Tenkara Forum

[Karl Klavon]

The following Blog Post recommends that you first read an earlier post as an introduction to this one, which would be most beneficial to put it all together in the most informed way. Neither post is very long, but the information being presented is of great importance to all anglers and not, I believe, common knowledge among Tenkara anglers. Here is the link to the articles: https://ascentflyfishing.com/blog/trout-need-to-see-it-to-eat-it-how-to-choose-fly-patterns-based-on-water-color-clarity/

To what was said above I would like to point out that selecting a fly that is mostly the same color as the color of the water that's being fished does not necessarily provide the contrast needed to attract the fish's attention to promote a strike in and of itself. What is needed is a contrasting color that is highly visible in the water color that's being fished. For green colored waters, that would be Fluorescent-Orange, with Black providing the most consistent contrast in clear (blue), green and turbid (red/brown) water color conditions, with dark on light variegated hackle and/or tailing materials providing the most important strike trigger of all - motion - for the fish to key in on.

[Karl Klavon]

I am going to put up a link to illustrate what happens when you use green, blue, and or red fly tying materials on your flies fished in those same, respective, colors of waters. Please note the loss of contrast that green shows in green water, the loss blue has when viewed in blue colored water, and the same with red materials used in red/brown colored waters.

The first photo in the series is of a stack of Larry LaRue's Custom Painted Lures as they appear in normal artificial or day light conditions, then the same stack of lures as they would appear in green, blue, and in red colored waters. Its a real eye opener! Here is the link: https://thefishsniper.com/pdfs/fishalaska_may2010.pdf