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Glow Mids

2K views 31 replies 10 participants last post by  GAT 
#1 ·
Avid chronomid fishermen, would glowing flies be effective? How about salt water guy's, how would these work off the beach?

 
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#2 ·
I helped with an article in regards to luminescent flies when tying materials that glowed first hit the market. We tried using different "glowing" patterns for steelhead, bass, trout... moths. The luminescent patterns didn't attract anything other than the moths.

I don't think that much a freshwater fish eats actually glows like neon. As a result of our studies, I no longer have any glowing patterns. I'm not even so sure the recently introduced UV tying materials are the ticket but I plan to give them a try.
 
#3 ·
I agree on the glow part. I look at the angle, that in dark water, a body needs all the help they can get. UV may present something to eat to the fish that otherwise he would not see. Of course you have the vibrations of the line in moving water or with a moving fly, and the scent of your hands on the line to help. But sometimes that movement in the fish's eye is all that it takes to make him curious. And hungry. But since fish can not talk to us, I guess we will never know for certain.

Glow in the dark is probably a bit over the top.
 
#4 ·
I've tried glow in the dark chironomids. Haven't worked yet. I thought it would stand out more in deep water.
 
#7 ·
I'm working on a Power Bait pattern when I'm not typing...:)

Glow in the dark was a fad and it really didn't work... sounded like a good idea but it didn't prove out. However, when we were fishing at night for LMB, it was cool to watch someone casting the glowing patterns. The patterns didn't catch any fish but they looked spacey in the air.
 
#9 ·
I have tied and tried glow in the dark, and fluorescent chironomids, with no improvement, indeed, nothing to recommend them over normal flies.
I was sure they would be hot, but fishing results did not meet hope and expectations.
Hard to believe, they ought to attract attention, one would think.

pearl white beads, peacock herl thorax, and various abdomens (black-silver wire, black-redwire, certain glass beads, thread, crystal flash) have always worked best for me

Nevertheless, I'll probably stubbornly keep trying new materials.

j
 
#11 ·
Fish look for reasons to eat something versus looking for reasons not to eat something, thus the reason we are able to get away with them never seeming to notice that sharp hook on patterns we tie. I've attempted to use glow in the dark beads for my mids, with little change in production for deep water application.

With that though I really feel there is a place for flashy materials in mid and other pattern design. In fact Don Freschi has a great pattern called the Gunslinger that uses florescent paints as "wing buds" and I've certainly found success with that pattern. Here is a link to that patter: http://www.sfotf.ca/fly-tying/dons-gunslinger-chironomid
 
#14 ·
The little bit of paint on the buzzer emerger is called a "hot spot". If you add a tiny bit of something to a pattern, sometimes that little addition creates a hot spot that induces a strike. At one time, a small bit of red added to a pattern made a big difference: as in, the Royal Coachman. The Royal Coachman is nothing more than a Coachman pattern tied with a red section in the middle of the body. It became a "Royal" Coachman when Mary Orvis added a red ribbon to the middle of the peacock body.

I remember when the blister pack patterns tied in Japan always included a red tail. Evidently, they felt red with a fly was the hot ticket.

The bit of red for a pattern was considered the way to go... maybe it still is. At least for dry flies. Red ain't red when it sinks very far.

So a little bit of glow may be the way to go... it seems that it works for Ira. A lot of glow for a fly... not so much.

The spin guys do better with the glowing patterns for steelhead and salmon and I'm not exactly sure why. It's possible the lure just happens to float into the mouth of the fish.
Beats me. I just know that we didn't do worth a crap when we tried using fly patterns with a lot of glow.

Maybe, a little dab will do ya.
 
#17 ·
I think that at moderate depths a red color may appear dark against a diffuse light background from a distance, but as the fish gets close enough the red color may appear to it. This could be favorable.

If you are so deep there is no red light penetrating at all, this would not happen.

j
 
#18 ·
Lets break it down.

Target detection has to happen first. visibility including fluorescence or glow ought to help here.

Taking the lure. This may depend on motivation. When trying to elicit a territorial or aggressive strike with a conventional lure, what comes into play may be different than a trout deciding whether to feed on what it detected or not.

So one might imagine that once detected, does the fly look like whatever the trout is currently selecting for, or is willing to take opportunistically, as food.

In this scheme, a small spot to help with target detection, with an otherwise food-imitating fly, could be helpful

With the classic white bead on a chironomid, it probably does both, aids target detection, and imitates gills at the top.

j
 
#19 · (Edited)
One of the most eye opening moments for me as a fly fisherman came years ago while I was talking to Mike Dewey an employee at the time of the Stillwater Fly Shop in I think Auburn or Federal Way (He later owned and operated the MAD Fly Fisher). I couldn't understand what a wooley worm was supposed to represent. At the time I thought every fly needed to represent some sort of real life food source and I couldn't wrap my head around the need for a red tail. Instead of trying to walk me through the process delicately, Mike just told me, "It looks like food." That small comment turned my ideas of fly design and presentation upside down and it made me look at trout like they were toddlers, not some higher beings or aristocrats. They don't have discerning tastes, they just eat something because it looks like food and if it isn't they spit it out. There are not many leeches swimming around in our waters that we fish, but we fish them all the time. Imagine the first time that a fish sees one swimming through the water. It has never seen anything like it before but it sure as heck isn't going to let it get away without at least a nibble. After a time the fish starts to realize that they are food and they begin to take them without hesitation.
 
#20 ·
One of the most eye opening moments for me as a fly fisherman came years ago while I was talking to Mike an employee at the time of the Stillwater Fly Shop in I think Auburn or Federal Way (He later owned and operated the MAD Fly Fisher). I couldn't understand what a wooley worm was supposed to represent. At the time I thought every fly needed to represent some sort of real life food source and I couldn't wrap my head around the need for a red tail. Instead of trying to walk me through the process delicately, Mike just told me, "It looks like food." That small comment turned my ideas of fly design and presentation upside down and it made me look at trout like they were toddlers, not some higher beings or aristocrats. They don't have discerning tastes, they just eat something because it looks like food and if it isn't they spit it out. There are not many leeches swimming around in our waters that we fish, but we fish them all the time. Imagine the first time that a fish sees one swimming through the water. It has never seen anything like it before but it sure as heck isn't going to let it get away without at least a nibble. After a time the fish starts to realize that they are food and they begin to take them without hesitation.
Interesting! I have often looked at tied patterns, on youtube, and in my fly box full of hand tied flies. I often sermize, that does not look anything like what the name implies. Nor does a living bug have the colors of that particular tied version. The shape of a tied fly is only an implied version of the real thing. Who knows if the fish really see's the fly for the food source it copies.

Perhaps the lifelike retrieve and presentation is the real reason for the take.
 
#24 · (Edited)
We were once fishing Mann Lake and he was catching more cuts than the rest of us.

We made him move in the line because we figured it had something to do with his location. He still kept hooking up more often the rest of us. We wondered if he could catch the cutts with just a hook and no materials. So we sacrificed a pattern by cutting off all the tying material so just the hook remained.

It took him a while but he did hook and land a cutt with just a bare hook. Rocky took photos of the fish with the naked hook in its mouth but we later found that Rock forgot to put film in his camera so we have no proof... other than 10 witnesses.

We thought it was a fluke but then he caught another one with his bare hook.

Certainly made a good case for presentation over pattern.
 
#28 ·
The thought being, if it looked like a bug to us, it may look like a bug to the fish.
Bugs have never looked like something I'm interested in eating so I don't know if a fly looks like a yummy insect to a fish or not. So what I consider buggy looking may mean nothing to a fish. My eyes and brain are also dissimilar so I really don't know what the hell a fish finds buggy looking or not. My opinion is useless. I don't eat bugs. :)
 
#30 ·
Pixie Dust. Ya gotta have Pixie dust to sprinkle on the fly. If you can talk the tooth fairy into doing it, all the better. Gives an angler confidence and
besides it is a better idea than body fluids on the fly.

I like flies tied in the round. Like Charlie Brooks said in one of his books,
a fish will probably see a fly for all different angles and a fly in the round
will present a universal look to the fish. But as Gene said above, I don't
see things like a fish and I don't really think like a Fish. Heck, I don't even
know what the fish is thinking about in the first place. I understand the
food, safety and reproduce thingy, but beyond that I don't have a clue.
 
#32 ·
When I first heard of fly fishing I also thought it had something to do with house flies. Then later, terrestrial insects. I knew nothing about aquatic bugs and my first introduction was when I tore apart a periwinkle and found an odd insect inside.

A cased caddis was my introduction to aquatic insects and the realization of what was meant by a "fly" for flyfishing.
 
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