Need help blending yellow and rust Antron to be rusty yellow

[mikechell 0]

If you watch a few videos I.E. Mcfly's streamer types ... you'll see them mixing dubbing by pulling it apart and lying it over itself, repeat until properly mixed.

[Bugsy 0]

Thumbs and forefingers. That's all you need and all you want for blending antron dubbing. And don't go chopping it before you blend it; Antron is relatively short staple, and you need that length for manipulating it. In about a minute you can blend whatever color you want and enough of it for a dozen flies or a gross. Carding brushes aren't gonna make it any easier or the result any better.

[SpokaneDude 0]

Thanks Bugsy and mikechell.. I have fat fingers, so it should go twice as fast! :-} I'll give it a whirl and see what I come up with...

 

SD

[SilverCreek 0]

Hello all... I am tying Greg LaFontaine's Deep Sparkle Pupa which calls for "rusty yellow" body dubbing;

 

I have looked everywhere for that particular blend, and finally gave up looking. I bought some Antron Sparkle Dubbing in rust and yellow and am going to blend it myself. Problem is: I can't find any examples of the color, so the Q is: what color is "rusty yellow"? Mostly yellow, or mostly rust? Half and half or some other proportion?

 

Any help locating examples or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

SD

 

Your search to perfectly duplicate the “rusty yellow color of the antron dubbing that Gary LaFountaine used contains several presuppositions in your post. Please allow me to point them out.

1. First you are assuming that color of the caddis hatch you will be fishing will be a perfect duplicate of the hatch that Gary LaFountaine fished.

2. Even if the hatch is identical, you assume that matching the color perfectly is very important. It is so important that you must match Gary Lafountaine’s caddis color perfectly.

3. If you try to duplicate the color in Tim Flagler’s video, you assume that Tim Flagler know what color color Gary Lafountaine used. That assumption is most likely wrong.

Gary Borger developed the Borger Color System (BCS) back in the late i970’s. Here is my copy.

Gary was a personal friend of Gary LaFountiane and Gary Borger is my personal friend as well. I think both Garys would tell you that colors do not need to be perfect. Gary Borger developed the BCS because by experience he found that colors did not have to be perfect. There is color variation in nature and also color is not as important as size and shape and often is not even as important as behavior of the fly. For example allow a perfectly shaped, sized, and color dry fly to drag and you will find that behavior is more important that color.

The small BCS booklet contains all the colors that are “close enough.” That means that all you have to be is “close enough” not to Gary Lafountaine’s fly, but to the hatch that you are fishing. I believe the mix you eventually use will be a starting point and not the holy grail that matches your hatch.

I personally think that more important than matching the exact color that Gary Lafountaine used is to seine the caddis pupa during the hatch that you are trying to imitate. Then you will know what color you are trying to imitate.

I suggest you carry a seining net to capture the caddis pupa.

Use a nylon paint bucket strainer bag over your landing net. It is a DIY Quick Seine/

[SpokaneDude 0]

SilverCreek... well said! I have a copy of Caddisflies and Trout Flies, Proven Patterns which opened my eyes not only to fly fishing and tying techniques, but the reasons trout bite the fly... that was my reasoning behind trying to match Gary's stated colors... Thank you so much for taking the time to enlighten me... seriously, I really appreciate it!

 

SpokaneDude (still a novice at fly tying)

[SilverCreek 0]

The other part of color is color saturation, the depth or shade of the color. For example if you mix a light yellow and a light rust dubbing vs a darker yellow and darker rust, you will get a lighter shade of rusty yellow vs a darker shade of rusty yellow. The rusty yellow dubbing you mix will not match Gary Lafountaine's dubbing unless the shade of the dubbing you mix match the shades of the dubbings that Gary mixed. You see where I am going with this? To match a dubbing is not as simple as mixing just the right colors! The dubbing you start with have to be the correct shade as well. This is obvious once you think about it but it is not obvious to a new tyer.

 

My personal belief is that if the natural is dark, a darker off color fly will "match the hatch" better than a much lighter fly that matches the color but is too light in shade.

 

The third part of matching color is that water darkens the color of a fly. So if dry dubbing is the right color and shade of the wet caddis pupa, it will be too dark when the fly is wet. So You actually want a lighter shade of the correct color for a nymph, larva, pupa, wet fly, etc. So check the color of the dubbing when it is wet to match it to the color of the aquatic form of the natural.

[SpokaneDude 0]

SilverCreek: understood, perhaps not obvious, tho'

 

Thanks again for your time explaining this to me and future readers.

 

SD

[bellevue.chartreuse.trout 0]

...

[SilverCreek 0]

Synthetics get darker as well. It has to do with the property of light as it passes into water then is reflected back from the surface of fly. Note that as we dub a fly, we spin fur or synthetics around the thread, essentially forming a "yarn" that is wound around the hook. The surface of the fly is then similar to the surface of a sweater or shirt. The link below describes why water darkens objects. The youtube link is a simpler explanation.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/11/11/3063513.htm

 

[video=youtube;wRsprwNpSbE]

 

Now you may think that the fish being under water does not have that air/water interface to get the repeated back and forth reflection and absorption, so the fish does not get darkening of the color. AHA! You have forgotten that we are looking at the nymph/larva/pupa that we have taken OUT OF THE WATER and see the darkened color through an air water interface just like the wet fly. Therefore, if we match the color of the wet natural through an air/water interface to a wet fly through an air/water interface, we get the closest match to what the fish actually sees as the color under water.

[bellevue.chartreuse.trout 0]

...

[flytire 0]

dubbing when wet

 

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

[sandflyx 0]

only place that still has Lafontaine stuff. He made it for Gary

[Flat Rock native 0]

Don't forget our friend Al Beatty sells Gary Lafontaine's dubbings as well as Gary's e-book. I have their dubbing kit. It is really nice for traveling and on- the- move tying.

 

 

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Al also recently published a sixth e-book, conveniently on dubbing also.

 

 

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Good luck on the DIY dubbing endeavors

 

 

 

[chugbug27 0]

@flytire,

That's a great article, thanks! Good common sense, applied simply but unflinchingly

[SilverCreek 0]

(didn't watch the video you posted) Do you think synthetics darken as much as natural furs Silver?

 

BCT

 

It depends on the reflectiveness of the material. If the synthetic is as reflective as say the average natural dubbing, they will look about the same dry and wet as the natural dubbing that is the same color and color saturation. So lets say you dub with grey muskrat underfur and with a synthetic that is the same color and reflectivity. I think they will look about the same wet and dry.

 

Lets say that now you add some synthetic grey trilobal antron fibers that are more reflective. Because the synthetic reflects more light, it absorbs less light that is reflected back to it from the underside of the water layer. Hence it reflects more light back so more gets through to you eyes and it looks brighter.

 

Since some synthetic dubbings are chosen for nymphs because they are more reflective, these will look brighter under water and when wet above water. It is reflectivity rather than synthetic vs natural. Physics determines the amount of darkening BUT I will agree that fly tying synthetics as a group are reflective. I think that they are more reflective not because manufacturers cannot make synthetics to match naturals but rather that fly tiers choose synthetics like Ice Dub or SLF as the more reflective option.