John, great experiment. Some years ago, i tied a pink caddis, ( pink dubbed body no wrapped hackle, a super gaudy shrimp pink zlon wing ), and i fished it on our hard hit tailwater, the one where the fish can tell who tied the fly and what hook its tied on. The only thing i did not change was the hook size for the current hatch.
By noon the old timers were no longer laughing at the color. I had attributed this to using something the fish had not seen before , using a 15 foot leader, and making d### sure there was no drag from the micro currents.
Just my opinion in what i had noted in my case. Experiment on please!