On Aug 29, 8:59 pm, wrote:
Thanks guys,
A couple of years ago I performed some wet dubbing tests and
photographed the wet twists of dubbing against the original color
(dry). In fact, Hare Tron demonstrated the best color retention, and
many of the ultra fine synthetics performed the worst. Some of my
more course synthetics, like Ligas Ultra Fine and Fly Rite come pretty
close to their package color.

Looks like I have a fun winter project sorting and testing twenty five
years of dubbing purchases (LOL), and dispensing of those that don't
meet my pattern requirements.

I do use natural materials for fly bodies, but like the ability to get
tight durable bodies with synthetics. That's right Tom, you reminded
me of the 8 or so biot colors I purchased a couple of years to
experiment with. Maybe we'll finally get to meet on Penns in
September/October.

Thanks again,
Jeff

Adding some factors he with fibers, both synthetic and natural,
there are other visual differences that occur under different wetting
environments (water, of course, but also oily paraffinic goops and
silicones). The first factor I address is the index of refraction of
the fiber - the closer it is to the medium such as water, the more
transparent/translucent (not the same thing) it will get.

Then the various synthetics have different surface treatments, which
can keep wetting and therefore the index/refraction thang from
operating as fast.

Surface morphology is a big factor. Gary LaFontaine, in his pursuit
of the emergent gaseous bubble sheaf of the caddis pupae, tried many
things in his too-short career, and most famously settled on Antron
for its trilobal structure which promoted tiny microbubbles.

But under a sufficiently strong microscope, hairs are actually covered
with different scales. The iridescent 'blue' of some butterflies is
actually a diffractive effect, and there is no blue coloration
inherent in their wings. Those wonder microfiber cloths which clean
grime off glasses have microstructures and surface treatment that grab
the crud, rather than just pushing the slime around.

In my early tying days, I was trying to dream up a dub version of the
(PA) locally infamous Honey Bug, which is made of specially treated
cotton chenille rather than the usual rayon or whatever. The original
stuff really wetted out and made the grub look really slimy and
translucent and presumably more delectable to the trouts. At one end
of the spectrum (so to speak) was rabbit fur; the opposite was seal
and 1st generation coarse synthetic Jack's dubbing, which might have
been polyolefinic and rather water repellent. Other furs (beaver,
cat, otter, fitch, opposum, coyote, deer hair fuzz, muskrat, marten,
etc.) and synthetics fell in between.

Incidentally, you can get some very interesting effect by not only
using different color threads but by also interdispersing contrasting
color coarse fibers into the dubbing mix. For instance very coarse
fluorescent red Antron with underfur from rabbit (not hare's) and
opposum looks neat when wet. Too bad I don't really nymph much
anymore.

tl
les