A Window of Opportunity – Dry Flies

While on hold the other evening, awaiting my phone call to be answered, this crane fly landed in my window of view. Taking the opportunity, I wandered around, viewing the fly from different angles and distances against the light of a setting sun. As you look at the images, light is hitting the fly from behind and right to left.

Crane fly viewed at 2 meters — Crane fly viewed from 2 meters against setting sun.

From a distance of 2 meters the fly looks largely black as you would expect, a strong silhouette against the sky. Looking closely around the thorax, their is perhaps a suggestion of claret (maybe a red wine loving crane fly?) and the wings are obvious. This view was typical from various angles until I moved significantly closer.

Crane Fly viewed from 30cm against setting sun

At 30cm shown in the image above, the natural colours of the crane fly are clearly visible. There is also a hint of orange highlight, caused by the low angle of sunlight hitting the fly and the wings are vastly reduced in appearance.

What does all this tell us other than I’m easily distracted during boring phone calls and have obsessive fly fishing disorder?

For the experienced fly fisher, you won’t be surprised by the colour observations. For the less experienced, this maybe helpful in your dry fly fishing.
Wingless dry flies or flies with a sparse suggestion of wings maybe more productive when targeting fish located close to the surface.
Winged dry flies may trigger deeper lying fish to rise i.e. the reverse of point 2.
Dry flies in colours of the natural, plus some with “highlights” for varying light conditions are a good idea for daytime fishing.
Completely black dry flies may sometimes have an edge when fishing after sunset. I would have taken another photo of this, however the fly flew off!

Remember, these images were taken through air and double glazed glass (note the falling leaf pattern in keeping with the season). The result maybe different through water.

This whole exercise was totally opportunistic and as such, leaves you with more questions than answers. That’s good though, you can get out there and answer them now! More than anything, what I did here demonstrates how taking everyday occurrences, actions and skills from many aspects of life and using them to look at fly fishing in a different way, can and does lead to significant improvements in your fishing.

Thanks for reading, share your thoughts.

SJY