark brown hair. Took it fishing and did quite well with it.

The fly ...



... and one of many fish it caught ...



After reading Neil's current article, I decided to do another experiment. The FEB golden stone / hopper has been fishing well lately on my home water. The usual color combination was used for the two flies with the yellow, green, olive, tan accents. A third fly was tied with a radically different color combination, to include the flourescent red, bright white, plus burnt orange FEB, speckled yellow, red, and orange legs, a dark brown foam body, and dyed dark deer hair for the wing.



Will post the results of the experiment later today.

John