… as a priority in fly tying / selection. Neil’s current article “Let’s Consider Perception” in the bi-weekly edition on the Home Page, inspired another experiment in the relative importance ( or unimportance ) of color in tying and selecting flies.
Sometimes it’s about the flies - and tomorrow will be one of those days.
Tied a collection of flies based on a productive pattern in a random and wide variety of color combinations, none of which I would normally tie, or even come close to considering if I were really going out to catch some fishies.
But in the name of science ( to the extent that limited anecdotal evidence proves anything ) here are the flies for tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
John
P.S. One of the really knowledgeable anglers I knew down in the Idaho Falls area, Dr. Harley Reno ( the Dr. is for a Ph.D. in entomology ), when demonstrating fly tying often used to say about some component or other of a fly "Color ?? Yes … " and then pick up some odd ball color to incorporate in the fly he was tying.
With advanced degrees as a marine fisheries biologist, for anything floating on the surface, I doubt that any fish can actually see the color of the bottom side of the bug; even if the bottom surface has broken through the surface film of the water. It must be remembered that the fish is looking up; directly ‘into’ the sun! Thus the bottom would either look whiteish (remember, the belly area of MOST fish is white for a reason)*, or have no ‘color’ at all. Just try holding some object over your head out doors and looking directly up at it, and into the sun, and see what you see—typically the dark colorless, or almost colorless, ‘shadow’ of the object.
Once the fly gets through the surface film, the ball game changes drastically. For an in-depth venture into this realm I highly recommend: What Fish See, Understanding optics and color shifts for designing lures and flies" by Dr. Colin J. Kageyama, Doctor of Optometry. He is, or was, a lure designer for Mepps/ Mister Twister. He is also a fanatic steelhead fisher.
As a sidebar note, the belly of a bullfrog is mottled dirty white/grayish color to camoflage it from underwater predators!
… color. Generally, I agree with your comments, which happen to pretty much agree with Harley’s. One of the examples he used was the “blue damsel”. Might as well tie it with a black body because that is what the fishies will see from below.
However, this pattern does not float on the surface, but rides very low with most of the fly entirely submerged, with only the top of the bullethead and the wing at surface level. Thus it should be an interesting pattern for this kind of experiment. Not sure conditions will permit, but I’m thinking about putting on my diving mask tomorrow to take some underwater shots of the fly to show how it rides and how a human eye ( as represented by digital pixels ) perceives the colors.
One of the fun things about fishing this particular pattern is that there is often no obvious take, in the form of surface disturbance which you get with many, if not most, dry flies. It’s pretty cool when you see a trout approach the fly and then go nose down with it and not leave so much as a dimple or a ripple on the water. Other times the takes are explosive and all heck breaks loose almost immediately.
The weather forecast is for good - but the river has been a bit fickle lately. Hopefully I’ll run into mostly nearsighted, colorblind, dumb, and starving trouts, especially colorblind ones.
I do disagree with this observation, that in sunny conditions the bottom would look whiteish. The stronger the backlight ( the sun ), the darker the bottom of the fly should appear from below. In low light conditions ( morning, evening, cloud cover ), more color should be perceptible, and perhaps in optimum conditions, all color should be observable.
It is my impression that the underside of most fishies is “white” ( as an evolutionay response to their environment ) to disguise them from below, so that predators below them will not as likely detect their presence. Obviously in that situation both the oberver and the observed are below the surface and the light belly tends to blend with the lighter colors above the surface. Conversely, the top of most fishies seems to closely “match” the colors in the streambed the fishy inhabits. Again, that tends to disguise them from predators higher in the water column, or above the surface, like us anglers.
I have read, in many places, that the trout has good color vision for objects which are a short distance away. I think that is why color is usually listed last in the old trio: Size, Shape, and color. Not to say it is unimportant. However, you have to fool the trout in size and shape in order to get him to the point of seeing the color clearly.
From personal fishing experience, I can say that color of the fly seems important - especially in slick water where the trout has plenty of time to inspect the fly closely.
Take Craig Mathews of Blue Ribbon Flies, for example. I think everyone would agree that he is a pretty no-nonsense, straight shooter. Believe me, when he selects a color for the body of a specific caddis fly, he selects the color of the insect. Or in his sparkle dun patterns - they aren’t all one color…
I think fish get a pretty good look at wet flies, of all types and sizes. For dry flies I’m not so sure. I fished the Yellowstone last week. I spaced out and didn’t bring my foam salmonfly and foam hopper box. Ticked me off big time. I ended up using a pink round foam bobber and various nymphs. I had at least a half a dozen hits on the pink bobber. I’ve heard stories about (evil) smokers throwing butts in the water, only to have a fish quickly bite and reject the drifting butt filter.
Spring creeks are one thing. But in a freestone river context I don’t think they see much more than a characteristic dimple and vague size and fuzzy shape impression in the surface film. They might get some color impression too. But it’s not clear how much it matters. The lack of rigorous, organized scientific observation in fishing is one of its best parts. No? The bent rod matters most.
I agree with just about everything that’s been said.
Light conditions is definitely a factor. And what Pittendrigh said above is a factor too…talking about spring creeks and freestone rivers.
In slower waters with a smooth surface, fish tend to inspect the fly more closely than if the water is not as smooth and/or more swift.
How many times have you have a trout rise to your dry fly and take a while to inspect it. Sometimes he takes the fly, sometimes not.
Of course there are always exceptions. I’ve fished dries on smooth water only to have a trout swim across a pool to smash the fly without taking a second look.
I do think that you can stack the deck in your favor by presenting a fly that’s a close match for the real thing. But I’ve also had trout ignore my nymph and rise to the top, inspect my indicator and think it worthwhile enough to eat.
You are correct. Unfortunately, I left the ‘critical’ part of that comment out. My intent was to say that the bottom of objects on the surface would appear black, while those submerged would be seen as a fish would see the actual color, given the water conditions at the time. Interestingly, the temperature of the water apparently can actually alter the apparent color of an object, as perceived by man. I have personally observed, as a diver, pronounced color alterations with abrupt changes in salinity in marine environments; such as locations where large volumes of freshwater are flowing directly into the ocean.
Unfortunately, we cannot “think” like a fish (maybe we SHOULD be thankful that we can’t; otherwise where would the fun be?). I have had similar experiences, both with trout and with our local ‘bream’, which can be extremely ‘selective’ when they want to be. It must be remembered that, afterall, a fish is a fish is a fish; regardles of where it lives.
A critical element in the still vs moving water comparison is that a fish in flowing water typically does not have the time to make a close examination, it is more of a “now or never” situation for them; whereas, this is typically not the case in still waters.
With respect to the ‘cigarette butt’ comment, I have personally observed this on a couple of occasions. Once when a 'clown, was watching a feeding trout, and intentionally flipped his cigarette butt to it just to see what would happen. Idiot! We have all had fish slam our strike indicators while ignoring our offerings!
I think this tends to oversimplify things, Sandy. Freestones are not all rapids, pockets, froth, white water, etc. There are typically many sections on freestone streams and rivers that are as smooth and placid as a spring creek, and clear enough to see the pebbles on the bottom through ten feet or more of crystal clear water. It is the latter kind of water that I plan to experiment on.
John,
Yes, you are right. There are all kinds of conditions: the water itself(speed, volume, clarity, depth, rapids, debri, etc), how fed(spring, freestone, tailwater), water temperatures, what’s in the water, on the water, in the sky, the sky itself, sun, air temperature, others. All these, to a lesser or greater extent effect how trout act or if you prefer another verb (react, respond, impulse) to natural and our offerings. Figuring out the puzzle is often quite a challenge. Have fun.
Very interesting.
On another post, I was looking for a pattern I now know to be the E.C. Caddis. Very effective for me in June.
Anyway, when I found out the name of the “author”, I found his fly and a description by him. In it, he says this:
"The trailing Antron or Zelon imitates the trailing shuck and the brownish abdomen looks much like the portion of the pupal shuck with the caddis body still inside it. The bright green thorax replicates the emerging portion of the adult body. It is interesting to note that without the dual tones of the green and brown, the fly falls off noticeably in effectiveness. I am not alone in this observation, Gary LaFontaine in his classic book, CADDISFLIES, noted the same effect on several other caddis imitations. "
Interesting, John… I would use two or three of those hoppers in a hurry. Black and yellow are two of my most productive colors for these types of flies!
… fishing six different sections of river and stream and using six different color combinations, to include the five in the pix of flies for today, plus the standard FEB hopper / golden stone.
First, the allowed number of pix for one post ( 10 ) to show some of the variety of water fished and some of the fishies with the different color combinations flies stuck in their jaws.
This is basically a freestone stream and river system, and a number of the pix of the water fished show the bottom structure in six to ten feet of water. There is some disturbed surface in some of the pix, and there is some virtually still water in others. Where there is a mix of water types, most of the fishies came out of the soft water, and some came along foam lines / seams. In a couple places I did fish real pocket water and did pick up fish regardless of the color combination of the fly.
The biggest fish of the day ate the gaudiest of the flies, coming up from about eight feet to get it while it was mostly waffling slowly along on some very soft water shown in the third to last pic.
Just a quick summary. All six color combinations caught fishies. The numbers for different flies varied from a couple fishies up to ten or twelve. The difference in the numbers probably has more to do with the time of day a piece of water was fished than anything else. The earliest flies on the water caught the least fish - but they also did not draw refusals. Fishing picked as the afternoon wore on, and the last fly, another one of the really gaudy ones, caught the most fish.
With something around thirty five fish hooked and somewhere around twenty five in hand, it would be hard to distinguish today from a rather typical day fishing just the standard color combination FEB hopper / golden stone on this stream and river system.
Bottom line from my point of view - the color of the flies just didn’t seem to matter. I thought the real evidence would be in which color combinations drew refusals - and none did. I will only qualify that with my usual comment that I only fish for nearsighted, color blind, dumb and starving fishies.
So this little piece of anecdotal evidence probably doesn’t prove a thing. But I did have fun fishing through the experiment.
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!
Water in a freestone system flows at greatly varying depths and rates. Many of the fish I catch on my home water come from many feet down and away through slow moving crystal clear water with plenty of time to look at the fly and move to take it or refuse it.
Certainly some sections of a freestone stream do present “now or never” situations for the fishy. Particularly the fast, shallow, highly structured sections. But the long, slow, deep runs are more akin to still water than pocket water.
I tend to think of these flies as color variations on a golden stone pattern rather than a hopper pattern, since golden stones are a staple for the fishies on the river I was fishing, and while there are hoppers, there are not a lot of them. ( I did see a few hoppers yesterday, for the first time this year. They were small and the color was quite close to the standard color combination for the golden stone. )
Took pix of each fly yesterday before I fished it. The outdoor pix show the colors and details better.
Another thing that I forgot to mention in my report yesterday ( got to say I was bushed after driving three hours and fishing seven hours in mid 80’s to low 90’s temps ) was the size range of fish caught.
Most of the fish were in a 10" to 14" bracket, and all but one of those were West Slope cutthroat.
I think one of the fish in that bracket was actually a 13-14" steelhead. It is the largest pure rainbow looking trout I have landed on this river. I didn’t look closely enough to see if it had any evidence of cutt hybridization but I am pretty sure it did not. That would make it an extremely rare fish in this system - it had to be a resident to be that big, and there just is no resident population of rainbows. All the rainbow looking fishies are steelhead, either very small, under 8", just starting their journey or very big, well over 20", on their return home.
The few fish over 14" were all cutts.
The fish under 10" were typically cutts with a few juvenile steelhead, down to about 5", in the mix. Some smaller fish did hit the fly, but weren’t big enough to eat it and hook up.
Again, thanks for reading my article and then following it up with your own experiments. Great images and good reporting.
Some writers have suggested that trout in freestone streams might be less “picky” when it comes to color and that trout in spring creeks are harder to fool. Well, I have been fishing spring creeks extensively since 1971 and during that time I have caught some very picky spring creek trout on some pretty outlandish patterns, especially dry flies. I don’t go out of my way to fish flies with wild colors, but my point is simply that color, especially on dry flies, is not one of the most important considerations. Size, shape, and behavior of the fly is more important than color. Even when the fly is wet, if it acts funny, or is at the wrong level in the water column, even if the color is spot on, your chances of success are reduced. Fish, whether trout or otherwise, eat things that act look and act like food. Your patterns that you used looked like food and I would place a bet that when you fished them you presented them so they looked like food. However, if any of my readers believes that color is very important for dry flies - may your tribe increase. It contributes to the plethora of fly patterns that are posted on FAOL.
