UV Smelt Flies

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    Posted: 24 Mar 2020 at 10:23pm
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Here are some of the UV Smelts I have tied But owing to Orvid19 can not test fish 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Rainbow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jul 2020 at 5:56pm
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I have been trying out the new UV Paint marketed by Kilwell.    With head of fly before and after painted.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote reel crayze Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2021 at 4:22pm
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The consensus is ???
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Rainbow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2021 at 5:42pm
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It definitely works under certain conditions as I have pointed out in my article below.     The reassuring  thing is that adding UV enhancement does no harm so why not use it. 

Cheers Rainbow

 

UV or Not UV?

Herb Spannagl

 

The science behind fishing can be very basic or confusingly complex but always with the single minded focus to catch more fish.  Of all the things fish are attracted to, food and its scent is the easiest to understand.  After that it becomes more and more complicated, often misunderstood and sometimes even controversial such as the role of ultra violet light in fishing.  Without going through the full radiation spectrum the sun beams onto our planet, UV light is invisible to us and most fish, including trout.

    Sorry Guys      Could not copy Light Spectrum from the article

 

 

 

So why is UV enhancement persistently showing up in flies, lures and fishing related discussions?  Is it just another sales pitch or is there really something special that gives our offering an added attraction?  Because we can not see or touch it UV has taken on a near mythical confidence boosting status among believers.  As we all know in fishing confidence is a vital ingredient.  Apart from a few who claim to be happy to just being thereor enjoy taking their flies for a swim most fisherman want to catch fish and are easily captured by any promise of more success.  I am no different from the rest and go to great length to up my catch rate.    

 

While UV has been swirling around my fishing interests for quite a number of years I have not really taken it very seriously until one of my recent trout jigging trips to Lake Rotoiti.  I started off in my kayak but in late afternoon a mate invited me to fish from his flash boat.  What luxury and comfort, padded dry seats, MinnKota electric motor with spot lock and a fishfinder the size of a small TV.  We did the whole lake in an hour without finding fish and with the sun now low on the horizon returned to Waipuru Bay where we had started.  A slow search found a concentration of fish in 30-35m.  One boat was already there and pulling up a fish as we settled in close by.   We both were rigged with standard Grey Ghost smelt flies, which have become the go tojigging flies for the Rotorua Lakes.  Yet although we held right over the fish and moved our triple set of flies at the right depth we never had a touch.  By contrast the guy on our side of the other boat hooked one fish after another, many of them with the rod in the rod holder while his mate on the opposite side of his boat remained fish-less.  Jigging is largely vertical and boats can fish close together.  Such gatherings can become quite social with discussion and advice flowing freely between boats.  By the time we had to leave without anything to show for our combined effort, our successful neighbour had hauled up 12 trout, all on Pat Swift UV Grey Ghosts.   

 

Now we have all heard of such inexplicable feats and mostly relegate them to good or bad luck, depending on which side of the boat one happens to fish.   Without doubt luck is often a contributing factor but so are other more earthly explanations if one cares to dig deeper.  

That night in my sleeping bag I mulled over the events of the afternoon trying to find an answer by reviewing the circumstances that made these UV flies so attractive to the trout?   Was it the overcast sky or the fading light of the late afternoon?   Was it the depth the fish were holding in a lake that is not renown for its clarity.  Apart from the danger of melanoma caused by UV exposure I consider myself a UV novices but remembered reading that UV rays penetrate deeper in a water column than any other visible colour and that it is more enhanced early and late and on overcast days.  Things were becoming clearer as these were precisely the conditions what we had encountered.  So far so good but I needed to dig deeper.   On my return to New Plymouth I called in at Rotorua H&F shop and bought a couple of Pat Swift UV Grey Ghosts for closer inspection back home.   They were neatly tied but outwardly little different from mine.  More research into UV light revealed that it does only become visible to us and trout if it is reflected from certain fluorescent materials by absorbing light of short wavelength and emitting light of longer wavelength.  This is why fluorescent colours glow in or out of the water.  However with water depth long wave length colours progressively disappear with UV light penetrating deepest.  The important issue for us anglers is that UV light can still fluorescence off UV reflective materials or paint (and is visible to fish) when other colours have vanished .  It is deep down that they seem to have an edge.  I had to stop digging as did not want to confuse myself with more science and swapped the computer for the fly tying bench.   

 

Luckily I already had a strand of UV Crystal Flash and got some finer UV reflecting Mylar before we got grounded by Covid 19.  Level four gave me lots of time to tie flies filling my Rotoiti fly box with close to a hundred UV Grey Ghosts and similar smelt patterns all waiting to be tested on the lakes sizeable trout.  During the Lockdown I talked to Pat about the benefit of UV and he confirmed that he fishes with UV enhanced flies most of the time.  He also told me that his flies have a UV coating.  Not UV hardening resin but UV reflecting paint.   That reminded me that years ago I had bought a small spray bottle of UV Blast, which according to instruction I had sprayed on a bright chrome metal jig.   When the paint dried it became quite dull and was never used.  At that time I did not own a UV torch so could not test how the paint reacted.  It took me a while to find the bottle among my fly tying junk and with a small brush I dribbled a drop or two of the clear liquid on the heads of some of my Grey Ghosts.  I must have got some on my fingers because when I shone my UV torch onto the flies the flies glowed wherever the paint had touched and so did my dull jig.  What an unexpected revelation!

 

Finally Covid Level One arrived just before the boat fishing ended on this lake.  I booked my accommodation and shot off for a three day fly testing trip to Rotoiti.  On advice from Pat I found a small concentration of trout in 25m at Ruato Bay.  My test rig of three identical Grey Ghosts had only the middle one with UV Blast painted on the head.  On Saturday I landed 8 trout with 5 on the middle fly.  On Sunday I found a new patch a bit further out and landed 11 trout with six on the middle fly.  When I got back there on Monday morning the fish had moved and all my searching was in vain.  Despite the favourable numbers I am reluctant to say that my two day experiment proved conclusively that the UV pained fly was more attractive to the fish than my identical unpainted ones.   I am more comfortable that the inclusion of the UV reflecting paint had no down sides, so in my view can be safely added as an enhancement to make flies more attractive under the right condition.   

 

Just when I thought I had finally unravelled the mysteries of UV for my own fishing, guys like Pat Swift has already done the hard yards and has incorporated the potential of UV fluorescence in his flies to catch more fish.  Kilwell of Rotorua has also been on the ball and is now marketing a UV reflecting paint in nail varnish sized bottles.   It has taken a while but adding UV fluorescence to our fishing tool box is another step in the evolution of fishing flies and lures.  What will be next?     

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote reel crayze Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2021 at 8:23pm
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Redfinger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Feb 2021 at 8:47am
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Yep did well on the uv smelt patterns last week.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Fishb8 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Mar 2021 at 9:54pm
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I'm wondering if a dab of UV paint on a nymph might work.
Worth a try?
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Redfinger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Mar 2021 at 10:49am
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why not?
 Interesting the effect of uv light on a nymph in only very shallow clearer water whereas we are talking smelt flies in 20-35m of dark water.
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