I would have to say that I do believe that the fly pattern and color used often make big a difference. There are times of course when fish are almost in a feeding frenzy (especially warmwater species) and it seems that anything you chuck at them gets taken. Then there are other times when switching to another fly of the same size and pattern in a different color has resulted in suddenly catching fish where before I was striking out. If you're fishing top water for bass or bream, I suspect that color makes very little difference. It's the action and the size of the prey that they're keying on. All that said, I admit that about 90% of the time I fish for bass and bream, I use black patterns, mainly leeches and they seem to work in almost any given situation.

Jim Smith