Trout and Colors

[raffensg64]

Gents, starting two years I began to see a pattern. For whatever reason, brownies seem to prefer black and rainbows seem to prefer olive when nymphs and/or streamers are being fished. Most of us know this already. This is not always the case of course, for all feeding is hatch dependent. We all know that rainbows will take black chironomid patterns....I personally catch most of my rainbows on black or black variations. But I'm seeing a definite trend on Medical and W. Medical when fishing olive chironomid patterns. Nearly every brown trout I've caught on these lakes takes the olive chironomid....even if it's the top fly, above a black pattern. Doesn't matter where I put it, they almost always take it over the other pattern. This hasn't happened 4-5 times mind you. It has happened on dozens of occasions. Ditto for the few tigers I've caught this year...the passed on black but took olive. Through all this the rainbows take the black 9 times out of 10! So, if you are fishing chironomid patterns in a brown trout lake, give olive a try. It's no fluke....for some reason it is more appealing to them.

[Marc Martyn]

This may be somewhat of a seasonal thing. Right now the lakes are filled with Damsel Fly nymphs and most of those are a medium or dark olive.
I have also noticed that browns will take wine colored leeches more readily as the evening approaches.
I was just over near Ellensburg fishing Fiorito lakes and they were actively feeding on dark olive.