JUNE, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
249 
COLOR AND THE ARTIFICIAL FLY 
A TROUT THAT HAS FED TO SATIETY CAN YET BE LURED 
BY EXCITING IN HIM A PLEASURABLE NERVOUS OVERFLOW 
A S this article will deal in great meas¬ 
ure with the application of color to 
the artificial fly, and how, when, and 
where to use it, a few words on color 
will not be out of place. Colors, as natu¬ 
ralists affirm, are refractions of light on 
bodies, demonstrated by the prism, which 
by breaking up a ray of the sun decom¬ 
pounds it into seven primitive colors. 
There being nothing primitive in Nature, 
that I am aware of, I fail to catch the ex¬ 
act meaning. 
Is the above statement regarding colors 
finally correct? It is evident that four of 
these are compounded: for orange is made 
up of yellow and red; green, of yellow and 
blue; violet, of blue and red; and indigo 
is only a tint of blue, sucharged with red. 
This reduces the solar colors to three, so- 
called primordeal: yellow, red and blue. 
If we add white, the color of light, and 
black, the privation of it, we have five 
simple colors, from which may be com¬ 
pounded all imaginable shades. 
In the birth and expansion of light, as 
seen in the aurora, Nature places red in 
the centre of its progression, which is in 
the following order: 
White 
Yellow 
Red 
Blue 
Black. 
Red, situated in the midst of the primor¬ 
deal colors, is the harmonic expression of 
them, by way of excellence; and is the re¬ 
sult of the union of two contraries, light 
and darkness. Red gives life, wherever it 
is infused; as white communicates gaiety, 
and black, sadness. 
In proceeding toward white from the 
central color red in the way I have ar¬ 
ranged the colors (in ascending progres¬ 
sion) the nearer you approach the first 
term, the more lively and gay are the 
colors; you will have in succession, the 
POPPY, orange, lemon, sulphur, and white. 
In descendent progression, the further you 
proceed from red, toward black, the more 
lugubrious are the colors; for this is their 
progression; purple, violet, blue, indigo and 
black. In the harmonies to be formed on 
both sides of the red, by the union of op¬ 
posite colors, the more the tints of the 
ascending progression predominate, the 
more lively will be the harmonies pro¬ 
duced, and the contrary will take place in 
the descending progression. 
In addition to the five colors I have re¬ 
ferred to, one more alone will interest you 
By DR. HARRY GOVE 
—green; because of all compound colors it 
is the most effective, distinct and striking, 
affecting our minds both with surprise and 
delight. 
I N applying color to the artificial fly, we 
will assuredly take the colors in ascend¬ 
ant progression, from red to white, in 
the way I have arranged them. Why? 
Because they produce pleasurable impres¬ 
sions and nervous exhilaration upon our¬ 
selves and, in extension of the argument, 
we are justified in assuming that the same 
effect is produced upon lower organizms. 
In fact, there is no doubt of it. Bear in 
mind that the agreeableness or disagreea¬ 
bleness of color resides not in a single 
shade but in the harmony or clashing con¬ 
trast of two opposite colors. The point of 
union between two opposite colors I term 
the point of nervous irritability. Bear in 
mind as well, that the remarks in this 
letter apply alone to the art of catering to 
a fish that has fed to satiety, and has be¬ 
come so lethargic that he will not respond 
to an artificial fly constructed on the lines 
of exact imitation. The long interval be¬ 
tween his natural hours of feeding and the 
time when the irresistible influence of hun¬ 
ger again assumes its supremacy, and exer¬ 
cises that important part in his so-called 
habit of selection mentioned in my last let¬ 
ter, is the period which demands our care¬ 
ful consideration. In our application of 
color to the artificial fly, we will not do it 
with a hazarded or ill-conceived admixture 
of shades but, taking nature for our guide, 
we will remember that when she opposes 
contraries to each other painful affections 
are excited in us, but when she blends them 
we are agreeably influenced. My idea is 
that the harmony of color exercises such 
a powerful influence on the nerve centers 
of a fish, that by reflex action it produces 
a pleasurable nervous overflow; and that 
its effect is exemplified by a desire to grasp 
the glittering lure. In the above statement, 
all the delicate art of fly tying, all the ex¬ 
quisite nicety the hand can impart to the 
rod by transmitted force, is involved. 
Now follow my remarks closely, if you 
please. I make this statement (and I think 
it has never before been either alluded to 
or mentioned) : that the difference between 
the rise of a hungry fish to a fly con¬ 
structed on the lines of exact imitation, 
and the rise to one dressed along these 
ideas as to the application of color, is as 
divergent as white and black. The first rise, 
that is to the fly constructed to represent in 
detail the natural insect, is steady, unobtru¬ 
sive and means business, and has the im¬ 
pulse of hunger at its back. And it is 
grasped with the full idea that it must be 
retained at all hazard. To hook this fish 
requires a very moderate amount of skill 
on the part of the angler. 
T HERE is a decidedly different im¬ 
pulse at the back of a colored lure. 
It is an impulse, not half so potent 
as that of hunger; it is the charm of color 
acting on the nervous system of a fish to 
the extent of exciting pleasurable nervous 
exaltation. The diagnostic marks of a rise 
to color reside in its tumultuous movement 
and its uncertainty; the fly is merely being 
played with, otherwise mumbled. The idea 
conveyed in what is termed the “short 
rise”—that the fish does not touch the 
fly—is incorrect. As a rule he does touch 
it, but only for one single instant—and 
the fish is lost for want of skill on the 
part of the angler. When he does not 
touch it, the fault lies in the artificial lure 
being so glaringly obtrusive that at the 
very moment he is in the act of seizing it, 
his desire is suddenly arrested; as instan¬ 
taneously as the closure of an eyelid to 
exclude the entrance of noxious material; 
so rapidly that neither thought nor will¬ 
power can possibly play a part in it. In 
casting over the curl made on the water 
by a rising fish, you are apt to get an un¬ 
certain rise having all the characteristics 
of the “short rise.” For these reasons, the 
short time elapsing in the interval between 
his rise to a natural insect and the presen¬ 
tation of your artificial fly, is too brief a 
period to efface from his retina the image 
of the natural fly, which was the object of 
his pursuit. If you have not on your cast 
an artificial fly that will represent the 
natural insect he a moment before took 
with avidity, he will “rise short” and mum¬ 
ble the fly; if the flies are ill constructed 
or obtrusive he may rise to them, but he 
will not touch them. Here I make this 
cautious statement: no cast of flies should 
ever be presented to a fish that will en¬ 
gender in him either fear or distrust. If 
you forget this, you certainly will return 
home with an empty basket. 
In fishing of this character, and all of 
it in which hunger is not the impulse at 
the back of the fly, the strike must be 
made with the extreme of rapidity, at the 
exact instant of the rise. Looking over 
this matter, I find that the ordinary fish- 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 284) 
