This is pretty much a newbie question which has probably been asked/discussed/argued to no end, however I couldn’t find anything by searching the forum.
Exactly how important are the colors of any given fly? The question occurred to me as I was looking at certain dry-fly patterns and realized outside of wing material and body/hackle color, the shape and size of the fly, for the most part, was the same. For example, a Light Cahill and a Hendrickson. They’re virtually the same fly(unless my patterns are just that far off!!)… does the color factor in when it comes to their fish-taking ability?
I’m curious for various reasons: knowledge of the sport being the primary reason, understanding the fish I’m going after. But also, being a new tier, I don’t have a bunch of colors in my box of goodies just yet. Is it ok to substitute something close or does it take away from the fly’s effectiveness? I understand that there are “classic patterns”, and they are what they are for a reason, but still…curious.
I think color can be very important, but it depends on what fish, what river and what food is available.
In my limited experience I think the key factors, in order of importance are…
profile
size
color
On the Frying Pan river there is a sub-species of the PMD (pale morning dun, a mayfly) which has a pink body, probaly developed to give better camoflage with the redstone cobble in that area. When the trout are keyed into that particular bug they won’t even look at a PMD with the standard olive body.
On the other hand, I tie Hi-Vis versions of smaller parachute patterns with white, yellow or hot pink wings. The fish don’t seem to care. Often hackle color doesn’t seem too important either. If I am out of a particular color I find that grizzly will work on almost any pattern.
On one of my favorite local streams I use a lot of Para-adams. This stream has a large blue wing olive population. If I mix a pinch of olive into the standard muskrat dubbing I truly believe I get more hits.
Some colors, such as red, yellow and orange are attractor colors. Fish seem to be particularly drawn to them. The Royal Coachman with it’s small red floss waist will out fish the plain Coachman on most days (at least for me.) Why, I don’t have a clue. I’ve never seen a bug that looks even similar to the Royal Coachman yet it is a proven fish magnet.
Good stuff, Bamboozle…and everyone else. Thanks for putting that up. Helps a bunch in terms of my approach towards its. I like the colors, patterns and all the “stuff” that goes into the whole experience but it’s good to know that if I’m short on something particular, I’ll probably be okay using grizzly hackle and don’t need to be picture-perfect.
You are flirting with that great mystery of fly fishing which is of course: what is it that makes a fish take a fly. People have spent their lives investigating that question. Whether color is important is really a very general question. It depends on what kind of environmental conditions exist in the places you are fishing (water clarity, substrate color,lighting conditions etc) whether there is insect activity that the fish are keying on and probably alot of other things. People have investigated what the trout is physically able to perceive about a floating fly and the parts of the fly that extend below the surface are the easiest to percieve followed by the parts that are floating in the film like the hackle and the body. In order to clearly see all the details of parts of the fly that don’t touch the water (like the wings), the fish must be very close to the fly. So your best bet imho would be to get yourself one of those dubbing assortments that would allow you to get the body color pretty close then maybe get a few different colors of hackle and probably don’t sweat the wing color too much. Wings are important on dry flies but getting them to look just like the natural doesn’t seem to be so important. BTW, Vince Marinaro wrote a famous book called a ‘Modern Dry Fly Code’ where he explored the question of what was important about a fly to the fish and he did most of his research right in your neck of the woods on Letort Spring Creek. You should check it out (both the book and the creek). Good luck!
Well, fish have both rods and cones as light receptors. Cones are those which respond differently to different wavelengths of light, which is what we normally call colour. Many fish, and I think trout are included, can also percieve light into the ultra-violet spectrum. So they can see differences that we cannot.
Trout are primarily visual preditors, so I would be surprised if colour is not important to them, especially if they become selective.
I recall fishing with my wife on the Rangitaiki River and we were having no luck. Up until this point, she had not caught a trout and I was not having much luck either. I switched to a small yellow bodied wet fly and cast to a sighted fish. It showed some interest, and on the next cast, I hooked up. Shortly after that, I hooked another. Vanessa was still having no luck. So, I gave her a copy of the fly I was using and told her to give that a go. She was using a similar sized fly, in green. Once she switched over, she started hooking up as well. I switched to a green fly, and stopped getting hits, switched back to a yellow one, and started getting hook ups again.
Ever since then we’ve called this the “yellow pool”.
On other occasions, however, colour does not seem to be so important. I think, similar to what has been mentioned, position in water column, shape, then size, then colour is probably the things to “get right” in order.
You all know what opinions are worth. I feel that color is much more important below the surface than above. Anything seen from below appears black, no matter the color. Once you get below the film, color becomes a factor. Again, this is MHO. I think the 3 most important factors in flyfishing are presentation, presentation, and presentation.
surface to about 3 feet down - I’d say color matters. Below 3 feet though - sunlight doesn’t penetrate as much and colors dull - yellow becomes pale tone, red becomes black, … and eventually - everything is 256 shades of black and grey.
That noted - yes, trout are noted to have better color perception than us lowly humans …
this also depends upon the species you’re targeting. A species such as Atlantic Salmon do not attack flies as a potential food source, as they do not feed before spawning in freshwater. In this case, colour is incredibly important…maybe above all else. For example, when fishing Harry’s River in Bay St.George, you would be considered foolish for fishing a fly without yellow on it, but on the Upper Humber River, near Deer Lake, the Blue Charm is the magic ticket.
These hair wing Atlantic Salmon flies have all got a very similar formula for tying…really the only thing that changes drastically is the colour.Of course, there are many minor differences, but they don’t seem to have as significant an effect.
Most “experts” would agree with the profile, size, color hierarchy with regard to dries.
I don’t think color really matters at all on a dry. I would think at least half the time, a dry fly - no matter what the color - is going to look black anyway as it will be back lit.
To prove it to yourself, sit down and hold a fly between yourself and a nearby standing lamp. The fly will appear black.
I would think color becomes much more important under water but even then I’m not sure it would be tops.
I’m pretty much only a trout fisherman. Not that I won’t fish for other fish, just what I like the most right now. That being the case, the flies I’m tying are trout flies.
JC’s article on what fish see also had a hand in my posting the color question. Also, as a couple of you have noted, when viewed from underwater, a dry-fly is backlit… black, for all intents and purposes. I can definitely see where color would make a difference under various circumstances, different fish, water clarity. But when I look at a pattern that calls for cream hackle I can’t imagine that substituting the white hackle I have on-hand wouldn’t work. Or a dark ginger for brown…etc, etc. Not to mention, at this point, my bank account wouldn’t survive an effort to acquire the rainbow selection of hackle available. I imagine this is one of the issues that keeps new or younger fisher-people from either tying their own flies or trying fly-fishing altogether. The initial out-lay for a new tier can be daunting if you don’t keep your head on straight or determine you need EVERYthing in the store to catch fish on your tied flies.