[Hammer]

last holiday season,while practicing on the snowpack;i noticed the XLT glowed like mad on the snow,like it was charged with electricity!,so the reason for the post;;anyone have any info on WHY the line seems so,,,, flourescent?,any studies anyone knows of either pro-con as to line colors spooking fish? ,i prefer a mint,,i feel it looks like what a fish would see looking up;the film

 

[Dr. Swing]

Maybe it was just on fire from the tremendous line speed you generate Hammer??:hehe:

 

[Hammer]

not when my metabolism was so slow,like these wintersteelhead,but the river Rogue's dropping ,finally to where wadefishing will be better,and i'll be able to back away from the extreme methods i've been using and enjoy a full line again,the Rogue's been highrollin' for almost two months,so let's corner em',and get down!,spring chinook next month!,then summer steelhead will begin to show in may,,,,,,,,?,damn,!,gotta' GO!,already way behind%$#@!:razz:

 

[voodoofly]

i know color

it's what i do.

Hammer, was the day sunny?

things glow because the dyes take energy from the UV and attenuate it into the visible spectrum. If you had a sunny day in the snow, you had enegy directly from the sun, indirectly in the form of reflections from the snow, and a white background.

I prefer the tan colored lines like Rio's MS.

I heard of a study in the 70's or early 80's when Stren was testing the yellow mono line. There's a reason they were nicknamed "no-fish" yellow.

Gary

 

[Nooksack Mac]

Less is more

I'm glow-phobic when it comes to color or flash on fishing tackle. I've been known to remove chrome-plated line guides from reels, for instance.
I've treated a number of fly lines, including my XLT, with a hot bath in a pot of Kelly Green Rit dye. It turns chartreuse lines to green, beige lines to olive, and the XLT to green with a hint of orangy underglow. (Don't overdo the dyeing time, or you'll end up with a greenish-black. About one minute for a fresh batch, and you can keep it in a bottle for reuse.)

 

[Hammer]

voodoo fly

what kind of color do you do?,i've painted cars all my life,first models then real ones,so i CAN with glasses now STILL see `alot',but,NO,the line Flat GLOWED,i was mad as a storage carport went strait down from the weight of the snow,so whipped out some two-handers,blew off some steam,the conditions between christmas and new years were,,well nasty,,,wish i'd taken pics of all of it,and i do have some of the branches that fell,,anyway,,,Mac,,,PM me with the details of wether you used hot water,vinigar,or whatever the diabolic recipe is for dyeing the line,heck the colors fine,for the majority of it,just the first 15-20 ft,,

 

[fredaevans]

Very interesting thread as I'd been thinking about

a similar question over the last couple of months.

"Why did the manufacturer choose to make this, or that line that colour?" Or (where the question started) was on a very over cast day, the white Airflo Delta's are darned near impossible to see on the water at any distance. The xlt you can see under almost any line conditions.

Anyway, any 'collective' thoughts on the above?

 

[spey_bubba]

For what little it's probably worth, Steve and I don't seem to have any trouble catching fish with the XLT... and Steve traditionally 2-3 times as many fish as anyone else.

 

[flyfisha1]

I'd wager that the glowing appearance has a lot to do with the reflectivity of snow (very, very high, which is one reason that polar regions stay so cold: sunlight is reflected and almost none of the heat is absorbed into the ground); this is a property known in Oceanography as the "albedo", which for fresh snow is around 75-95% (the highest albedo of any natural material). As light is reflected into the line, wavelengths are trapped in the outermost layers of the line, creating the appearance of a glow. I know that I've seen this sort of thing elsewhere, but I can't think of exactly where it was...

 

[Hammer]

gee

didn't realize this was,is getting really INTO IT ,but sometimes one stumbles into something good,,i know that what the human eye percieves is somthing that i 've wondered about,of course you see where i'm going~what fish see~,,this is why i've used opposing colors on some flies,there are 4 primary colors that's the way color matching on vehicles is tought,the three C's,color, cast,chroma,of course a double shot and a draught backer has helped things along on those cars that were `off standard'hehehehehehe:tsk_tsk: :chuckle: :hehe: :smokin:

 

[flytyer]

I don't care if a line is florescent or not. What I do care about is having a line light enough (not ivory or white though because they are too hard to see on the water) to see on the water. I used to fish spring creeks quite a lot for trout in PA and MT and I never had fish get put down by the florescent or light yellow, oragne, mint lines. Remember, a fish sees all sorts of stuff floating downstream throughout each day and we use a leader of at least 9 ft (most folks I know using 2-handers are using 12 to 17 ft leaders) with floating lines and tips.

With sink tips, the tips is already a darker color (although I often felt that an ivory or light grey would be better) and eventhough they are very visible underwater and are usually fished with very short leaders, we still catch fish. I honestly don't think the line color is very important to the fish, it makes good coffee table conversation though.

 

[pescaphile]

Chris,
It's interesting to see another discipline using albedo. We hydrologists use it to estimate the snowmelt component of streamflow. New snow does indeed have the highest albedo, while water on the other hand has one of the lower albedos at 0.05-0.15. Your explanation seems on the right track... a line laying on the snow would receive a double dose of short-wave radiation -the incident radiation from the atmoshere combined with the reflected radiation off of the snow.

I don't think bright lines matter for steelheading at all.. for catching fish that is. But these orange and chartreuse colored lines are indeed garish!

Whatever happened to white or tan floating lines? Spooling up a fluorescent line on an old Hardy just seems like a mismatch no matter how well the line does performs. Flyfishing is indeed a sport where aesthetics do matter!!

I've thought of dying some of my lines with RIT to make them more appealing to my tastes and Mac's post below has me thinking that again.

Mac,
Have you noticed any effects on the line's performance resulting from dying them? Do they get dirty easier? shoot less effectively? does the dye lose it's set? does it stain your fingers or backing? Have you tried any other colors of dye?

pescaphile

 

[Nooksack Mac]

pescaphile,

I haven't found that a Rit dye treatment affects the line's shooting or other performance. I don't believe that they get dirty any easier. I haven't noticed fading over time, but long exposure to sunlight seems to fade almost anything in the long run. It doesn't stain my fingers or backing.
There's considerable room for creative innovation here. I treated one line by coiling the line into approx. a 14" coil, dipping half the coil (180 degrees) into Kelly Green, then dipping the other half into a pot of Pearl Gray Rit. Have you noticed that, seen from underwater, the light through a riffled surface is mottled and constantly shifting? I also mixed some of the green and grey together and used it on a chartreuse line, producing a muted greyish olive that would be a minimum threat in any fishing situation.
As to the effect on fish of line color, clearly there are two different camps here. Some think that gaudy colors are no threat to the fish. Others, like me, are of the New Zealand guides school (they invented dying lines to muted colors, and reportedly often insist on same from their clients).
But almost as important is the question of what we, the anglers, can see easiest. My experience is this: in daylight, lines of any color can be easily seen, except when squinting into bright reflected glare in the direction of the sun. What the eye most readily detects is the line as a seam, as it creates a mini-brakewater that is easily seen on all but dead-still water. Lines become most difficult to see in deep twilight. For several years I used an Orvis floating line for my evening excursions to local trout lakes; it was white with two or fhree feet of the tip colored orange (that was how Orvis made that particular model). I found that as light dimmed, I could no longer see the orange tip (30-40 feet away), but I could see the white as long as any light remained.

 

[voodoofly]

color, it's what I do

Hammer,

I work for the one of the worlds leading portable color measuring equipment manufacture. You may have used our portable goniometers (multi-angle instruments) and software to match automotive paint.

Visible spectrum is 400-700 nm. Flourescing materials take energy from the UV, namely 350nm to 390nm, and attenutates the wavelengths into the visible spectrum, namely 440nm to 500nm. This in effect causes a reflectance to go beyond 100% making it glow. Remember the groovy blacklight posters. Same physical phenomena. Now add about double the UV energy due to the reflecting snow and place in a white background, glow-o-rama.

Gary

 

[Hammer]

electrophotospecterometer

that's what they call it in the bondo shops,of course the clowns at the paint jobber don't follow the `tips for success',so,i'd prefer to fish,,,ultimateley;white reflects ALL colors,absorbing none,and black absorbs ALL colors reflecting none,,,?,is this the answer to the question,the durned snow wuz shootin light rays into ma' line,sorry,,,been out in the blazin' so or. sun,whipping the XLT into a frenzy in the pasture with an 18 ft rod;starting to get a `handle' on it now,,as for my reasons;the mother Rogue runs VERY clear most of the year,sometimes a quick pluck is all you get,then of course;Damn!,,in the middle river that i inhabit the summer steelies are on their way to visit Fred Evans,JD,and the rest,but,they're not always in a pack,this is why i like combo trips;salmon/steelhead,,anyway seems like small flies,light tippets produce the best,i always figure,once the fish mouths the `bug',he's looking strait down the line,,,,so