Trout Fishing and the Color of Wet Dubbing

[flytire 0]

its not the color of the dry dubbing the fish sees

 

read the article

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/142144696/Trout-Fishing-and-the-Color-of-Wet-Dubbing#scribd

 

 

 

note: the photos from the article show the dubbing applied to black thread but would have a different effect when using lighter threads as the under body

[Henrik Thomsen (DK) 0]

Cool idea

[whatfly 0]

Yeah, I know this is often cited as important, but consider that most synthetics do not really change color when wet and the fact that not only wetness but the depth, clarity, light, etc., will affect color of natural and synthetic materials, I really do not see this is a major concern although I do check every now again when I'm curious and have a lot of time on my hands.

 

Most of us discover the right color empirically by catching fish, not by identifying what the color looks like when dipped in water. YMMV.

[SilverCreek 0]

I discovered this along time ago and would mix my own dubbing, wet it with spit and add dyed rabbit fur or synthetics until I get the wet shade I wanted. Many dry fly dubbing are synthetics but I still think they get darker when wet and they also change a bit with floatants.

 

I've read that sythetics don't get darker but my personal experience is that some definitely do. I use a nylon yarn for my serendipities and it gets darker when wet. Dazzleaire sparkle yarn gets darket when wet. So don't beleiove that synthetics don't get darker when wet. It is such a simple test so wet the synthetic and let your own eyes judge.

[singletrack 0]

I completely agree. Pretty much all material when wet will be darker or more transparent in the case of white. One of my best fishing flies is a pheastant tail tied with a dubbing hot bell of a bright lime green. When wet this color turns to a olive. Which gets hits all the time. If I had just assumed it would be as bright as it was dry I would have never tied it in.

[flytire 0]

Will the color of the thread come into play when the dubbing get wet?

 

One dubbing that might not change is ice dubbing

[tctrout 0]

Thanks for sharing the article, and I think this is a topic that many miss out on, unfortunately. As a young tyer, two of my mentors always had a bowl or glass full of water at their bench, and as they tied (or created) patterns, they would submerge the flies to see how the color varied when wet. The majority of colors (including synthetics) became darker, and that's something we have to keep in mind. More importantly, guessing is not beneficial, when we have the ability to truly see the change that may occur.

 

This then moves the discussion to capturing insects and keeping their color intact to attempt the best possible color match. Is the needed? Yes and no, and I think the situation dictates the degree of detail you have to carry out regarding color. On some local western PA streams, I feel the color matters, but is not always critical. When fishing a tailwater that receives more pressure, I have many experiences regarding incorrect color(s) being discarded from fish, whereas they were more accepting of others.

 

Thanks again for starting this discussion...and by the way, I keep a bowl of water on my desk, as my mentors showed me many years ago. ;-)

TC

[SilverCreek 0]

Thanks for sharing the article, and I think this is a topic that many miss out on, unfortunately. As a young tyer, two of my mentors always had a bowl or glass full of water at their bench, and as they tied (or created) patterns, they would submerge the flies to see how the color varied when wet. The majority of colors (including synthetics) became darker, and that's something we have to keep in mind. More importantly, guessing is not beneficial, when we have the ability to truly see the change that may occur.

 

This then moves the discussion to capturing insects and keeping their color intact to attempt the best possible color match. Is the needed? Yes and no, and I think the situation dictates the degree of detail you have to carry out regarding color. On some local western PA streams, I feel the color matters, but is not always critical. When fishing a tailwater that receives more pressure, I have many experiences regarding incorrect color(s) being discarded from fish, whereas they were more accepting of others.

 

Thanks again for starting this discussion...and by the way, I keep a bowl of water on my desk, as my mentors showed me many years ago. ;-)

TC

 

There is no need to preserve insects.

 

Years ago Gary published and sold the BCS (Borger Color System). The Borger Color System (BCS) was a small pamphlet with color chips and data sheets to note the date, time, location, insect stage, lengths and colors of the insect anatomical segments. Gary discovered that the fly color does not have to be spot on to fool fish; and that by having a color chart that is "close enough", an angler and fly tier could functionally cover the colors of the hatches.

The best part was the color charts. This was well before the world wide web but we did have email so we could send the data to a fly fishing friend and with the BCS they could match the fly color and size to the insect.

Here is my BCS system from 1987

Gudebrod made thread in BCS colors.

There are regional differences in the color of identical insect hatches, and the color of the insect can change as the hatch progresses from week to week. So precise color matches vary by location and the date of the hatch.

The BCS is no longer sold, but a curious angler can use regular paint chips to do the same task.

[flytire 0]

henry

 

does the bcs book identify the colors samples by a color code number like that shown in the photo below?

 

or was the book printed before the hexadecimal color code system was created

 

sample color chart

 

 

[rockworm 0]

Caucci and Nastasi published a book called the Fly-tyer's Color Guide which details how to blend dubbing (and other coloured material) to obtain exact hues and shades. There are pages of color charts, well over a thousand standards, each colour described by the proportion of constituent colour (ie: 10y6r5b5w matching the colour of E infrequens nymph.) Although I have not made use of this system it seems to me an excellent way to identify and record the colour of a specimen or artificial. Many tyers believe that a dubbing comprised of a mix of colours is more effective than a uniformly-dyed material.

[flytire 0]

remember their "spectrumized dubbing"?

 

 

[SilverCreek 0]

I've been thinking about the darkening of wet flies and dubbing and it seems to me that lots of things look darker when wet. Wet sand at a beach look darker, wet clothes look darker, wet rocks look darker, wet wood looks darker.

The common denominator is water and the only difference between looking at a wet object and a dry object is that there is a layer of water between our eyes and the surface of the object.

We all know that light reflects off of the surface of water so there is less light getting to the object. That means there is less light available under water to be reflected back to our eyes.

We also know the mirror effect of the under surface of the water, so some of the light that would have been reflected back to our eyes from the object never gets to us since it is reflect back under water by the mirror. This light reflected light is scattered back underwater and may make it out or it could be absorbed by another color in the dubbing if the dubbing is multicolored. If it does get out, our eyes mis-locate the origin of the color and it is assigned to another location. So there is brightness lost and mis-location by the back and forth reflection.

What this implies is that it does not matter if the dubbing is natural or synthetic, all will darken because the darkening is not due only to the material but to the fact that there is a water/air interface between our eyes and the material.

If the darkening of the material is dependent ONLY on an air/water interface, what does this imply for the trout who do NOT have an air/water interface between it's eyes and the dubbing on the fly? At this time I think they see a darker dubbing (because it is wet and under water so less light reaches it) but it is slightly BRIGHTER than we see because the reflective mirror effect of the under surface of the water does not interfere with the amount of reflected color that reaches their eyes.

After doing this mind game to try to figure out what was happening, I did a google search and came up with two sources. I think my deductions are similar.

http://www.askamathematician.com/2012/06/q-why-do-wet-stones-look-darker-more-colorful-and-polished/

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/homework/s95587.htm

[whatfly 0]

SilverCreek clearly articulates some of the confounding issues, and thus raises the question does it really matter? Is the water test meaningful? Do you adherents really believe that if you are off by a few shades, as in the example of wet versus dark synthetic, that your fly will be refused? Really? Especially when one considers all the other variables involved? Put it another way, what traditionally is considered the ranking of importance when considers presentation, size, and color?

 

As I confessed, I quite often test a new pattern in water, but more often than not to check the action or silhouette first and color last.

[rockworm 0]

The question of wet vs dry colour can be very important when using translucent materials such as floss. A floss fly body, when dry, looks the same whether it is wrapped over white or black thread. But it is another matter when the floss becomes wet! The same is true, to a lesser degree, for lightly-dubbed bodies.

 

Does it matter? Assuming the tyer is not choosing colours at random, he should know the effective colour he is presenting to the fish.

[SilverCreek 0]

I think we all agree that we should strive to make our imitations as close to the natural as possible, to the limits of our knowledge. The strategy is to minimize the possible reasons for refusal. We may not know everything but that does not mean we do not know something. That something that we do know or think we know becomes the basis of our strategy. So to paraphrase rockworm, when we tie a fly, we must choose a color anyway and the best color is the one that most closely matches the natural.