Daniel and I went out today to do some product testing. We have been so busy with salmon that we have not got out to play with steelhead for months! What a great opportunity to fish some UV yarn balls for summers. We ended up hooking 6 fish today and only one made it to the bank. We have got a lot of good feedback from those who have been fishing this new yarn but it felt good to get out and fish it ourselves. Up until today we never fished yarn balls under a float, well I can report that it works great! I know the steelhead below is small and skinny but a fish is a fish. We used UV yarn balls only today and did not use a drop of scent. We wanted to see how it would work in very low clear water and it did not disappoint.

The most surprising fish of the day was the 20 lb springer that decided it wanted my cerise and white yarn ball under a float. I fought it for 10 minutes probably before it came off but it was cool to hook one especially this time of year. Here is me trying to land a chinook on my 4-8 lb steelhead rod.



Here is the one fish we got to the bank. Daniel gets an assist on it becuase he could see the fish move over a foot to pick up the yarn ball. I did not even feel it but he was like, it ate it, so I pulled up.



It wanted a hot pink, cream sickle yarn ball.




Nice to add another trick to the arsenal of float fishing! Good luck out there.

very nice, good report.

When your using yarn balls under a float are you just replacing the jig with the yarn ball? Then float the lead off the bottom as if it was the jig?

We do replace the jig with yarn ball, but we just use a couple small split shots on our leader to keep it down.

oh okay thanks

not sure I understand what the uv is doing for you. wouldn't any yarn that color catch fish in those conditions.

Kris

The UV helps the fish see the yarn better. I'm sure you could catch fish in those conditions with regular yarn balls. I just don't know if you would catch as many.

Yes, regular yarn balls catch plenty of fish in low, clear conditions but we have had reports come in to the tackle shop as well as emails to us that guys were fishing regular yarn balls and hooking one or two fish and the guy next to them fishing the exact same yarn balls just using UV yarn was hooking around 10 steelhead. One guy even asked to use some of the UV Yarn balls and hooked up ten minutes later after going fish less the first half of the day. Maybe it was just his time but I thought it was interesting. I personally think the UV aspect will be very effective in off color or steelhead green water in the winter but I thought it was interesting the results people were reporting with the UV yarn in clear water. If a steelhead is seeing artificial yarn come by its face all day long then it sees a yarn ball that has a different look to it and possibly glowing differently to their eyes it might make a difference even in low clear water. Time will tell but we did not see another fish hooked in the three areas we fished so we did alright.

Another thing to think about is how this yarn fishes. It is made from completely different fibers than anything available that give it a bright, vibrant look in the water and the colors actually get brighter once they are wet. If you were to compare a baby pink and cerise yarn ball with our yarn to the same yarn ball made with artificial yarn it would surprise you how much different they looked. The UV is small part of why this yarn fishes so nice.

you should post up some side by side photos or uv and non uv yarnballs

Ill do that when I get a chance. I will try to make two of the same color yarn balls one with UV yarn and the other with glo-bug yarn. A lot of the glo-bug colors are florescent so they will show up under a 365nm black light but mostly shades of orange. It will be cool to see the difference. Fish do not see florescent colors any better than regular colors so that will be something to keep in mind.

Daniel it's cool to see more people looking at UV options. TakeDownz UV Beads are going like never before.

I just mailed out some samples of a new product to Oregon Rod Reel and Tackle on Friday. You should stop by and see them next week. I bet they would let you guys be the testers. They are called Bait Buttons. The inventor designed them specifically to keep a Fish Pill or Bait placement on the shank of the hook. The Bait Button will prevent them from sliding down into the bend of the hook.

If you want I will send you guys some samples too.

Thanks,
Mike

Hey, those are some real nice pics!

BAIT BUTTON info click here.

UV yarn sure works good on regular jigs for Coho!

I've done some testing with UV and I kow it's benafits. I just don't think it was the UV that caught those fish. From the discription you gave it could have been multiple things. I do like the looks of the yarn and can see where it would have a great benafit.

I disagree that fish don't see regular color any different than flouresent colors. I think we can all aggree flourescent green (chartruse) works much better in low light and dark/dirty water. They see it different because the light penatrates the water different. Another example is red and flourescent red (rocket red) I find rocket red corkies to catch way more fish than red. They see it different. I've done some reading on this subject and it's very intresting stuff to learn what fish do see. One book comes to mind I think the name of it is "The Master Angler".

I wouldn't mind playinmg around with some UV yarn. I wounder how it would look if I washed it in some UV killer that I use on my hunting clothes and then fish with it.

Kris

I agree with you on that it could be a number of reasons why we caught those fish. A lot of people see the UV in the yarn and start talking about that part of it, that is the last thing I talk about because I feel there are other positives to it. I would fish this yarn without the UV because its just really nice to fish. Here are a few other things that make it better than other yarns in my opinion.

Being that its made from a blend of natural fibers it actually holds scent unlike artificial yarns. The colors do not bleed and the UV will never wash out or fade. That is a very important and difficult to achieve because the sun is constantly degrading UV products. Try to find a UV reflective paint that can be used outdoors, most will say to use it indoors because the sun will ruin it and it will lose its UV reactive properties! The yarn is also softer than any other yarn available by a large margin. I think all of these things combined makes it so that it actually catches more fish, maybe it is the UV in some conditions that helps maybe not but as a whole it works and works well.

Here is a picture of UV Yarn balls next an artificial Yarn ball. You can see the florescent orangish color of the artificial yarn ball.





Hope this shows the difference between UV light and florescent colors.

Those things look crazy, im going to need to pick up some uv yarn soon!