Fly colours

[Jim Slattery]

Color can be very important.Leisenring thought so. My on stream observations echo Leisenrings thoughts on this. Others have felt the same. I remeber a fellow who is no longer with us posting the importance of a color shade when dealing with PMD's just a slight switch in hue made fishing go from sporadic tohot. Switching flies back and forth proved this out.

[Mike Connor]

Using nested setups to discuss subjects with multiple concepts or answers gets confusing very quickly! Nevertheless, it keeps the answers close to the questions. This time my replies are in red.

Jim Slattery wrote:But wouldn't be advantagious to use a material that has UVa reflective and/or absorbing/transmitting qualties, when said material IS right for the human perception , such as color and texture to create the desired effect anyway?

Mike Wrote. Humans can not perceive such qualities without technical tricks, and there is no way to know if or how trout perceive them, so how are you going to know what to use? There is no way.

Jim Wrote.So you are saying that if you have a black light , and you have selected a material that matches what the human eye sees in color and it works for the effect you want to create , expsosing the material to the Black light shows that the material is UV reactive, you would not use it? That this is Trickery?

Mike Wrote. No, I am not saying that. The human eye can not see anything at all in "Black" light. If a material under that black light is fluorescent ( = UV-reactive), then you will see the fluorescence colour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence

Whether you use it or not is up to you. It may improve the fly, it may not, there is no evidence to suggest that it does.


Jim Wrote.Many natural materials such as fur and feathers reflect and or absorb/ transmit uv light. Obviously this is a relatively new scientific application to dressing trout flies, there is still much to be learned and discovered. Again if all other aspects of a material being used fit the human eyes criteria of "matching the hatch", which as you well know at times is completely different than on percieves as it should be ("realistic tying" is one such example) then why not choose the material that exhibts UV properties?

Mike Wrote. Because there is no point, you don't know whether it works or not. The effectiveness of many materials has been determined by trial and error. If you find a material that works better than any other AND you discover that it absorbs/reflects UV light then you have a possible basis for using that material or a similar one. Without such a correlation there is no point in it. At this time no such correlations are known. It makes no difference what people believe, NOTHING is known.

Jim Wrote. Well this is what I'm saying Mike. That UV reactive materials DO seem to work better than those materials that are not.

Mike Wrote.If you believe it works better then use it. There is no proof that it works.

Jim Wrote. The insects that we imitate have uv properties. How the fish percieve UV light in their total vision is clearly unknown to us, mostly I would guess because we do not see things with the added uv spectrum. It is hard to deny the fact that trout see some UV light, so adding it to your fly is just another bullet to your gun whether it is real or percieved. If fish see red as green and blue as orange it really makes no difference to us does it? As long as we make our imitations to what we see and discover what is missing from the total equation that is the best we can do and all we can do at this time, until we learn more.

Mike Wrote.The point is that it is not known how fish see this stuff, if at all, so there is no sensible way to make use of it.

Mike Wrote. How are you going to add it to your fly? You can't perceive it without using various technical tricks and you still don't know whether it works or not. If you find some material that works better than any other and upon investigating it you find that it has some special UV related property, which you assume is the reason for it working much better, then you have a basis for using it. There is no such material and therefore no basis for such assumptions.

Jim Wrote. Combine my last two statements.

Jim Wrote. The fact is that some of our most beloved and successful flies have natural UV qualities in them, is this a coincidence or not?

Mike Wrote.What do you mean by "natural UV qualities?" and how do you determine that? It possibly is a coincidence, I don't know, and neither does anybody else. There is no way to prove or disprove it, it is just pointless. Lots of things have properties which are irrelevant to any particular purpose. If you use magnetic hooks will you catch more fish? I have no idea. Should you use magnetic hooks on the chance that they work better? You can if you like but you still don't know whether it makes any difference or not. If you use magnetic hooks and catch more trout on them than anybody else and in repeatable conditions then you have a basis for deciding to use them. In the absence of such a basis it makes no difference whether you use them or not.

Jim Wrote. My first statement above. I would say that if there was some scientific basis that trout were attracted to magnefcation then magnetized hooks would be a good idea to see if they help in catching trout.

Mike Wrote. I have tried this, it actually seems to work on eels but I need more data. Some fish react to magnetic fields and hunt prey using this sense;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini

Trout and other fish are also extremely sensitive to electric fields;
http://www.protroll.com/books/?id=5&p_id=8

There is not any concrete evidence but it certainly makes you sit up and wonder. Having said that many of the observations you have made on successful qualities for flies are dead on and I would think that they ALL play a part to a killing fly. Again the more bullets in the gun the better your chances.


Mike Wrote. What surprises me is the number of people who go on about this stuff, even writing books full of bullshit about it without any concrete evidence at all.That's not "scientific" it's just being silly.

Jim Wrote. The only evidence that I have is that I have as how the fish respond to the flies when compared to similar flies without UV reactive materials.

Mike Wrote. What evidence? Do you catch more on the flies? Is this something you have actual long term data on, or just something you happen to believe?

TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

Another major point here is the confusion between UV-reactive ( = fluorescent in this case) and UV reflective. These are completely different things. You can not see UV light in any form at all with human vision.

The light you actually see is visible light emitted as a result of the UV light causing the material to fluoresce;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence

It is very important to distinguish between these things, or hopeless confusion arises!

TL
MC

[DNicolson]

A very good point Mike, it is a bit like describing colour to a blind man, or maybe exactly like describing colour to a blind man.

[Mike Connor]

A very good point Mike, it is a bit like describing colour to a blind man, or maybe exactly like describing colour to a blind man.

Indeed Donald, as far as humans are concerned,UV light is just another invisible part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. We can not see these wavelengths and have no conception at all of what "colour" they might be. Our sense of colour depends on how our brains interpret various wavelengths of light which are visible to us. If something is invisible to us then it has no colour for us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

TL
MC

[Klaas]

Still i wonder why nature has given insects, fish and other animals uv collors if they cant see them?
That would be the same as we got legs and couldnt use them to walk or stand up.
Nature does nothing without a reason,only humans do.


Klaas

[Mike Connor]

Still i wonder why nature has given insects, fish and other animals uv collors if they cant see them?
That would be the same as we got legs and couldnt use them to walk or stand up.
Nature does nothing without a reason,only humans do.


Klaas

Nature does not "give" anything at all, nor does it have reasons, it evolves, and it often evolves things which are useless, these things also often disappear again if they do not result in progress for the organism concerned. This is a very complex subject.

The problem we have here with UV light and fish sight in regard to flies is basically one of causality;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

There is no known relationship between uv-reactive or uv-reflective material on artificial flies and fish sight. Therefore there is no point at all in even considering it. If it was KNOWN that some flies with UV-Reactive or UV-Reflective material were more attractive to fish then there would be a reason for using them and trying to find relationships. It is not known, and so there is no reason for using them or trying to find relationships.

What is constantly being done in this regard is postulating that there must be a relationship because UV light exists. This is false.

Just because something exists does not automatically make it "useful" or related to anything else. One phenomenon may also be completely unrelated to another, many are.

Also, colour is a visual perceptual property;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_perception

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color

If you are unable to perceive something visually then it has no colour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet

TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

Just to try and explain that. We know that fish eat flies. We know that fish take artificial flies because they look like real flies. ( They may also take some flies for other reasons).

We know that good patterns of flies catch fish better than others, although we don't always know why a fish takes some things in preference to others or what makes a good pattern. Trial and error proves that some patterns work very well, so there is a definite relationship there. This is why people constantly try to make better patterns, they know there is a relationship.

This means however that our perceptions must be at least similar or the fish would not take artificial flies which have been made according to human perceptions.

Humans can not perceive UV light. Whether fish can or not is largely irrelevant because it makes no difference, there is no known relationship between these things.Without a known relationship there can be no purpose at all in trying to use UV related materials.

If it was KNOWN that flies with UV related materials caught more fish, then there would be a relationship worth investigating. It is NOT known.

People are postulating a relationship which does not exist.

They might just as well postulate that radioactive flies would catch more fish, or flies that have been subjected to X-rays would catch more fish. It is a nonsensical postulate because it has no known basis in fact.

If these flies actually worked as some people maintain then they would catch a lot of fish on them. They don't, and neither does anybody else. Therefore the whole business is a waste of time and effort.

TL
MC

[Otter]

For my tuppence worth, scientific evidence would suggest that adult trout do not see UV - on that basis I simply do not concern myself with it. I have been down too many blind alleys, bought too much basically useless materials to be bothered anymore. I use predominantly natural materials and wire, a small bit of flash on some flies such as copper john's.

There seems to be an unhealthy necessity to believe in the tooth fairy and seek some magical material that will be the decimation of trout.

Playing with materials , thinking about colour, form , translucence , mobility etc are necessary to our enjoyment and education and are to a large degree tanglible to the human eye. To look beyond what is tangible seems to me to be akin to witchcraft and simply a way for purveyors of snake oil to fill their tills.

Empirical data gained by sensible on water investigation is good enough for me, I catch sufficent trout and gain enough satisfaction in the process.

IMHO, there can be too much focus on the snake oil resulting in too many anglers , particularily beginners, wasting countless seasons going blind down blind alleys. Not every fish is catchable at any moment in time, nor is any fly infallible - the number of factors that can effect our success are so many that to look to the end of the rainbow for answers seems to me a complete and utter waste of energy.

My wife is right, I have turned into a contrary old git

[Klaas]

Still i wonder why nature has given insects, fish and other animals uv collors if they cant see them?
That would be the same as we got legs and couldnt use them to walk or stand up.
Nature does nothing without a reason,only humans do.


Klaas

Nature does not "give" anything at all, nor does it have reasons, it evolves, and it often evolves things which are useless, these things also often disappear again if they do not result in progress for the organism concerned. This is a very complex subject.

The problem we have here with UV light and fish sight in regard to flies is basically one of causality;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

There is no known relationship between uv-reactive or uv-reflective material on artificial flies and fish sight. Therefore there is no point at all in even considering it. If it was KNOWN that some flies with UV-Reactive or UV-Reflective material were more attractive to fish then there would be a reason for using them and trying to find relationships. It is not known, and so there is no reason for using them or trying to find relationships.

What is constantly being done in this regard is postulating that there must be a relationship because UV light exists. This is false.

Just because something exists does not automatically make it "useful" or related to anything else. One phenomenon may also be completely unrelated to another, many are.

Also, colour is a visual perceptual property;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_perception

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color

If you are unable to perceive something visually then it has no colour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet

TL
MC

I dont agree with you at all in this Mike.
Nature evolves so do animals,if something has no use for an animal it evolves to something without it.
If an animal evolves and it doesnt work for the species it has to lose it or the species will extinct,if the mutation has no effect on predators( defence/camouflage) or it has no use for reproduction,the other one is change in envoirment to survive,an animal has no reason to evolve.
I would like to see an example from evolution that didnt had any use.
What you are trying to say,i think,is that animals have evolved many times,well they had to by change in the envoirment and predators that also evolved with them.
There whas a reason for it they evolved,it doesnt mean it whas useless.

You have alot of knowledge but in this your wrong,in nature everything has a function,everything.
What a scientist can see as somthing complete unusefull for an animal doesnt mean it its unusefull for an animal.

It is proven that trout see uv,and thats the question for me,some materials reflect uv so its usefull for tying flies.
You can say that i and some others are pushing it to the limit to make a connection between trout and flies and uv,well so do you to bring up everything to say were wrong.
Facts are that trout see uv,clear no dicsussion ,i dont care howmany sites you bring up to disagree with me and others,even the sites you put one here said trout can see uv,if it is just a lil bit or alot,they can see it.
If u still say they cant you very stubborn.

If a scientist says that animals have useless colors or whatever it doesnt mean he's right,he just hasnt found out why it has a certain collor or other bodypart that he just hasnt found out whats its function.
If you say thats that scientist is right,you believe that just for your own opinion.
To understand nature theres more than science that we may never understand,things we see and know we hardly understand or can explain.


The question whas if trout can see uv,yes they can,solved.

If someone asks if we can put materials that reflect uv in a fly,yes we can,solved.
If he catches more trout with it and you dont,doesnt mean your right,he can have a lucky day and you a bad day fishing,solved.

You alone can test asmuch as you want, no scientist did ever a research if flytyingmaterials with uv reflecting material works ,or not,to catch more or less trout.

Animals have collors for a reason,for example camouflage and to attract the other sex,wich also atract predators,animal evolves and gets uv collors,predator evolves and sees uv collors.

Just name me 1 collor or whatever you see that an animal has and that is complete useless in your vision or from a scientist that says it is,there isnt 1.
What 1 scientist does and discovers doesnt always means its true,more scientists have to do the same research,and still old results are corrected every day.

Mike your a smart person but even you know that nature is something that has its secrets and some of them we will never understand.
Scientists dont have an explanation for alot of things in nature.
Sometimes its easy 1+1=2,if theres water some animals will go live in it,if theres a tree some animals will live in it,if an animal has uv collors,some will see it,wich ones will see it,the ones who need it for reproduction,the ones who are gonna eat the animal,its very simple sometimes.


Klaas