Hi Tom,

That's an excellent question and I'm sure that you're going to get LOTS of excellent answers----all different. I've just finished reading an excellent book by Arlen Thomason called Bug Water that addresses this very question. I strongly recommend this book to anyone but particularly Western fisherman since most of Arlen's bugs come from this area. Arlen (and others) have pointed out that fish see only pattern of lighted stars on the water made by feet and other body parts that come in contact with the water when the bug is outside the fish's window of clear vision. As the bug drifts into the window of vision, the wings are the first thing the fish sees clearly and therefore the wings are one of the first stimuli that triggers a strike. Bright wing colors are certainly seen and detected by the fish at this time and become even more evident as the fly floats closer. I believe that the bright colors, even when mixed or partly masked by more natural shades are going to cost you some percentage of strikes. In fact, I'm not certain that super bright, white Antron doesn't scare off a certain percentage of fish. This is why I lean toward a light gray shade of Antron wings for many of my flies. I too have some vision problems with flies in certain light and water conditions so I will switch to more visible flies when I'm having trouble following the drift or even seeing the fly in the first place. I just keep in mind that there is a cost for this trade off. My improved vision may well cost a strike or two. In heavily fished areas like Yellowstone’s public water, I would imagine that educated fish would be even more likely to notice that real mayflies don’t have chartreuse wings. Just my 2% of a dollar. I'm sure others will disagree. 8T