Streamers in coloured water

[jomeder]

Hi,

What would your choice of colour be for streamers in coloured water? I suppose it depends on the water colour, in this case it was milky turquoise.

I guess black would be a good one. I've seen a recommendation of black and orange in muddy water.

Would you say colour might not be so important as a streamer which makes a bit of a disturbance in coloured water? I guess no colour is going to stand out well once the water gets to a certain murkiness.

Regards,

Jo

[Chris Dore]

Carty loves chartreuse. I love a dark silhouette. There's often a lot of turbulence in high coloured water but a big bunny or something with a lot of movement seems to do the trick. Try making it stand out more by stripping aggressively up / across the current too. In coloured water I find this works better than a dead drift. Fish a sunk tip or similar to keep you there where the fish are hunkering down


My approach anyways.

[Jeroen]

The canals over here have a lot of mud and silt on the bottom and are often a brownish colour. I have thrown all the bright colours I could think of at the local pike, but nearly always ended up being successful with black and purple and (surprisingly) a white redhead streamer..

[Paul Arden]

I'm not worried about the colour, Jo, and will happily fish olive streamers in dirty water. In NZ I still sight fish dirty water, the browns come right into the edges and undercuts. Sometimes you see all the fish, sometimes a tail, or their back. A really big nymph, or small WB, would be better than a full-on streamer in these circumstances.

If milky turquoise is glacier run-off then I've always covered lots of water. It's also possible to sight fish on glacier rivers, either at the tails of shallow pools or when the fish are close to the bank. I use nymphs and dries here. Fishing down and across with streamers would be interesting. I've never tried this. I'd use a full intermediate and experiment with five inch double bunnies in a range of colours from the hideous to black. You may catch a really big fish doing this. If you catch a lot of really big fish doing this I'd keep it a secret (and just tell Paul Arden) :p

Cheers, Paul

[Jeroen]

I am good at keeping secrets...

[jomeder]

Hi guys,

Thanks for that. Those are pretty much the colours I was thinking (aside from Paul's olive :-). Black, purple and a big white Circus Peanut. I did think about chartreuse, a chartreuse indicator shows up surprisingly well against turquoise water.

FWIW I was fishing an Extra Super Fast Sinking polyleader down and across with my floater. 2 or 3 swings and then taking 10 steps downstream.

I was mixing things up with a smooth slow swing and retrieve and then one which I worked a bit, but I'll try being a lot more aggressive with it.

It's bit glarey to sight fish at the moment, especially with the water being quite coloured. Not that I saw anything, but it's the kind of situation where you have such a limited view you see the fish the same time they see you.

I'm going to try and get out next week and I expect the river will be quite murky so I'll put some of this into effect. I have a good range of big streamers from hideous to black so I'll give a bunch of them a dunking :-). Might take out the DH rod.

The only time I've caught fish in rivers on streamers has been when it's been really clear, haven't had a lot of luck at other times.

Regards,

Jo

[Paul Arden]

Hi Jo,

just because the water is discoloured doesn't mean that the food items are bright! Sometimes presenting a contrast is a good idea, but real prey items are camouflage. Fish are very good at detecting real prey items because that's how they eat. Don't worry that they can't see your fly; if there are fish there they'll see it. In UK stillwaters we often recommend fishing flies the same colour as the algae coloured water.

Be sure to fish the edges. That's where fish lay in discoloured water.

Cheers, Paul

[easterncaster]

Here, especially in the fall, in the Catskills of NY (brown trout waters) yellow can be a very good color. clear or turbid water.

My favorite streamer for years was a Brown natural rabbit zonker type streamer with a throat/belly of long yellow fibers such as deer tail or something similar in a man-made fiber.

Contrast in the pattern, a brightness for dark water and a color to instigate a territorial strike.

Craig

[Paul Arden]

Here, especially in the fall, in the Catskills of NY (brown trout waters) yellow can be a very good color

Same for browns in NZ lakes in the Autumn.