A substantial percentage of the food Atlantic salmon and steelhead eat at high seas is fish, often small silverfish like capelin and sand-eel, as seen in the photo below. These and many other baitfish and various sea worms have some form of iridescent colour structure in their colouration and iridescence as colour may very well play a part in the way prey and bait play hide and seek in the ocean –
In this highly advanced hide-and-seek game, we may assume that the predators have abilities and detecting skills to get them close to the prey. Glimpses of light shimmering on an iridescent surface could be a critical element that brings the predators closer to the baitfish they are looking for.

What do salmon eat at sea? Read more and see the great images of the food they eat in this article

The recent season I have developed a series of riffling hitch flies where I have incorporated the iridescent properties in the form of iridescent pixel flakes attached to the head of the fly a method I also have used on sub-surface flies. The series of flies is called the Hitchman flies and is available through our fly store.

A tiny shimmering Green Hitchman fly – The perfect fly for Atlantic salmon in fast low water

Over the years I have used the properties of shimmering iridescent material on my coastal sea trout lures and flies and have never looked back sins then.
The green iridescent colouration is effective stuff when you’re targeting fish near the surface (0 – 3 meters down) in clear waters.

Here are two coastal sea trout lures (1/2 – 1 Oz.). I designed it back in the ’90s

Iridescent pixel flakes also used on this homemade, highly efficient APEX lure from the ’90s

We wanted to make our flies easier to find out on the rough water or in low light conditions and added foam with iridescent properties to the flies – little did we think that the iridescent material would increase the actual catch returns – but it did make the flies more attractive. Consequently, we incorporate the iridescent EVA foam in several fly patterns.
It may be a tiny glimpse of the green iridescent material that spurs the fish to make the tour to the surface…

Here is the Flashback Bug, a favoured Steelhead fly… If you like to try it, see it in our shop here

If you read Danish (Scandinavian) below you will find an article I made in the ’90s about my initial experiments with iridescent material and low water fishing.

Tube flies is the big thing in Europa and salmon, trout and Northern pike anglers will readily use tubes for many different fly patterns. Not only do the tubes allow anglers to make big light pattern that is easy to cast on light fly fishing equipment, but the tube fly also gives the angler new ways of presenting the fly as something unique.

Tube fly for difficult situations

As I write this post, I have just returned from an evening fishing at the mouth of the river where I fish – Salmon had just entered on the 6 o’clock tide and as the water was pulling back to the sea. Small and big salmon were settling near the big rocks on the river bed.

As the water is only a few feet deep, I use tube dry flies; tiny Frances shrimp flies and single hook wet fly patterns like Blue Charm and Undertaker in # 12… Today the fish was unwilling and a cold northerly wind blew in from the sea… In such difficult situations, most anglers will pack up and leave. Still, I brought out tiny clear-bodied tube flies with wings made of a few hairs from silver tippet squirrel – I call it the V-FLY, and I fish this micro tube fly as a riffling hitch pattern – Riffling hitch pattern can work wonders in such unfriendly conditions. I soon had the first fish turning for the fly, and almost every fish settling in the shallow pool tried to grab the fly.  Two fish to the tiny V-FLY an hour later had turned this bitterly cold evening into a fantastic day of salmon fishing.

We produce some of the best tubes for tube flies.

As tube fly fishermen, we appreciate perfect tubes for our fishing and fly tying, and we have used countless hours with plastic manufacturers to get the tubes perfect for tube fly production. Most tubes bought in fly fishing shops are made for different purposes than flies and fly fishing. Still, the tubes designed with Fishmadman fit the bill – One such tube is our tube designed for riffling hitch flies such as the simple V-FLY – This is a flexible tube made from a PVC free Polyethylene formula that will hold many different size hooks – withstand harsh weather conditions and a lot of mechanical wear and tear.