Best Colors for Muddy Water

I have heard for years fly fisherman advocate dark colors for muddy water. The whole "silhouette" argument never made sense to me. Dark colors are for clear water in my book. I've tried dark jigs in muddy water twitching and under a float without success. The colors that have worked for me in off water for salmon and steelhead have been the flourescent colors like chartreuse, fl. red, fl. pink, etc.

To help explain the constrast of philosophies, I've just accepted the hard core fly fisherman have their own world of fishing. However, recently I've heard a couple respectable gear guys advocate dark colors in muddy water. I've never seen it work though. Anyone care to add to the debate?
rich

I can only speak from my personal experience. I hate fishing muddy water, but on the occasions that I have been forced to, I've had some success using large orange/red combinations. Also some success using silver spoons. Dark never made much sense to me, although I've heard of it. Always seemed to me that dark would look like any other piece of debris typically found floating downstream in muddy water.

Good question.

Bait

My go to in muddy water is chartreuse yarn orange corky and big bait.

While I agree that fly fishermen are full of it (I should know; I am one), I am a believer in not simply dark stuff, but BIG, dark stuff in off-color water. By "off-color," I mean water with less than about a foot of visibility. I won't bother fishing anything muddier than that with flies, first because of the lack of visibility, and also due to the general difficulty of presenting flies where fish can see them in the larger volumes of water that usually come with that level of turbidity. In those conditions, see RB3's post above, or simply say to heck with it, stay home, and live to fight another day. I may be full of it, but I know when to quit.

The following colors, have been known to work.

The dark colors have done well for me, when most fishermen are staying home because they think water is to high and off color.

Color is far less important than two things in muddy water...size, and contrast.

Size so they can see the big silhouette, and contrast so they can see the movement better.

Black and white, orange and green, whatever...just make sure there's some heavy contrast in there.

Hint: Black or white make the best contrast with each other, and with most any other color.

Fish on...

Todd

To me water temp and color are closely related. Dark, muddy water stuff like chartruese spin and glows and a gob of eggs. Cold water dictates big stuff also, such as large silver spoons. As a kid I used to fish very cold water for rainbows, never get a bite on red egss, never get a bite on yellow eggs. Always get a bite on the combo, i think the contrast was the deal. Water gets warmer and clear, you better go back to the small stuff. The giant Kwikfish, much as I hate em are hard to beat in the muddy, and the big spinglows with yarn, and big bait at the same time are good.

Enhanced Black works great in muddy/glacial flour. I recommend the Black Widow tadpolly. Raven black with a clear coat of purple and deep blue & green glitter in the finish.

That Orange jig is ridiculously bright

The way we see water, and the way fish see water is drastically different,as we all know. Even on a cloudy day, in dirty water... when the fish look 'up' they see a well lit background. You dont need much ambient light to make the above water look very well lit. And with such a bright(relatively speaking) background, it makes sense black shows up best. In murky water, the sediment breaks up that light, and it becomes a much more 'even' tone.

We got some underwater video on the Situk this fall, and over the season the water started to really color up. We went from just about anything working in clear water, to black, or sometimes purples, and blues. But the name of the game was, DARK for muddy water coho. I think having that, big black profile, is actually all the contrast you need. Its a perfect contrast color, to how fish see water in muddy situations.

Hard to explain without seeing it, but there has got to be a youtube clip of some fly tests in all sorts of water conditions, that touch on color...

Black/White, White Matte Spoons, Bright Orange/Chartreuse, Bright Pink/Chartreuse. My go to is Hot Pink/Chartreuse followed by Black/White because of the contrast...
Big drift bobbers/yarn, Rags, Worms and Spoons to.


Contrast rocks for pretty much all Steelhead conditions.

Nice jigs drifter. I am surprised more people, especially the manufacturers have not caught on to incorporating legs into their ties.

metaladdiction:

Just some I got from:


http://www.bradsjigs.com/FishingTackle/SteelheadJigs/twitching-jigs.htm


His jigs "are a cut above most"......

Moss & Dark roe with some cerise rag. Good luck,

SZ

Nice spoons! Did you airbrush those?

LOL, remember the daredevil?

Contrast...they came in red/white, and black/white.

Fish on...

Todd

Just about as dark and big as they get... 55mm waddington shank

Rubber legs intruder. Well done.

The ascot forefathers are surely rolling over in their graves.

Knarly intruder bantam. I have been hacking up my salmon squids and playing around with the same kinda ideas. Yes Coley they probably are, but they also did not have the tools to turn or huck such a beast. Spey rods w 600 grain skagit heads = bad ass chicken cannons.

Neon, your post on twitchin' jig colors in part motivated me to start this topic. Being guides on the Situk, you all have spent some time "on" fish there and so I'll give the black a go again next fall. I may not have gone big enough in the past when I tried black in muddy water.

Rob at R&B...

Bantam,

Likin' that Intruder! Bright or dark, the rubber legs should make lots of action.

Coley,

The Intruder is a lure, not a fly, so no worries about the ascot forefathers.

Sg

Aha. What is the difference? Or rather, what are the elements of each and where do you draw the line between them?

It was written.

Funny [Bleeeeep!] Kaiser

So Sg does that mean we are only allowed to use gear rods for the intruder or are Spey rods not considered fly worthy by our Ascot forefathers?

You only worry about the definition of fly fishing if you are a "fly fisherman", which is to say you think yourself different from other fishermen in some way even though you aren't.

Also, there are only two types of fishermen, those that fish with a net for money and those that fish with a line for sport. The rest is just fantasies and egos.

AP

Sorry Salmo. Didn't mean to start an ascot skirmish.

I remain interested in the answer, not facetiously either.

Could not agree with you more Jason. Although after watching a guide and two clients who were mediocre casters flogging the water with nymphs, my brother made a statement that was funny as hell. "Everybody wants to be a fly fisherman, but nobody wants to fly fish". That was the joke the rest of the trip. Just started tying and swinging for steelhead last year. Still keep my gear rods handy. Have not been able to get myself to nymph yet though. I figure if I'm gonna do that, I might as well use a gear rod with a float. Heading up to the OP tomorrow with only my spey in hopes of getting my first steelhead on the swing.

Tight Lines

As am I. Although skirmishes on this sight can occasionally make for a great thread.

ASCOT SKIRMISH!!!!!!!!!!

Meet up behind the cafeteria after school!!!!!!!

Dig up "Bantam's Skunktruder" from last winter if you haven't seen that one already. Five star skirmish!

Am I allowed to bring my Halibut meat stick to the skirmish? Or are there ground rules?

Can you do a SnapT with it?

Fish on...

Todd

With my customized 10 ft shooting head and floating tip I can get the snap, but my D loop keeps collapsing on itself. Might just have to go back to the braid and weighted treble hook system I had on there before.

You might wanna try Rio's new 15,000 grain Skagit compact.

Coley,

First off, I don't know, nor do I care enough to ask around. Reformed bait thugs I've known who became purists use flies tied only of natural materials, except for the steel hook. Silk thread, not nylon or kevlar, no tinsel, just natural fur, hair, feathers, in natural, not dyed colors. Not easy these days to tie a fly with no synthetic materials.

I heard Ed Ward (one of the originators) describe the Intruder as an engineered fly pattern, er lure. And Bantam's rendition can only be a more evolved edition.

AP,

5 stars fer sure!

Metaladdiction,

You can use whatever rod you wish. I know guys who claim to have cast Dick Nite spoons on their Spey rods, but none who have cast a RVRFSHR. The boundaries between fly fishing and conventional gear have been irrevocably erased with the invention of space age plastic rods and plastic fly lines. So just for chuckles I long ago defined fly fishing as limited to rods made from Tonkin cane or greenheart, lines of silk, leaders of drawn gut, and reels made in England. And with the popularity of dirty-azzed nymphing, that pretty much makes everyone a knuckle-dragging bait thug. That shouldn't offend anyone would it?

Sg

We always knew you were a roe juice-oozing, bait thug .

Can we get a spill boom over here ?

I'd say it would offend knuckle-dragging bait thugs to have those dirty-azzed nymphers lumped in with them.

Fish on...

Todd

Was just reading some of that thread. Classic stuff. 5 star for sure. Especially Stams stained horsehair rug which would no longer be useful for tying flies.

I decided to grab the buggy whip today just to notice that I forgot my waist pack containing my tips, leader material, spare hooks, etc etc.... Just to attempt a good fantasy of starting the new year with a wild fish on a local PS river with no luck.... Just an awesome day of getting to sweet run just to have a sled with 3 buggy whippers beat us into, hiking about 1/4 mile up from them just to fall on my ass on a ice patch, getting layed out flat on my back. After that sore, bruised and pissed off but continued on up another 1/4 mile until I felt this was good stretch to work. Just getting started to make my first cast and noticed from that fall i broke off a snake guide and its just not my day for buggy whippin....

Today was an epic fail...

The number one reason I have such a hard time buggy whipping nowadays is because all the buggy whipping water is occupied by too many buggy whippers. All my favorite runs on the Skagit are locked down all day by the same dudes it seems like. More buggy whipping sleds than ever makes the hike in spots especially heart breaking.

Ironically, I feel the reason I gear fish isn't to catch more fish but to have more water to myself. It opens up more places I can effectively use my time without being caught up in the river side flogging parade and have some guy mean mug me for low holing them after they stood in the same 10' for 2 hours as if anyone who knows what they are doing EVER would do that.

My 14' 9wt whips a RVRFSHR spoon out there pretty good Salmo.

For the record

Good to know? I'm glad it was you and not me conducting that experiment. When I want to huck RVRFSHRs I'll stick to my tried and proven $30 Daiwa spinning rod or yellow Eagle Claw coho chucker. Good to read some posts touting spoons for muddy water bait; I'd always thought of flashy lures as being best suited to water with decent visibility. I took the "any fly is good, as long as it's black" story hook, line, and sinker.

The fish feel the thump in their face and they annihilate it. If there was a way to get that thump from a fly it would be the most popular fly ever.

I've caught fish in colored water with spin glo's in pink/chart. I have to believe the action of the wings help in low vis.