Day 104 - Feeling Blue

As a heads up, I've been toying with the idea of moving to a different blogging service. While I like the use of blogger.com, I think the use of Word Press may offer me some better opportunities in the future. Currently I'm posting on both sites, but I think by the end of the year I will be using strictly Word Press. If you'd like, you can visit the new site at: http://www.365flyfish.wordpress.com/

Blue seems to be on my mind lately. Not the feeling, but the color. It's probably one of my favorite colors (I have no qualms about breaking fashion faux pas by wearing a blue shirt with blue jeans). The color is everywhere from October skies to college team colors. So it really can't come to anybody's surprise that the color has been making a debut into the fly fishing world. Make that the fly tying world.

I first heard about fishing blue patterns last month when tying up egg patterns. I was told that a popular egg color is blue, and that it entices some pretty good strikes from fish. Yesterday, I'm re-reading the Fly Tyer article about the Superman fly and was surpised to read that blue has been making appearances into the fly fishing world for quite some time.

Now I'm not talking about Blue Winged Olives or Blue Duns. The color blue in those patterns are more muted and gray looking. I'm talking about serious blue. Blue as in Pepsi can blue. Metallic, bold, and definitive. There's no mistaking this color for an off colored gray.

Now this gets my creative juices flowing and tempts my pocketbook to open. I want to experiment and try out variations of patterns. I'd like to see a whole fly box filled with blue. I'd like to see mounds of materials dyed, stained, colored blue. Beads, wires, feathers, dubbing... blue, blue, blue. I'd like to take some scissors and cut a Pepsi can and transform that into a fly.

OK... I'm better now and I have replaced the wild look in eyes (which are blue) with a little more control. Like Picasso, I may be in a blue period. After tying the Wonder Woman with that beautiful Kingfisher Blue feather, I'm looking forward to seeing what else may be in store. The biggest test will be whether or not they catch fish. Afterall if they can't do that, then it really doesn't have value.