Partridge and Blue. Mole colour effect

[Stendalen]

Check this out. The colour penetration differs in clear and murky water!

color3.gif (4.92 KiB) Viewed 3400 times

http://www.forciersguideservice.com/pag ... rity16.php

I’ve experimented with blue spiders Martin. Very similar to yours. I have had luck with them on trout in very clear water. Not so much in turbid off color water.

[letumgo]

Wow! That is such an interesting addition.

[Old Hat]

Cool. Thanks for the diagrams Martin. I had a feeling that was the case just never took the time to confirm it. Orange in the murky water? I can use that info here in Florida we have a lot of tannic stained rivers and creeks. Blue was a great color on the Metolius River in Oregon.

That last sentence was for ronr and Roadkill.

[Mike62]

I've got two spools of Pearsall's blue that I've never used; blue has never appealed to me in the least. After reading through this thread I'm seriously reconsidering my reluctance. Those diagrams are persuasive. Thanks for posting them.

[Mike62]

All this talk about color spectrum reminds me of Reed Curry's book "The New Scientific Angling: Trout and Ultra Violet Vision'

We had Reed come out to a meeting one night and he brought his camera set up, along with a giant box of tying materials donated by Hareline for his experiments. I remember being very surprised at what UV light did to tying materials.

I found the book to be a tad dry but I think I'll give it another look.

[Bazzer69]

Great looking fly. Despite trying I don’t think I’ve ever caught a fish on a blue fly, not even snagged one. Now I just don’t have any faith with a blue fly!

[PhilA]

It's important to consider the depths involved in the above charts and graphs. The visible wavelengths of light are scattered and absorbed in clear water, but the distances involved are quite large relative to typical fishing depths. This chart expresses the effect of depth on light penetration a bit more quantitatively:


http://www.seagrant.umn.edu

I rarely present nymphs in a river at a depth greater than 2-3 meters. On the above chart, 3 meters is at the top of the text letter "e" of each of the color labels (Purple, Blue, etc.). Thus, differential light penetration has little effect at the depths of my river angling. Fishing deeply in lakes or in the ocean would be very different.

That's how light behaves in clear water. If the water is stained with something that absorbs specific wavelengths, light penetration would change. For example, water that is green with algae absorbs reds and blues more quickly, leaving the greens to penetrate. The algae would also scatter and attenuate penetration of all wavelengths. I'm unsure about tannin-stained water, but Wisconsin's Black River is called such because it is pitch black at moderate depths (10 feet?). I suspect those woodsy-boggy waters have lots of suspended particles also.

I should add that the above refers only to visible light. There's lots of buzz these days about UV wavelengths and the fact that fish retinas have specialized cone cells that sense UV light. There's also a lot of misinformation concerning UV reflectance (meaning lack of UV absorbance) vs. UV fluorescence, which is a very different phenomenon. But, perhaps that should be for another thread.

Phil

[PhilA]

About the color blue in trout flies...

John "Jack" Atherton was an eloquent proponent of impressionism in fly design. "Impressionism" to him meant rendering a perception of reality rather than its true form. He was an accomplished artist who brought an understanding of light, color, and visual perception to fly design, and he identified features of an artificial fly that are important for success based on his fishing experiences.

One of the features that Atherton advocated was a splash of bright blue color. His logic was not based on the light absorption properties of water, but rather on his observations that many naturals have brilliant accents of color (pink, yellow, blue, violet, etc.) somewhere on the body. A splash of blue was one of his favorites. As he described, "I have experimented with small, sparkling blue feathers as wing cases on nymphs and find they kill very well. The blue is used as contrast to the dubbing when the latter is of hare's ear or seal's fur dyed yellow, orange or olive. To my own eyes, looking down into the water, the small blue flash is remarkably strong and bright."

My attempts at an Atherton Nymph No. 2:


From Atherson's The Fly and the Fish (1951):

• Hook: Nymph hook, size not specified

• Thread: Not specified

• Weight: Wire underbody at thorax (optional)

• Tail: Three short strands from the long tail feather of the cock pheasant (ringneck)

• Body: Hare's ear, tied rough and ribbed with narrow oval gold tinsel. After ribbing, the dubbing is picked out between the ribs with a dubbing needle to suggest the gills of the nymph and to add a softer outline.

• Thorax: Same dubbing over padding or fuse wire. Before winding on this dubbing, the wing case feather is tied in at the back of the thorax, upside down and pointing to the tail of the fly.

• Wing Cases: Bright blue feather from wing of English kingfisher, lacquered when in place. This feather, although exactly what I need to suggest the sparkle of color or light on the wing cases, is apt to come apart after some use. I have tried to find a proper substitute and so far the best is a bit of synthetic silk floss, of the same or nearly the same color, heavily lacquered after tying in. It is permanent, but not as bright and sparkling as the feather.

Phil

[tie2fish]

Your chart illustrates an important distinction, Phil -- one that pretty much eliminates the effects of water depth on colors as a factor in fly fishing in typically clear streams.

As for UV and its ramifications, I do seem to recall an extensive and somewhat contentious discussion of this phenomenon at some point in the murky past. Or was that on a different forum?

[Stendalen]

Thanks PhilA for this elaborate addition of knowledge and information. The deeper you dig the more you understand how little you know.

The Atherton fly is beautiful, the blue both marries and does not in an odd way to the yellowish/brownish tone of rest of the fly. It creates a very interesting contrast, an accent as you say, to the rest of the fly, and maybe that is something that is a trigger for the fish.

Martin