UV-active tying materials?

[Obi 0]

Dear all,

 

I'd like to ask you about your opinion on the benefit of UV-active tying-materials? Do they actually attract more fish or no?

 

Reason I raise this question: I recently tied some Caddis Pupe on scud hooks, using light brown Bodyglass. The underbody is tied with white Floss to make the abdomen a bit brighter and more shiny. Out of curiosity I tested what will happen when the nymphs are exposed to UV-light. The white underbody literally started to glow in a brigt blue. That gave a nice effect, together with the light-brown bodyglass.....

Then I tied a pretty similar pattern, using yellow Bodyglass. Here, the Bodyglass itself started to shine brightly in a chartreuse color when exposed to UV-light. Again, very nice.........

 

However, I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. What's your opinion / experience on this?

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Obi

[flytire 0]

i'm pretty sure this subject has been covered

 

http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=75509&hl=ultraviolet&do=findComment&comment=566528

 

very good book on the subject

 

[cheech 0]

Yep, what Flytire mentioned.

 

The key is to know the difference between UV reflectance and UV fluorescence. Fluorescence is what happens when you shine a UV light on your stuff, but not necessarily the best way to know how a fish sees it.

 

That book is HIGHLY recommended

[Piker20 0]

Third the book.

Cannot overstate that humans, well 99% cannot see the UV spectrum so what we see as reflected light is not what the trout is seeing.

The book doesn't answer all the questions. The photo under UV light of a fly vest on page 118 makes you wonder how any of us catch a thing if UV truly is that obvious to the fish.

[whatfly 0]

[snip]...makes you wonder how any of us catch a thing if UV truly is that obvious to the fish.

 

Which is a key point that most of the pundits seem to ignore. Another way of looking to it for me is that we have been using flies with UV reflective materials for years (e.g. white wing on a Prince nymph) as well as flies without (e.g. the black woolly bugger) and lo and behold both patterns catch fish. Ultimately there are a lot of variables involved holding all else equal, and adding UV reflective materials to patterns is no more of a magic bullet for all fish in all situations than anything else you can try. YMMV.

[FlyFishin'Jam 0]

Yup this topic has been covered many times, can i 4th the book? Another very interesting thing is that some species of salmonid can truly modulate their vision depending on what phase they are in.

 

Click this, and a pdf should come up that is worth a read.

 

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEIQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dafml.unito.it%2Fanatomy%2Fponzetto%2FVISTA%2FSALMON%2520COLOR.pdf&ei=7tUQU8elHIGC2AWGx4HIBg&usg=AFQjCNEtOddtIo-LRHsoHJI0ISjBCaD-YA&bvm=bv.62286460,d.b2I&cad=rja

[Piker20 0]

But then the Salmon stop feeding when they enter fresh water and still hit anything between a 6inch sunray and a size 16 PTN? If we knew the answers it wouldn't be as fun.

[Steve P 0]

But then the Salmon stop feeding when they enter fresh water and still hit anything between a 6inch sunray and a size 16 PTN? If we knew the answers it wouldn't be as fun.

Not to mention it wouldn't make a lick of sense anyhow. The only predictable thing I've learned with fishing is that nothing is predictable. Put as much science to it you want and you're still dealing with a random living organism... Tomorrow the science is different because the variables are far too great.

 

As per UV reflective materials... I love them.

 

Steve

 

Steve

[FlyFishin'Jam 0]

But then the Salmon stop feeding when they enter fresh water

 

I always believed that until this season we had a king smack the crap out of an intruder then proceed to vomit up all sorts of fish scraps from someone cleaning fish upstream. Was bizarre.

[Piker20 0]

Feeding our attacking the fish bits like they do flies? They used to rig whole sprats and herrings here and use them in early spring. The salmon take worms and prawns where allowed too. I think a lot of people say they dont feed due to the loss of condition in a hen fish as the months between river entry and spawning go by. But if you took any creature from the protein rich feeding grounds they were in and put them into an environment that normally only supports 6 inch trout they are bound to lose body fat even if the feeding continues???

[FlyFishin'Jam 0]

Who knows really, a lot of factors seem to come into play, and so many different conditions i mean you can find completely dour fish that will just freek out at anything near them and swim away scared, or you can find fish being hormonally charged beasts that really dislike anything encroaching on their hold, and will go on a killing spree. Most times for me it is the dour fish.

[Stevester 0]

Over the years (and I have been at this for a few decades) I have developed a considerable skepticism about a lot of the things that have been foisted upon fisherman by the folks who have a product to sell. I am not much of a conspiracy guy and I don't plan on changing that any time soon but I do think that we need to be a LOT more critical of all the new and supposedly revolutionary stuff that is constantly showing up. I am with Whatfly on this one, an incredible butt load (a technical term) of fish have been caught before we had special UV materials. There is no proof that adding additional fluorescence or reflectance will make a fly more attractive to fish. I am not saying it won't, just that there is no real data. And as mentioned above, way too many variables to come to much of any conclusions.

 

Steve

[cheech 0]

Over the years (and I have been at this for a few decades) I have developed a considerable skepticism about a lot of the things that have been foisted upon fisherman by the folks who have a product to sell. I am not much of a conspiracy guy and I don't plan on changing that any time soon but I do think that we need to be a LOT more critical of all the new and supposedly revolutionary stuff that is constantly showing up. I am with Whatfly on this one, an incredible butt load (a technical term) of fish have been caught before we had special UV materials. There is no proof that adding additional fluorescence or reflectance will make a fly more attractive to fish. I am not saying it won't, just that there is no real data. And as mentioned above, way too many variables to come to much of any conclusions.

 

Steve

If you read the book, he examines many of the tried and true materials that we have used for decades. It interesting to see how many popular materials have high UV properties without us even realizing it. It's nothing "new" or "groundbreaking," just some more variables that have been thrown at the table. Trust me. Research is good.

[JoeBillingsley 0]

I bought a package of the UV2 pheasant tail feathers a few months ago. I don't know about the effectiveness of them yet so I can't comment on that part of the discussion, but I will say that the feathers are quite a bit lighter in color and the fibers are lot more fragile and less dense than the non-treated feathers I've been buying for years. Could be I just got a poor individual package, I guess. Don't know.

 

Joe

[kimjensen 0]

2 words Marketing bull****

It All comes down to how to fool fishermen. And you thought they just wanted you to catch fish? Aww :-)