Attractor dries & choosing fly color

[Nymphmeister]

If you all ever want a true education on dry fly fishing, look no further than Gary LaFonataine's book "The Dry Fly". Talk about a boatload of info, and definitely not the same old stuff. As per the way he usually investigates things, many hours spent underwater in scuba gear were part of the process, watching people fish different flies & techniques and the trout responses.

For Attractors, dries that are meant for searching the water during non-hatch periods, he has a chapter entitled "A Theory of Attraction", and it basically tells you what color fly to fish under various light conditions/backround colors. Pretty much takes the guesswork out of picking the color, except for certain flies like the Royal Wullf & Trude, which are good under any light conditions (except cloudy days). He came up with a specific design called the Double Wing that maximizes the impact of color. Here is a quick summary of some of the basic colors & when to use them:

1. White- shade, dusk, or anytime on a brown trout stream (they like shadows)
2. Gray- cloudy days
3. Orange- sunrise, sunsent, and during the Autumn
4. Lime- midday, or anytime on heavily wooded streams when the leaves are green
5. Royal- all around attractor, anytime the sun is out, but not so good on cloudy days
6. Black- at night
7. Yellow- mid-morning, mid-afternoon, during rain storms, and when a lot of yellow bodied insects are around
8. Pink- early morning & late afternoon

The theme is matching the color of the fly to the dominant color of the ambient light. When light hits an object, we perceive it's color due to light bouncing off the object- if an object is orange, then it absorbs other wavelengths and bounces the orange light back to our eye, creating the color. By matching the fly to the ambient light, it stands out & appears bright or as LaFonataine likes to say "On fire".

This book has so much info in it that my head hurts if I spend more than a little while reading it. It truly is a wealth of info, and it is different stuff than you will see anywhere else. It's a shame he died of ALS, he still had so much he wanted to investigate & write about. I bet he would have done an amazing book on nymphs eventually, he wanted to do one on streamers & another on bass.

I can already see validity to some of the fly color stuff- for example the deadliness of a White Wullf on the Housatonic, esp. in the evening. And I've known guys who swore by a bright orange spinner in the evenings.

[JUICE]

Somebody is in love with Gary and wants to marry him! When you read the book do you find yourself getting all excited Torrey?

[Brookie]

Juice, you're really getting to know Torrey well, aren't you? ;D

I've heard Borger (the one that doesn't ride on coattails) say the same thing about using bright orange spinners when the fish are keying on them as the sun is going down, during that time of day when the sunlight is that bright orange. I can't remember exactly if he said bright orange body, or maybe it was wings, but the theory was the same about the sunlight absorption interaction with the fly.

[nutman]

his book on the caddis said it all .no need to for anyone to write another book on them . Who is gary lafontaine ( he is one of the masters of our time ) Like the lee wolf of his time . It is to bad his life has ended . We are given glimpses into what greatness is .

[Nymphmeister]

Juice-

Gary who?? Dunno who you are talking about. ;D

[FK]

A few years ago there was a trend in PA and the NY state trout fisheries to use Orange Ants. These FF claimed great success with that color, another + for color being an attractor to trout. I do belive it is not the exact color,,,,, but the brightness compared to surroundings as described by GL.

You do realized that Gary grew up in CT and fished the Farmington and Hous., he attended the Univ. of Montana for the fly fishing and stayed. I know a few other FF who selected their undergraduate school for the FF opportunities.

Regards,
FK

[Nymphmeister]

Yeah, Gary is a CT boy originally, he logged well over 1,000+ days on the Farmington, as well as a bunch on the Housy too.

[trout5]

I wish I had chosen a college as wisely...I was too young and stupid :'(

[Nymphmeister]

In keeping with Gary's theory of attraction, I've had great luck in the evenings with a Usual dubbed on fire orange thread- the body glows orange when it's wet.

[alanb_ct]

Torrey - I am with you there. My most successful dry flies have long used spectrumized dubbing with a bright thread underlay. For example, if the spectrumized dubbing contains yellow/red/blue/whote fibers, an underlayment of thread in one of these colors makes a glowing underbody the fish like. My favorite thread is 8/0 yellow for this application (great Isonychia!).