What's your preferred post/indicator color?

[nightfish]

When I tie flies with a post or indicator, I pretty much use chartreuse or orange, followed by white. It can depend on time of day or the particular water I'll be fishing, but it's generally those three, and in that order. I also like a combo of chartreuse & hot orange foam laminated together. Works for me in sun & shade.

I'm curious what the general preference is, but let's break it down by time of day...
-First light to 9am
-9am-5pm
-5pm-dusk
-dusk to dark



I'm also curious if you use combo colors, and if you have different preferences for flat light vs blue skies.

[«°Ñøvã°»]

The more glare on the water i prefer hot pink chartruese or any neon color. For shady days i like using white.

[FISHINWEAZ]

nightfish- I love to use the chartreuse & orange laminated also. It's about all I use now when using an indicator. Huhh.. now I think about it I believe I learned it from you. Wow.. Thanks dude. Weasel

[MuseJr]

I prefer to use orange mid day and white early and late. I haven't tried any other colors. The Chartreuse might be a good one. I'll have to try it.

[MuseJr]

I have noticed a few times losing the fly in the drift. I thought the fish hit the fly and lifted but no fish, other times the fish hit the fly but I was looking at something else and missed it. That's when I started using colored posts. I even put a piece of orange on top of the wings of hair wing flies.

[baetis]

The more glare on the water i prefer hot pink chartruese or any neon color. For shady days i like using white.

Nova
You would be amazed at how well you can see black when there is glare on the water. Try it.

[fulano]

I have a couple of Baetis patterns a buddy tied, and he used a very slight post of orange and black antron (parachutes and thorax patterns). These are size 22 flies and you can pick them up on the water from 50+ feet. I am planning to copy that in my own tying.

[John Bell]

Hmmm I am going to try some Black material for a post.

[«°Ñøvã°»]

Nova
You would be amazed at how well you can see black when there is glare on the water. Try it.

Hmmm gonna have to give that a try. I have used black indicators before in that situation so it does make sense. Thanks for the tip Spence.

[«°Ñøvã°»]

since the post is on the opposite side of the fly that the fish is looking at, I haven't really cared before...

should I be?

I've always just gone with white in the past, no problem with seeing it... Yet :) maybe when I hit 40 or 50

Best advice i can give you to save your vision is to use slightly magnified glasses or whatnot when you tie like 2x. I even have a pair of computer glasses for when im on here fertin around. I notice my vision gets blurry about a dozen 22's in and my head starts to hurt but it was solved with the glasses.

[Mike A]

For indicators, I used yellow and orange but ended up with situations where I wished I had black. Over the last couple of years I started using some I made like these ones.

http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/indicators/

They have yellow in the center with a little black and two shades of olive on the outside. They have been great on large rivers. On smaller rivers it's not as big of a deal because my casts are shorter and I can see the indicator more easily.

For parachute posts I always have used white, but I'm starting to tie some in yellow because I'm sick of losing my BWO imitations in the middle of heavy foam lines or bubbles and not being able to see the strikes. It's happened too many times.

I've seen the suggestion of using golden pheasant tippets as parachute posts to get black tipped orange. That's a classy way to handle it, I think. I like natural material posts.

[FlyDOC]

Once you try black you'll never go back. Use black poly-propilene (sp) for a post or can be used comparadun style when the light is low. Especially at dusk til dark. I think you will be pleasantly suprised

[nightfish]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've been messing with a spinner pattern, and wondered what the consensus on an all-around indicator would be.

Lets have a vote to narrow it down to 2 colors. Body colors will be rusty, chocolate, black, olive, cream...all with white poly wings.

Weaz, glad it's worked out for you. I like the orange in the sun, but lose it when it drifts into a shadow. The chartreuse lights up in the shade for me, so the combo is a great for my eyes.

Spence, I too like black. I did a G-Gnat in a swap with JayMorr once that had a triple post of black, chartreuse and orange. With a grizzly hackle, it covered all the bases for visibility.