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UV Flies


Tom L

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Guest rich mc

drew has a website with a lot of articles that are in his book saltyflytying.com I enjoyed his book for several reasons and recommend it to anyone. some of you seen it at the early show as it was passed around . rich mc

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Thanks Tim for mentioning about Drew Chicone. But funny, the article that I read he said the opposite of the first sentence in your quoted.

 

Extracted from "Shining a Light on UV Materials" by Drew Chicone

"So what are you seeing when materials light up in the dark when you shine a UV light on them? These are UV reactive materials. UV reactive materials shine, radiate, incandesce, or fluoresce when you hit them with a UV light. Typically this means they have been dye with UV reactive dyes. Highly UV reactive materials can be checked with a UV light. They gather light and fluoresce or luminesce in the dark. Materials that appear fluorescent in daylight absorb UV and reflect or radiate, with a brighter intensity."

 

 

It's not the opposite, because he is drawing a distinction between UV-reflective and UV-reactive materials. In fact, the quote you pulled from the article is pretty much verbatim the last part of the quote I posted from the book. You can check UV-reaction but not UV-reflectivity with a light--in either case, we still can't see the UV part with our human eyes.

 

He goes on in the book to theorize (underwhelmingly) that these materials may imitate blood (which is UV reflective, not reactive), appearing gray or black and that maybe these materials enhance silhouetting. I know, it's weak.

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Tom,

In A River Runs Through It, Paul's goal was to think like a fish. Could you be the first to see like a fish? :)

Sorry, I'll never able to see like a fish, but Paul would reply "I'm pretty good with a rod, but I need three more years before I can see like a fish." :)

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It's not the opposite, because he is drawing a distinction between UV-reflective and UV-reactive materials. In fact, the quote you pulled from the article is pretty much verbatim the last part of the quote I posted from the book. You can check UV-reaction but not UV-reflectivity with a light--in either case, we still can't see the UV part with our human eyes.

 

He goes on in the book to theorize (underwhelmingly) that these materials may imitate blood (which is UV reflective, not reactive), appearing gray or black and that maybe these materials enhance silhouetting. I know, it's weak.

Thanks Tim for clarifying that. All these Reactive Reflective UV mumbo jumbo got my head swollen, all I want is to catch a fish. When is this d__ ice going to melt? :)

 

It has been a good discussion folks. I hope no one has taken it personally and I've not offended anyone. If I did, I sincerely apologize.

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Maybe I should ask this in the Open Forum, but are spin fishermen being bombarded with UV reactive soft plastics, plugs, and spinner baits, or is it just us, the gullible fly fishing community that they seek out since we're the ones who believe in a magic tube of graphite that they can sell for $800 and yet can only get $80-100 from the pockets of spin fishermen for a similar product?

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Tom,

In A River Runs Through It, Paul's goal was to think like a fish. Could you be the first to see like a fish? :)

It was snowy and gloomy this afternoon. A bunch of kids were walking home from school. One stood out from the rest. He was carrying a chartreuse bookpack. I thought about Mike's quote................................. NAAAAAAAH! I cracked a :) .

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These lures have been in my procession for many years now. When I bought them, they were not advertised as UV lures. As you can see, the lures manufactures have long been using UV Reactive paint and dye in their products. What really surprised me in these pictures is that the long brownish softplastic worm also has UV Reactive dye in it. I guess one of the reason the lure fishermen catch a lot more fish then the fly fishermen is this secret. No wonder they didn't want to chimmed in this discussion.

 

Flyers, keep this little experiment in mind when you tie or design your flies.

post-1339-0-77813000-1389996290_thumb.jpg

post-1339-0-32068300-1389996291_thumb.jpg

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It occurred to me that our Fishing industry has not even begun to explore the other end of the light spectrum, IR. Though we cannot see it, that too comes in two basic forms-reflected and radiated. The military takes advantage of the radiated form using special optics to detect and target warm bodies. So I think a "hot" material might be used to make some IR lures and flies. Whether fish like or not, we would buy it.

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Yes. Something below the surface can emit IR and/or heat. Maybe we should talk about the heat signature of a bait rather than whether it reflects say sunlight.

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Infrared light wave lengths don't have enough energy to travel thru water. All light must come from the sun unless your fly is going to create its own and then you would have to drop it on top of the fish, but even then, I'm doubtful that the fish eye could see it anyway if it only emitted IR. Again, I'm not even sure UV can travel thru most stream/lake water to make a difference but at least it has a chance. Hence why oceans are blue and not red

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