UV

[DarrellP]

Being an old curmudgeon, I remain skeptical. There are a few items that I place a lot of faith in, mainly natural materials such as peacock, PT, duck flank, and natural dubbing. Anything with rubber legs for panfish. But that is what I use, so it is self reinforced.

[Mike62]

I have read the books mentioned by roadkill plus THE NEW SCIENTIFIC ANGLING TROUT AND ULTRAVIOLET VISION by Reed Curry.
Very interesting subject but I don’t think we will ever know for sure the effectiveness or non effectiveness of UV materials.

Lou

I met Reed several times, interesting fellow. Last I heard from him, he was working on a spray-on UV camo solution that he was hoping to sell to the defense department. Apparently, you could spray yourself down with his solutions, in various percentages of the 'primary', and the resulting UV/camo pattern would render you almost invisible to an enemy equipped with UV detecting glasses.

I've tried to read Reed's book, but it's a bit on the dry and bloodless side for me. He used to write a blog called 'Over My Waders'. I just tried to access it, without any luck, he may not be writing it anymore.

[Fishnkilts]

To answer the original question, how important is UV to me when buying materials, I never thought about it, as in I never thought about the UV properties in the materials I buy. It's just something I don't worry about.

As for this 20 to 1 ratio when it comes to UV beads, who am I to argue? I for one do not need to catch the biggest and the most fish to be happy. Tricks of the trade; smoke and mirrors I'm not into, but if they do increase the amount of catches, then great, fantastic even.

Here's where I contradict myself; I would like to test out this 20 to 1 ratio for myself and see what happens. When the gentleman at the fly shop said this, the first thing I thought was, when you go out to eat and give the waitress or waiter your order and they say, "that's my favorite on the menu", I like to reply back, " you're payed to say that."
You should see their face when I say that. It's classic. But that's what I'm getting here with the fly shop person.

I just took a look with my light and I have a few threads and ribbing that have UV, especially green threads.

[DUBBN]

Extraordinary answers folks. This has been fun for me!

[tworod]

UV has been a 'new' topic every decade or so. I can recall a year back in the '70's when you could not buy a certain type of Tide detergent in West Yellowstone because everyone was washing their flies and fly tying materials in it for a supposed magical UV effect. The next year you could buy all of that Tide you wanted.
Too often we are so caught up with the history and romance of fly fishing that we forget that it is also a business no different than any other. How often do you hear that something is new and improved?

[wsbailey]

This dubbing contains U.V. materials. The pictures show the difference between lit and unlit with U.V. light. That doesn’t prove it’s more effective.

https://chucknduckflytying.com/products/electric-seal

[DUBBN]

This dubbing contains U.V. materials. The pictures show the difference between lit and unlit with U.V. light. That doesn’t prove it’s more effective.

https://chucknduckflytying.com/products/electric-seal

I agree. Just because it has UV reflective materials does not mean it is more effective.

[Johnno]

I think UV materials are just a marketing exercise…. I don’t think they make one iota of difference to the effectiveness - or not - of a fly.

[Solitaryflyguy]

I tied some $3 Dips using some UV Pearl Ice dub for the wing instead of deer hair. Fished both flies in tandem and the UV fly out fished the non-UV fly every time, no matter where on the leader it was.

I only tie a couple of flies using UV materials and they all perform very well.

Thought I might share a personal experience.
Quite some time ago, Kelly Galloup mentioned how much his patterns improved because of the use of UV pearl ice dub when he started incorporating it into some of his existing patterns on the Madison. So, being curious I did a side by side and tied a couple of good producing patterns I tie for myself incorporating the ice dub into some of the fur dubbing. One was tied with, one tied without. The ones tied with produce more, no exceptions. While a couple of pattern changes is certainly not an exhaustive experiment by any means or stretch of the imagination, there may be something to the subtle use of uv flash giving the impression of trapped air bubbles or possibly reflecting light in such a way as to mimic the spectral underwater color flash of emerging insects or it just gives the fly a trigger point……..Heck I don’t know.
What I do know is that what was once a good producing fly is now a great producing fly and I’m satisfied with that.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

I tied some $3 Dips using some UV Pearl Ice dub for the wing instead of deer hair. Fished both flies in tandem and the UV fly out fished the non-UV fly every time, no matter where on the leader it was.

I only tie a couple of flies using UV materials and they all perform very well.

Thought I might share a personal experience.
Quite some time ago, Kelly Galloup mentioned how much his patterns improved because of the use of UV pearl ice dub when he started incorporating it into some of his existing patterns on the Madison. So, being curious I did a side by side and tied a couple of good producing patterns I tie for myself incorporating the ice dub into some of the fur dubbing. One was tied with, one tied without. The ones tied with produce more, no exceptions. While a couple of pattern changes is certainly not an exhaustive experiment by any means or stretch of the imagination, there may be something to the subtle use of uv flash giving the impression of trapped air bubbles or possibly reflecting light in such a way as to mimic the spectral underwater color flash of emerging insects or it just gives the fly a trigger point……..Heck I don’t know.
What I do know is that what was once a good producing fly is now a great producing fly and I’m satisfied with that.

Funny you should mention that. It was about 8 years ago that I was working at Jim's place on the Madison when I did my little experiment. I bought the UV material at Kelly's. We started selling the UV version in the shop and they sold pretty well.