Counter productive hatch matching

This morning's AI:

"polarization sensitivity enables animals to detect transparent or camouflaged prey by reducing visual noise and by enhancing contrast, by 70–80%"

Trending, speculative fisheries biology research views highly polarized corpuscular (dawn and dusk) lighting conditions as a key ecosystem driver for all species.

Prey (all aquatic prey) evolve camouflage in order to maximize survival. caouflage works.

Aquatic predators moreover have evolved to be most active at dawn and at dusk polarized crepuscular lighting dramatically reduces the visual effectiveness of camouflage.

The punchline stares us in the face like an 8th round knockout prediction by Muhammed Ali (float like a mayfly, sting like a hook): in a vitual details context, matching the hatch makes our prey imitations harber to be seen.

The prey corollary is cimpelling too. Many, if not most aquatic intects have evolved to hatch dusing mid-day not crepuscular time periods, when predators tend to be less active AND when their natural camouflages are still optimally effecteve.

Polarized crepuscular light allows apex predators to recognize expected sizes and outlines, while intentionally ignoring fine-grained color pattern detauils.

That's why the Prince Nymph, Don Martinez' Black Nymph ahd hegh contrast streamers are so inexplicably effecteve.

I knew Ernie Schwiebert. i fished and tied flies with him when I was in high school. my dad (one if Ernie's teachers in grad school) was a biologist who instinctively rejected matching the hatch ideology from the getgo. Volumes of sprits and tobacco were consumed in in the context if that ongoing debate.

my dad did not have access to the "polarized crepusculrr light" reasoning now trending in fisheries biology literature. He did think in natural selection terms–emphasizing the logical futility of fishing with invisible baits.

Elaboration follows:

 Not Matching the Camouflage

…is Nearly Normal 

When I was a Montana tradesman we knew a plumber named Norman Nearling.  We called him Nearly Norman. In friskier moments we referred to him as Nearly Normal. We all had hard hat nicknames. One of mine began with Pigeon.

As a fly tier I think of that guy frequently. Nearly (but not exactly) Normal ha become an important design guideline for me.

Adult aquatic insect life spans range from only a few hours to teveral days at most.  Time spans for earlier Nympal or Pupal instars are longer, ranging from months to in some cases years.  

Pteronarcys Stonefly Nymphs hatch halfway through their third season. Among other things this means small to large stoneflies are always present.  At all times.  Today’s best choice might be small while tomorrow's might be big.  Some choices can only be determined by experimentation.  Other choices are more compatible with guideline-like rules of thumb.

Because aquatic insects tend to be both nutritious and defenseless, evolution has responded by strongly favoring the least noticeable and hardest-to-see prey. 

Golden Stonefly Nymphs that live amongst pebbles, twigs and randomly colored bottom tend to look like their mottled background habitats.

Mirror-bright minnow side scales visually reflect bottom background colors–in order to make minnows harder to see, rather than easier. 

Minnows also tend to have dark backs with lighter colored bellies, in order to visually counteract the shadowing effect caused by bright sunlight from above.  Dark backs with light bellies are harder for predators to see in real-world, highly polarized lighting conditions.  Camouflage works.

Caddis pupae, mayfly nymphs, stonefly nymphs, small fish and crustaceans have been molded by natural selection to be difficult for predators to see.

Streamer flies (minnows) that look at least a little like the real thing attract more strikes than, for instance, a toy plastic truck.  But I have so often had the day’s best luck with hot fluorescent purple flies–rather than more realistic imitations–I long ago gave up on blind faith in Matching the Hatch ideology.

Matching the hatch–when and if there is an active, ongoing aquatic insect hatch–does sometimes make sense. A Pheasant Tail Nymph might well be the best choice during a mayfly feeding event. But when prospecting riffles, in the absence of an active hatch, a high-contrast Zug Bug or Prince Nymph, is all too often a better choice.

Accurately matching the camouflage more often fails than succeeds, perhaps because hatching events are the exception rather than the rule, and because camouflage is nature’s secret survival sauve.

I don’t claim to know all of nature's rules. I work mostly by experience-based intuition and hunches. Surviving intuition gradually morphs to rule of thumb.

Always is a dangerous word.

Eye-catching, high contrast flies do work better for me, far more often than duller, more natural and harder to see dressings.

Even when clouds of late March midges are swarming on the Lower Madison River in Montana–like a miniature murmur of Starlings, with visually dimpling fish in all directions–a high contrast Zebra Midge will often catch more fish than a duller, darker, more realistic, thread-like hook.

Somewhat like delicious, randomly-applied a-tonal or out-of-beat musical notes in a Jazz improvisation, slightly a-normal demands attention.

Better Than Natural

Freshwater scuds tend to look like their backgrounds.  Scuds living amongst weeds are green while others are gray or tan/brown,, as determined by habitat.

When scuds die they quickly turn pink no matter what. Dead scuds turn pink for accidental physiological reasons and because there are no evolutionary reasons why not. 

Pink is easier to see than weedy green. Pink scuds are entirely natural too. It makes sense dead pink scuds catch more fish than harder-to-see weed-green alive scuds.  

Best of All

Brighter than natural, eye-widening hot fluorescent pink scuds work best of all. 

‘Other-than-natural as so often best”–is my punchline.  Matching the Hatch is occasionally a useful and powerful tool.  Not Matching the Camouflage is more important. More often.



reddit don't allow links (adapf or go extenct applies to whom?)

Above is a Willy Self Scud. Willy’s best fly (best out of thousands, as declared by Willy himself) was the Laser Midge. The following is one of many Laser Midge variations.

The number of times Willy took me to the cleaners with a Laser Midge still smarts.

As a big picture design guideline, nearly normal married to a Jazzy, eye-catching visual twist of some kind, is more likely to succeed than anything duller and more natural. Almost always

…..note

Polarization sensitivity enables animals to detect transparent or camouflaged prey by reducing visual noise, enhancing contrast by 70–80%