hi-vis fly

[808transplant]

Hey guys,
Basically, my eyes can suck, especially on covered streams where half of it is shaded and the other half in the sun. My question: take a Elk wing caddis for instance, if i were to put a bright highlight in the win, would it make a difference fish catching wide?
the way i figure, if i put a small streak of orange or white antron or craft fur in the front middle of the wing, ill see it that much better. what do you guys think?

 

[dryflyguy]

Tying in a brightly colored post of whatever materiel is a nice way to make a fly visible. I have done it on crowe beetles, which are quite hard to see without some kind of indicator.
However, there are times and places where I think the fish can see the indicator also. I've had fish not touch a beetle with an indicator, only to strike the exact same fly that didn't have one tied in.
So I started painting bright orange or pink dots on their backs, and that seems to work a little better for me.
You could probably try that on an elk hair caddis also

 

[osprey]

808transplant............Absolutely , just be careful not to add something to the wing that will make it sink , you'll notice that in the shaded ares of the stream , in the glare , a dark fly shows up on the bright surface of the water , as a little black dot , on the other hand in the sun , a streak of orange or white in the wing is visible from a long distance. I combine a dark bodied fly with a hi-vis wing and try to cover both light situations. One more thing , if you can spot your fly at impact , as soon as it hits , it's easier to keep track of through the drift. Hope this helps a little.

 

[808transplant]

i try to keep track of the end of my line but when im using a long leader and a 18 elk hair i tend to lose it a little(i fish valley a lot). i tied up a few small caddis last night and tried a small highlight of orange craft fur, white antron, and neon green port material. i just put a tiny little streak right in the middle of the wing. ill try to get a picture up here and we'll see how it looks. thanks for the info

 

[afishinado]

I tie a little orange or chart. poly yarn on top of the deer hair or elk hair wing on my caddis dry flies for visibility. I often use these hi-vis ties as an indicator fly for a dropper rig. It has worked well for me.

 

[gfen]

FWIW, Antron takes up water, and an antron post seems to really wick it up.

Poly yarn, on the other hand, does not. It also accepts gink readily, like Fade to a midget.

I tie my posts from poly yarn because of this, and have used indicators made of poly yarn doubled over and heavily ginkzerated.

Would working a few strands of flash material help you out? A few clear krystal flash might give you the extra oomph?

 

[bam]

what afish said. I haven't tried it, but tying a little indicator of poly yarn or zlon over the elk wing should do the trick. Fish won't know the difference...

 

[sandfly]

With poly you should not need gink or any other floatant. its naturally water resistant, if any thing gink adds weight to poly. why not tie a piece of foam in for the wing. real antron will catch air and not sink also.