STREAMCRAFT 



pause before reiterating this claim, after spend- 

 ing a few days fishing, for example, some of the 

 most fruitful Catskill streams with no other 

 lures on the cast than the Red Ibis and Parma- 

 chene Belle. This notion of the "anti-colorists" 

 or formalists seems to be based largely upon 

 experiments purporting to show that any fly 

 upon or underneath the surface appears simply 

 as a "silhouette with iridescent edges" to the 

 protected vision of a person looking at it through 

 a water medium. But in view of the fact, 

 frequently experienced, that trout will per- 

 sistently and consistently for a time take but 

 one pattern of a single cast, including two or 

 three flies of similar configuration but of dis- 

 tinctly different colorations, it would seem a 

 fair deduction that fish may be able to see 

 small objects through the water more keenly 

 than is possible for human vision. 



A friend of the writer's, an enthusiastic bass 

 fisherman, found during a trip to the Rideau 

 lake region of Canada, that a red "plug" or 

 other lure in which red was predominant was 

 the only thing with which he could do business, 

 and with that he was successful at any time or 

 spot. Another friend once had the experience 

 while trouting on the Beaverkill, of fish refus- 

 ing the Coachman fly but taking the Royal 

 Coachman readily,- the latter pattern differing 

 from the former only by the addition of a little 



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