Hi there Chris,

I have always liked to use a little bit of UV material in most of my flies. If I didn't have a UV hitspot somewhere in the fly, then I'd make sure that my tying thread showed up or change colour under a UV light.

Nowadays, I tend to have a UV trigger spot around the bead (Just a couple of turns of UV Floro Red or Pink around the Bead is all I think you need). Even the midges/nymphs or lures I use on the lakes tend to either have a hitspot somewhere on the body.

As for smaller trout, i believe they only see in the UV spectrum when they are very young so anything that has a bit of UV will be a bit more interesting to them. As they grow older there sight changes and they are able to obsorb differently light spectrums. I guess having this traite while being youngings stays with them for there entire life, so if they see a fly with a UV hitspot they would be a bit more reactive to it; compared to one that doesn't have one.

I think a study was done a while back on trout vision and colours..  They did a study where they dyed several glow bug different colours and threw them into a pound of fish.. the observation was that the trout like

(I'm trying to remember back about 18 years ago and may have the colours round the wrong way)
Blue in dull days - and of course I tried blue flies for several years under dull days conditions.. Note that all the old Salmon flies have blue somewhere in them..

Yellow in bright days - that's why gold beads or shiny copper beads work so well on your flies

Yellow and black as the best combination colour

Just on another small note:
Grayling love any fly that has a bit or Orange, Red, Pink and Floro Green :-)))

i'm thinking like a fish :-)))

Hi Chris; Good to hear tou are still looking for stimulation in your fly tying.

Chris; My reading of the data on Juvenile Rainbow Trout being able to detect UV in food sources is that the research has proved to be generaly inconclusive. As to using Uv materials to act as a trigger for a feeding trout. I tend to agree with you that  if your fly is easier to see, then the chances are the trout will home in on it.

I believe! In UV preparations on flies that is. Under certain circumstances UV flies have outfished their traditional mates. Like when i have a UV fly tied on and normal fly still in the box!

I've been using UV reflective materials on both fresh and salt patterns patterns for some time and it certainly has merit.

However you don't always have to go for the "marketed" uv reflective stuff. We found, using a UV torch, that many materials that don't appear to be UV reflective actually are. The curious thing we found was that the most consistant glo bugs (Even some of the "appearing to be pastel" colours are the most UV reflective.

In saltwater patterns I usually incorpoate some fibres of UV reflective stuff into the wings.

While I don't think the UV thing is huge, it i important and the more I experiment with different things involving it the more important it seems to become.