Fly colours

[Mike Connor]

Boasting again Mike - I'm joking off course.

Unfortunately it does sound like that, and a lot of people take it like that. Just how it is.

Difficult to make people realise that I do this for myself, not to impress others or for any other reason. I am just obsessed by it, always have been. For a lot of people going to the lengths I have would not only be impossible for them but they might well be considered insane. Quite a few people have told me I must be nuts. Maybe I am, who cares as long as I am enjoying myself and not hurting anybody.

Anyway, these things are coming to an end, I am getting older and my opportunities and possibilities are diminishing rapidly. I will still invest a lot of time and effort in various things, I have no choice really, that is a side effect of doing something like this so intensively for such a long time, you can't stop, because what else would you do? What use is all the gear you have accumulated? What use all the knowledge and experience? I would still like to learn as much as possible about various things, quite apart from anything else it is an interesting and pleasant way to pass the time.

TL
MC

[daringduffer]

...... Quite a few people have told me I must be nuts. Maybe I am, who cares as long as I am enjoying myself and not hurting anybody.

....I would still like to learn as much as possible about various things, quite apart from anything else it is an interesting and pleasant way to pass the time.....

Moreover, you are sharing your findings and we are many who benefit from this.

dd

[Otter]

All one can do is satisfy ones own thirst and maybe share some ideas that aid another. It would seem that the more we percieve or explore that each door unlocked is met by another locked - thank God for that......

I do not believe that the book on the behaviour of anglers will ever be written, too complex a subject, methinks.

[daringduffer]

The old axiom always applies, if you believe someone has knowledge that may benefit you, like a challenging trout, you have to cast various flies until you ask the right question to get the right answer , but cast carefully, people can be put down as quick as any trout and always remember to say thanks.

Thank you for this piece of advice, Otter. I will try to follow it. Sometimes one is so eager to understand things that one neglects the fact that a question can be interpreted in a way not intended; for example as criticism.

dd

[Mike Connor]

All one can do is satisfy ones own thirst and maybe share some ideas that aid another. It would seem that the more we percieve or explore that each door unlocked is met by another locked - thank God for that......

I do not believe that the book on the behaviour of anglers will ever be written, too complex a subject, methinks.

I am not much worried about the behaviour of anglers, people do what they do for their own reasons, and it probably wouldn't do you much good even if you knew exactly what those reasons were. The thing that gives me all the headaches is the behaviour of the fish!

TL
MC

[daringduffer]

I have used Bob wyatts DHE with some success for LDO emergers, light hare abdomen, dark hare thorax - but found that nymphs worked much better by a factor of at least 2 if not 3 to 1. For the nymphs the hares ear as described by Mike works well and I found that a Copper John does just as well on most occasions.

Incidentally, an injured blackbird was on the deck at the back of my house this morning. The kids placed it in a box, alas it has since expired. I know most of you will think me a wimp but ever since a childhood incident involving a deceased cat, I have a phobia about going near dead/dying birds or animals. My wife has been advised that she has some work to do when I get home this evening.

Hmm, hen blackbird? You want your wife to liberate the skin? I found a pair of wings from a deceased fly tier. Easier.

Once, yes - once, I had an excellent fishing with the LDO dun on a massive hatch with the stream boiling from rising fish. I was using a pattern named "Gim River Dun" which is a "thorax winged" type of fly (wing of male mallard breast/flank), olive dubbing, split fibetts tail, blue dun hackle (two turns behind and in front of wing) with a "V" clipped underneath. There is a grey version too. I will tie a few with sparse grey dubbing on yellow silk to compare with the green version.

Come to think of it, my second season - also in september, I caught almost forty grayling on a size 16 Blue Dun during no visible hatch. Then I broke the hook in a sloppy back-cast. Do you fish the nymphs floating or sub-surface or both?

dd

[Soft-hackle]

MIKE CONNOR,
If you give up doing what you do so well, you'll age even quicker. Were are all getting older, and in a way that's good, cause as we age we realize how much we don't know, and it makes us want to forge ahead. Nothing wrong with that. You keep using that great mind you have, and it'll continue to serve you well, as it has served us. It also doesn't hurt to take care of your body as well, however we appreciate your insight and keen powers of observation.

Mark

[Mike Connor]

Thank you Mark, that is very kind of you.

TL
MC

[overmywaders]

Hi Mike Connor, it's been a long time since we've conversed.
Jim S. thought I might like to participate in this thread, but by the time I was registered and legal, fourteen pages had been written.
Perhaps we can discuss the matter of ultraviolet vision in trout in another thread; you seem to have finished with it ten pages back, so it would not be easy to rebuild at this time.

Regarding the matter of translucent bodies in mayflies, you are, IMO, correct. This has been a matter of concern for some tiers since the 1920's. Personally, I put it just before color and after outline in importance when imitating most mayflies. YMMV. After color I put UV reflectance - which differs by species and sex in mayflies.

Good to "see" you.

Best regards,
Reed

[Mike Connor]

Hi Mike Connor, it's been a long time since we've conversed.
Jim S. thought I might like to participate in this thread, but by the time I was registered and legal, fourteen pages had been written.
Perhaps we can discuss the matter of ultraviolet vision in trout in another thread; you seem to have finished with it ten pages back, so it would not be easy to rebuild at this time.

Regarding the matter of translucent bodies in mayflies, you are, IMO, correct. This has been a matter of concern for some tiers since the 1920's. Personally, I put it just before color and after outline in importance when imitating most mayflies. YMMV. After color I put UV reflectance - which differs by species and sex in mayflies.

Good to "see" you.

Best regards,
Reed

Hi Reed,

I don't bother much subscribing to various boards any more although I read quite a few. I only subscribe to this one and one other private board.

Nice to see you here too.

I think lots of people have known of this in various ways. One of the earliest to formulate it to an extent, and comment much, was J.W.Dunne, in "Sunshine and the dry fly" in 1924;

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

This is an interesting work, but his patterns and methods are too difficult and involved for most.

If you are going to place emphasis on UV reflectance with regard to flies then you have to be sure it makes a difference to the fish, and this assumes that they can see it. I don't believe they can. The newest studies indicate that adult trout can not perceive UV light. Also, even assuming these are wrong and trout can in fact perceive UV light ( although it would be better to call it "radiation", in my opinion, I think "light" is a rather unfortunate term in this respect), you need special equipment to detect UV radiation and you would have to test the natural flies you want to imitate under varying conditions of UV light, AND match what you found using artificials under the same circumstances. Even if possible this is difficult.

Everything connected with this hinges on trout being able to see UV light. If they can not, then everything else connected with it is a waste of time as far as anglers and artificial flies are concerned.

Also, in low light conditions, when fish primarily feed, there is very little UV light at all, if any. At such times you can not even measure any appreciable effects on various things, much less flies. So even assuming that the fish can see UV light, they can't see it if it is not there. Again a dead end.

Various light effects such as translucence and wing interference patterns all occur within the human visible spectrum, are easily seen under the right conditions, and I believe that trout see much the same things under the same conditions and angles of view as a human although apparently somewhat skewed towards the blue end of the visible spectrum.

Finally, nobody has come up with any "UV-related" patterns that catch better under certain conditions, so how might they be better than any "ordinary" flies?

All of your contentions predicate that trout can see in these wavelengths, and many that this effect also works in low light conditions. It can not do so, because there is little or no UV light present under those conditions.

TL
MC