Material colours

[Malcolm]

This post is prompted by the fact that I bought a huge bag of mixed marabou from a second hand shop. A lot of the plumes are royal blue and some are purple. Neither of these colours are much used by fly fishers. I can think of a few patterns but they are almost as rare as hen's teeth. Is there any good reason for this? Perhaps fish  don't fish see blue?

Malcolm

[haresear]

There are plenty of sea trout and salmon patterns that have blue and a few trout patterns too.

I di agree that blue isn't the first colour I reach for when tying a new fly, just because there are few insects of that colour. I can only really think of damselflies and bluebottles.

I don't doubt that fish see blue on the other hand. Many fish have blue slashes of colour. Perch for one and what about blue acaras and gouramis, not to mention mackerel, tuna...

Having said all that. I wont be tying any blue parachutes or nymphs up

Alex

[Malcolm]

It was the royal blue that caught my eye. Apart from a blue bottle imitation and a huge goldhead streamer from Theo Baakelar, I can't think of a single fly that uses it. same with purple although the snipe and purple is perhaps my most successful wet fly.

Malcolm

[haresear]

You could use it to dress variations of the Donegal Blue or Camasunary Killer

When I used to fish shrimp for salmon, I had a few fish on purple shrimps as well as the more usual red ones. What about tying a "Super Ally's" Shrimp? :lol:

Purple is a favourite colour for Pacific salmon and sa Col says, steelhead.

Maybe you should book a flight to the Pacific North west Malcolm, so you can use up the purple marabou.


Alex

[rabbitangler]

A mate of mine used to tie a purple shrimp in the style of curry's red and it was a real killer for salmon. Come to think of it he got through to the champion of champions on the lake of menteith using a trout sized version of it.

[Malcolm]

After posting this I thought well why not. So this is what the seatrout and salmon will be seeing in half an hours time:

[sandyborthwick]

What about a Bruiser variant - plenty of Royal blue there - biggest brown I've seen caught was a +6LB on a bruiser in the late afternoon. To my mind purple is one of the most underated colours for brownies. I like to tie Clan Chiefs with a lot of purple and I have another dressing that just uses purple marabou and some tinsel mixed into a cats whisker. For some unknown reason this fly when tied at size 10/12 is an absolute killer for the brownies and often works when nothing else is looked at. I've had fish of less than half a pound jump at it and punch well above their weight when confronted with it.

Sandy B.O.   

[Crawhin]

So don't keep us in suspenders Malcolm - how did you get on?

Ian

[Malcolm]

Just back from my second trial. Sadly nothing, to be fair the river was very low yesterday and was rising very quickly tonight. I'll try again on Thursday as a big spate is likely tomorrow.

Sandy,

I forgot about the bruiser. I've used it for seatrout in the distant past, I'll give it another go.

Malcolm

[Malcolm]

After posting this I thought I'd give Royal blue an extended trial.

You possibly wouldn't know it from my posts as I only post on trout fishing but in fact I spend much more time after salmon and sea trout than brownies. This is not by choice as I much prefer brownies to anything else. Its down to location. I live about a mile from a good spate river which is a very poor brownie river. I fish for salmon and sea trout most evenings from July onwards. Before the original  post I had had 3 salmon and 20 or so sea trout in the 6 weeks from start of July to mid August fishing my usual Czech nymphs, wee shrimps, spiders and dry flies in the predominantly low water.

Since then I have used nothing but blue and purple. generally the fishing has been poor although there has been good water and there are fair numbers of fish. The results have been seriously disappointing to say the least: a handful of sea trout, albeit with a nice 5 pounder amongst them and no salmon. Some of this will be down to style, the higher water means that down and across is generally more successful than my Red Indian style but it's not a style of fishing I'm very good at. Even so it's been rubbish! I'll persevere until the end of the season and post the result. Not looking good for Royal blue!