The orange is the color of eggs from salmon and browns that are spawing this time of year. This triggers a natural response from steelhead and other trout. Thanks for sharing and have a fantastic weekend.
Matt, what a great pattern. I struggle with steelhead patterns; I fish Erie streams, which will do the job. I will give this one a big try shortly. Thanks for all the great patterns and history.
Appreciate it Howard! Lake Erie and the steelhead waters in upstate New York are definitely on my to-do fishing destination lists. At least I'll have plenty of patterns ready when I do finally make it up that way. :-)
I learned most of my fly tying from Dave Hughes' book "Trout Flies" and his books are still a great source for patterns and guidance. That's a beautiful fly.
Oh yes, that is an amazing book! It's basically the college text book for fly tying. It's certainly not cheap to find anymore but for anybody who can get their hands on a copy, it's well worth it!
Another nice one Matt. Orange is an egg color in all its forms and I believe it causes a reactionary strike for both steelhead and salmon. Have a blessed day my friend.
That looks like a very effective fly pattern! I use the hair after brushing my orange cat for dubbing sometimes. Thank you Matt for the video! Tight lines! 🐈🎣
Good morning Matt. ☕️. I’m not a steelhead fishermen but my experience with Rainbow Trout in lakes here is that flies with some orange on them are for the most part more successful than ones without. Some attribute that to the color of the eggs while others have said that orange works better in stained water versus clear. Many of our small lakes have a tea stained color to them. Nice tie and if you think that body is lumpy you should see some of my flies but I found out that the fish don’t seem to care. 😁. Have a great weekend Matt.
Haha! Great note John. And I think you're 100% right about orange being the color of eggs. (At least according to a lot of the other commenters.) It was a nice weekend here, now back to the grindstone. :-)
Hello Matt, this time of year the steelheads are in the rivers to spawn, and they eat the eggs of salmon and rival steelheads... That is why the oranges and pinks work so well at this time of year... I fish the Ashtabula River and the famed Conneaut Creek in north east Ohio and that is what I noticed, at least from the Lake Erie steelheads... Also there is a fresh water shrimp in Lake Erie that is white and orange/red, they are use to eating these so that can also be a reason the colors work...
Great note Randy and according to a few other commenters, I think you're 100% right about orange being a trigger as it's the color of a lot of eggs these big steelhead are getting fat on. Thanks for the note and have a great week my friend. :-)
Orange in steelhead flies simulates salmon and trout egg colors. Egg patterns with orange with white veils catch them because they look like a food they eat. Thanks, again, for a great video.
Here's an update for ya Matt. Today, 10/29/23, The New Fly Fisher uploaded another old video on fishing egg paterns for Great Lakes steelhead with Jeff Blood. A lot of fishing info and some color, size, theory on egg patterns that may be helpful answering your question. That was filmed in November, they have another video on steelhead fishing in the spring with Blood and Tom Rosenbauer. Good stuff buddy, enjoy 👍
Hi Matt. My thought is egg color. Something that I feel would go well n my fly box. Gonna try it on nor CA steelhead. It will b fun trying it out especially down n the feeding zone. They are in the river this year in numbers as there's salmon aplenty due to that season is closed. A lot of spawning is going on now. Nice to see a "busy" river this year. Thanks for sharing. God Bless n Fish on!
Good late afternoon or shall I say Evening, I've been pretty busy with work, but never miss a video. I think I'm going to try this Golden Demon as a Silver Demon. Here at our lake the hybrid Bass or white bass some people call them I really hitting anything with silver on it and white I tied a white Bucktail jig head with red 70 denier and opal flesh they were smashing it so I like to give the golden demon a try as well but I'll make sure I tie a silver one up thanks Matt appreciate all you do have a great weekend
Good morning matt! Hoping you're having a wonderful start to your day! Great fly pattern. Unfortunately on the waters that I'm fishing now there are no steelhead. Lol however, there's plenty of tarpon, snook and Sea trout. So what do you say, let's tie a pattern to help me catch something down here on the channel. Will reach out and update you on everything going on real soon. Give the Mrs my best!
Thanks Alex! Great to hear from you my friend. Just now getting to the comments here. Ugh... I just finished Tuesday's pattern and gotta answer the mail before I get another full video behind! Have a great week buddy. :-)
A blast from the past. Try/tie one like Gerald (Jerry) James of Grants Pass, Oregon use to tie them. Use gold braid for the underbody, followed by flat gold mylar and finally a counter wrapped rib of oval gold tinsel. Jerry used a burnishing plyers to form a smooth, tapered body. The tail was stiff orange hackle veiled with yellow hackle. The throat was orange hackle. The wing was brown pine squirrel. And for such a beautiful fly, Jerry always included Jungle Cock cheeks. - Neil
Wow, thank you for this great description! I thought about doing something similar with a gold/rootbeer colored diamond braid for a body. Maybe I'll try that with a pattern soon. Thanks again!
Awesome video,again another Northern California/Southern Oregon stellie pattern,why is now & always debated as for winter well that to is debated,caught both summer & winter fish on it,yes downsized is a great brookie pattern along with several other old school steelhead patterns
Great idea! I do love tying these type patterns and I've got a John Shewey book on some beautiful steelhead flies that I like to tie out of from time to time. I'll have to see what I can do. (One note though... according to the RUclips metrics, this video was a total bomb. Not many people clicked on it and it had a low retention rate. I'm not sure what that says about steelhead fisherman fly tiers. Maybe they're just aren't that many watching videos?)
@@SavageFlies Just getting to the stlhd season here for the winter. Thanksgiving day usually is the kickoff. Salmon are in our systems now for angling and yes there aren’t not a lot of anglers fly fishing usually but they are spread out from the Sacramento River system all through the PNW. We have the Elk, Sixes and Chetco rivers on the southern Oregon coast. Short rivers with some bruisers of fish. Tough river flows to time but fun if you have the right day on the water. You won’t offend me if you don’t make anymore of these types of videos. I enjoy them all.
Nice looking fly. Pretty sure it would work on landlocked salmon or in the salt for striped bass. I’ve had a lot of stripers vote for orange on my hooks.
Steelhead and salmon flies are the prettiest of all flies, but i agree with you Matt, this fly would work on trout as well. I like how you used the squirrel tail,i use squirrel tail to form tails on a lot of my flies. Enjoyed watching, thanks Matt 👍.
Appreciate it Jim! I know there are a lot of flies with squirrel tail wings, but somehow I don't use it as often as I should. I'm going to have to change that. :-)
A terrific article about this topic can be found in In-Fisherman by Matt Straw. However, steelhead don’t really seem to follow ‘logic’. 🤣 Nice fly Matt. Thx. Have a great weekend.
Well done fly. Lots of egg variations out west here since the sal/steelhead grew up in the same rivers they’re spawned in the egg becomes a major food source at times. A bug hatch😂. And lots of off color water out here during the winter and spring. I use my uv or blue led lights to test the color of materials for my patterns. Lots of companies will list uv on there products and they don’t react to the black light. I carry a small keychain one to test the materials in store. I know that we are taboo for using patterns that look like bait but hey what does it bug look like to a fish? I just wish the fish would view my creations that way every time I fling them. Add a egg spot behind the hackles for a hotspot helps out sometimes too.
Great comment! I think you're 100% right about the egg color being a trigger. And probably since orange is higher in the UV spectrum (even without it being a true UV material) it probably does indeed help. Thanks for the note!
Well done as always! Anyone have any links to good videos on how to present something like this? Tried swinging for steel last winter with little success. Want to try something other than beads this year…
What a great streamer! Thank you. But, why orange in the Fall? Let’s pick a simple subject… 🤣 The very short answer is in water, orange stands out more in the Fall. I’ve done a lot of thinking and research on this, and I believe this is the answer. Two main factors come into play, the structure of salmonoid eyes and the dispersion of light when it enters the water. Salmonoids detect prey (or a well placed streamer) with highly developed vision that is sensitive to UV and polarized light, and temporal (movement) action. 1. Three types of cone cell receptors provide trichromatic color vision. In particular, their Short-Wavelength (S) “Blue” Cone Cells are sensitive to light in the ultra violet to blue range. The other types (Medium-Wavelength (M) “Green” and Long-Wavelength (L) “Red” Cone Cells) round out their photopic vision and combine to detect subtle camouflage variations such as olives, rusts, and browns. 2. They have polarization receptor cells which provide a higher sensitivity to light which becomes polarized as it passes through water. 3. Highly sensitive rod cells responsible for low-light vision give salmonids advanced temporal vision. They can more easily detect fast and subtle changes in the environment, such as fast-moving prey or detecting subtle movements in the water. Combined, a salmonoid’s highly developed vision is great for detecting prey or threats especially in clear or semi-clear environments (streams, rivers, certain shorelines, and open water), particularly since prey (or predators), eggs, and spawning beds typically have UV or polarized reflective patterns. In general, bright colors will trigger the vision receptors in salmonoids because the colors are more reflective, particularly if UV enhanced, because they are more visible in low light conditions and because brightness triggers temporal vision. When light enters water, it becomes dispersed. When we see diagrams, the various wavelengths of light are usually depicted as being equally strong. However, that is only true if light enters perpendicular to the surface of the water. In the Fall, when light enters water at a steep angle, shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) may be more intense, while longer wavelengths (red and yellow) are less intense. So, while orange would normally be less intense in the natural environment, when we introduce an orange streamer (or particularly a UV enhanced one), it stands out and because salmonoids are aggressive, territorial predators, they are much more likely to strike an orange bait than a blue or violet bait. If there are any fisheries biologists who are reading this, I’d appreciate your feedback! My background has nothing to do with biology or physics.
over the years i have found RED on the tail end would attract trout/steelhead over non colored tail. i would guess that orange and red colors stand out better. with there eyes. maybe its the egg color that does it. now silver and gold also has there places just as well.
Good points! And maybe that's why we do see a lot of red tails and throats on streamers when not a lot of baitfish patterns actually have red in them. I guess some have a bit of red on the cheeks and around the gills, but we don't see many red tails! But they certainly seem to be a trigger for some fish. Thanks for the note!
The orange is the color of eggs from salmon and browns that are spawing this time of year. This triggers a natural response from steelhead and other trout. Thanks for sharing and have a fantastic weekend.
Appreciate it Layton! And based on a few other comments, I think you're 100% correct. :-)
Steelhead eggs are orange. Another very important color for winter steelhead is the pink. They love it.
Matt, what a great pattern. I struggle with steelhead patterns; I fish Erie streams, which will do the job. I will give this one a big try shortly. Thanks for all the great patterns and history.
Appreciate it Howard! Lake Erie and the steelhead waters in upstate New York are definitely on my to-do fishing destination lists. At least I'll have plenty of patterns ready when I do finally make it up that way. :-)
I learned most of my fly tying from Dave Hughes' book "Trout Flies" and his books are still a great source for patterns and guidance. That's a beautiful fly.
Oh yes, that is an amazing book! It's basically the college text book for fly tying. It's certainly not cheap to find anymore but for anybody who can get their hands on a copy, it's well worth it!
Another nice one Matt. Orange is an egg color in all its forms and I believe it causes a reactionary strike for both steelhead and salmon. Have a blessed day my friend.
Thanks! And based on several other comments, I think you're right. :-)
That looks like a very effective fly pattern! I use the hair after brushing my orange cat for dubbing sometimes.
Thank you Matt for the video! Tight lines! 🐈🎣
Great idea with the cat hair dubbing! I've got two cats running around my house (and one big dog) that I could be using. Thanks for the idea. :-)
Good morning Matt. ☕️. I’m not a steelhead fishermen but my experience with Rainbow Trout in lakes here is that flies with some orange on them are for the most part more successful than ones without. Some attribute that to the color of the eggs while others have said that orange works better in stained water versus clear. Many of our small lakes have a tea stained color to them. Nice tie and if you think that body is lumpy you should see some of my flies but I found out that the fish don’t seem to care. 😁. Have a great weekend Matt.
Haha! Great note John. And I think you're 100% right about orange being the color of eggs. (At least according to a lot of the other commenters.) It was a nice weekend here, now back to the grindstone. :-)
It's definitely a cool looking fly, Matt. Love the colors on this one
Thanks for the video Matt and hope you have a great weekend
Hello Matt, this time of year the steelheads are in the rivers to spawn, and they eat the eggs of salmon and rival steelheads... That is why the oranges and pinks work so well at this time of year... I fish the Ashtabula River and the famed Conneaut Creek in north east Ohio and that is what I noticed, at least from the Lake Erie steelheads... Also there is a fresh water shrimp in Lake Erie that is white and orange/red, they are use to eating these so that can also be a reason the colors work...
Great note Randy and according to a few other commenters, I think you're 100% right about orange being a trigger as it's the color of a lot of eggs these big steelhead are getting fat on. Thanks for the note and have a great week my friend. :-)
Really like this pattern, definitely tying up some for smallmouth.
Orange in steelhead flies simulates salmon and trout egg colors. Egg patterns with orange with white veils catch them because they look like a food they eat. Thanks, again, for a great video.
I think you're 100% right Ed! Thanks for the note my friend. :-)
Here's an update for ya Matt. Today, 10/29/23, The New Fly Fisher uploaded another old video on fishing egg paterns for Great Lakes steelhead with Jeff Blood. A lot of fishing info and some color, size, theory on egg patterns that may be helpful answering your question. That was filmed in November, they have another video on steelhead fishing in the spring with Blood and Tom Rosenbauer. Good stuff buddy, enjoy 👍
Hi Matt. My thought is egg color. Something that I feel would go well n my fly box. Gonna try it on nor CA steelhead. It will b fun trying it out especially down n the feeding zone. They are in the river this year in numbers as there's salmon aplenty due to that season is closed. A lot of spawning is going on now. Nice to see a "busy" river this year. Thanks for sharing. God Bless n Fish on!
Great pattern. Thank you Sir Matt for all you do. Have a Great weekend!
Appreciate it Marshall! Have a great week my friend. :-)
Good late afternoon or shall I say Evening, I've been pretty busy with work, but never miss a video. I think I'm going to try this Golden Demon as a Silver Demon. Here at our lake the hybrid Bass or white bass some people call them I really hitting anything with silver on it and white I tied a white Bucktail jig head with red 70 denier and opal flesh they were smashing it so I like to give the golden demon a try as well but I'll make sure I tie a silver one up thanks Matt appreciate all you do have a great weekend
Good morning matt! Hoping you're having a wonderful start to your day! Great fly pattern. Unfortunately on the waters that I'm fishing now there are no steelhead. Lol however, there's plenty of tarpon, snook and Sea trout. So what do you say, let's tie a pattern to help me catch something down here on the channel. Will reach out and update you on everything going on real soon. Give the Mrs my best!
Thanks Alex! Great to hear from you my friend. Just now getting to the comments here. Ugh... I just finished Tuesday's pattern and gotta answer the mail before I get another full video behind! Have a great week buddy. :-)
A blast from the past. Try/tie one like Gerald (Jerry) James of Grants Pass, Oregon use to tie them. Use gold braid for the underbody, followed by flat gold mylar and finally a counter wrapped rib of oval gold tinsel. Jerry used a burnishing plyers to form a smooth, tapered body. The tail was stiff orange hackle veiled with yellow hackle. The throat was orange hackle. The wing was brown pine squirrel. And for such a beautiful fly, Jerry always included Jungle Cock cheeks. - Neil
Wow, thank you for this great description! I thought about doing something similar with a gold/rootbeer colored diamond braid for a body. Maybe I'll try that with a pattern soon. Thanks again!
Awesome video,again another Northern California/Southern Oregon stellie pattern,why is now & always debated as for winter well that to is debated,caught both summer & winter fish on it,yes downsized is a great brookie pattern along with several other old school steelhead patterns
Great looking steelhead fly matt tks for the video 😊
Appreciate it Burt!
Maybe a salmon,steelhead week of streamers, eggs, intruder styles maybe fun and definitely a treat for us west coasters. Today’s patterns a winner.
Great idea! I do love tying these type patterns and I've got a John Shewey book on some beautiful steelhead flies that I like to tie out of from time to time. I'll have to see what I can do. (One note though... according to the RUclips metrics, this video was a total bomb. Not many people clicked on it and it had a low retention rate. I'm not sure what that says about steelhead fisherman fly tiers. Maybe they're just aren't that many watching videos?)
@@SavageFlies
Just getting to the stlhd season here for the winter. Thanksgiving day usually is the kickoff. Salmon are in our systems now for angling and yes there aren’t not a lot of anglers fly fishing usually but they are spread out from the Sacramento River system all through the PNW. We have the Elk, Sixes and Chetco rivers on the southern Oregon coast. Short rivers with some bruisers of fish. Tough river flows to time but fun if you have the right day on the water. You won’t offend me if you don’t make anymore of these types of videos. I enjoy them all.
Nice looking fly. Pretty sure it would work on landlocked salmon or in the salt for striped bass. I’ve had a lot of stripers vote for orange on my hooks.
Gidday Matt. Your too hard on yourself. The fly looks great. Thanks.
Well thank you Ken! I appreciate the vote of confidence my friend. :-)
@@SavageFlies all flies will start to look messy when the fish tear into them.
Great video Matt thanks for sharing. Im an avid steelhead fly fisher im gonna tie a couple and give ‘‘em a try
Outstanding Matt! I'd love to hear how it works for you. Thanks for the note and have a great week my friend. :-)
Nice fly!
Steelhead and salmon flies are the prettiest of all flies, but i agree with you Matt, this fly would work on trout as well. I like how you used the squirrel tail,i use squirrel tail to form tails on a lot of my flies. Enjoyed watching, thanks Matt 👍.
Appreciate it Jim! I know there are a lot of flies with squirrel tail wings, but somehow I don't use it as often as I should. I'm going to have to change that. :-)
Fall/winter steelhead the orange tends to match the color of roe. Very good fly,
Great job I like this one
A terrific article about this topic can be found in In-Fisherman by Matt Straw.
However, steelhead don’t really seem to follow ‘logic’. 🤣
Nice fly Matt. Thx. Have a great weekend.
Haha! You're probably right there Clyde. Thanks for the note my friend. :-)
Well done fly. Lots of egg variations out west here since the sal/steelhead grew up in the same rivers they’re spawned in the egg becomes a major food source at times. A bug hatch😂. And lots of off color water out here during the winter and spring. I use my uv or blue led lights to test the color of materials for my patterns. Lots of companies will list uv on there products and they don’t react to the black light. I carry a small keychain one to test the materials in store.
I know that we are taboo for using patterns that look like bait but hey what does it bug look like to a fish? I just wish the fish would view my creations that way every time I fling them. Add a egg spot behind the hackles for a hotspot helps out sometimes too.
Great comment! I think you're 100% right about the egg color being a trigger. And probably since orange is higher in the UV spectrum (even without it being a true UV material) it probably does indeed help. Thanks for the note!
Well done as always! Anyone have any links to good videos on how to present something like this? Tried swinging for steel last winter with little success. Want to try something other than beads this year…
Hey Matt☕️☕️,
I think that flower looks amazing and I’m a TikTok kind of guy🤣🤣🤣
But I really like those salmon hooks for leeches as well 👍
Hahaha! Yeah, I really pictured you as a TikTok dude. 🤣🤣🤣
What a great streamer! Thank you.
But, why orange in the Fall? Let’s pick a simple subject… 🤣
The very short answer is in water, orange stands out more in the Fall.
I’ve done a lot of thinking and research on this, and I believe this is the answer.
Two main factors come into play, the structure of salmonoid eyes and the dispersion of light when it enters the water.
Salmonoids detect prey (or a well placed streamer) with highly developed vision that is sensitive to UV and polarized light, and temporal (movement) action.
1. Three types of cone cell receptors provide trichromatic color vision. In particular, their Short-Wavelength (S) “Blue” Cone Cells are sensitive to light in the ultra violet to blue range. The other types (Medium-Wavelength (M) “Green” and Long-Wavelength (L) “Red” Cone Cells) round out their photopic vision and combine to detect subtle camouflage variations such as olives, rusts, and browns.
2. They have polarization receptor cells which provide a higher sensitivity to light which becomes polarized as it passes through water.
3. Highly sensitive rod cells responsible for low-light vision give salmonids advanced temporal vision. They can more easily detect fast and subtle changes in the environment, such as fast-moving prey or detecting subtle movements in the water.
Combined, a salmonoid’s highly developed vision is great for detecting prey or threats especially in clear or semi-clear environments (streams, rivers, certain shorelines, and open water), particularly since prey (or predators), eggs, and spawning beds typically have UV or polarized reflective patterns.
In general, bright colors will trigger the vision receptors in salmonoids because the colors are more reflective, particularly if UV enhanced, because they are more visible in low light conditions and because brightness triggers temporal vision.
When light enters water, it becomes dispersed. When we see diagrams, the various wavelengths of light are usually depicted as being equally strong. However, that is only true if light enters perpendicular to the surface of the water.
In the Fall, when light enters water at a steep angle, shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) may be more intense, while longer wavelengths (red and yellow) are less intense.
So, while orange would normally be less intense in the natural environment, when we introduce an orange streamer (or particularly a UV enhanced one), it stands out and because salmonoids are aggressive, territorial predators, they are much more likely to strike an orange bait than a blue or violet bait.
If there are any fisheries biologists who are reading this, I’d appreciate your feedback! My background has nothing to do with biology or physics.
over the years i have found RED on the tail end would attract trout/steelhead over non colored tail. i would guess that orange and red colors stand out better. with there eyes. maybe its the egg color that does it. now silver and gold also has there places just as well.
Good points! And maybe that's why we do see a lot of red tails and throats on streamers when not a lot of baitfish patterns actually have red in them. I guess some have a bit of red on the cheeks and around the gills, but we don't see many red tails! But they certainly seem to be a trigger for some fish. Thanks for the note!
whats the song playing as the background tune?
Hey Savage Flies just wanted to know what vise you are using ?
Hey Ricky. I'm using a Regal Revolution with stainless steel jaws.
@@SavageFlies Thank you 😁
Egg
Egg pattern.
Yep, that's what I'm learning from all the comments here. Thanks for the note!