Water Colors
Many anglers don’t realize that water absorbs light wavelengths differentially. That is to say, red light is absorbed differently that blue or green or yellow or orange. On top of that, different waters will absorb light differently. Here’s a chart from my book, “Presentation,” showing this differential absorption of different waters. What this means is that red flies are basically gray to black below about 6 feet. Other colors drop out at different depths in clean water, water with algae, and bog water. However, what the chart doesn’t show, and can’t really, is the fact that fluorescent colors are good at all depths. A substance fluoresces when it absorbs light at one wavelength and emits it at another. So fluorescent red will absorb any other color and emit it as red. For flies to be fished deep, fluorescent colors will hold their colors, other turn black—do you suppose this might be the secret of the black leech? It is black no matter at what depth it’s fished, and black is a strong silhouette color.
Background space light is the color of the water as it appears from underwater looking horizontally. In clear waters, it is blue; in algae filled waters, its yellow green; in a bog, it reddish brown.
