Why orange? Is it a visibility thing? When fishing spooky fish I like subdued color lines. There is always disagreement on this subject but I can say with a high degree of certainty that when a bright line is false cast above water which contains fish that are wary, the flash of bright color from flying lines will announce your presence.
Often fish may continue feeding but nothing you try will coax one onto your fly. I believe this is the result of 'conditioning' the fish have been conditioned to a relationship between fly lines sailing overhead and being hooked by fraudulent floating bugs. As I said people disagree with my thoughts about this but I have always tried to put every possible advantage in my favor. Line color is one that I have control over. The results have always been favorable and I still use gray and brown on my DT lines for light rods.
Granted Spey lines are often brightly colored but due to the great differences between this style fly fishing and that which requires false casts, I don't get too bothered by it. I do however sometimes dye the front tapers of my lines to this day.
Ard
I'm sure this is true in some situations. On the other hand, you can take a brown/green sharpie and color the last several feet of your line if you want right?
I like the usual bright yellow lines because I feel that any possible spooking I might be doing is probably outweighed by how much more easily I can watch my backcast and loop unroll. I also often use the end of a floating line as a good "indicator" for sunfish.
Other bright colors probably work fine too -- but by all means, this is just personal preference. Work on your cast first and foremost -- that's way more important than fly line color.
I own $9 fly lines and $75 fly lines, and some in between. The coating is a bit better on the higher-end lines and you can get some specialized tapers (I like the Rio trout LT for example for soft hackles), but for 90% of my fishing I don't care which line I'm using -- the $9 generic WF lines are just fine. If pressed, I could probably do everything fine with the $9 WF lines.
I don't think the price you pay on lines will really have much affect on how many fish you catch so long as you cast well and make good presentations, but I suppose it can affect your personal enjoyment -- and that's important for sure.
Beware of one thing: When learning, you'll be tempted to think "this rod/line/reel/etc. sucks" and then a few weeks of more practicing you'll come back to it and say "oh, I guess it's pretty good"
. At least I did.
