What color is OLIVE exactly?

[brucerducer]

.

When I buy Olive Thread or Marabou at the shops, I get Green right?

but last night thumbing through "Essential Trout Flies" by Dave Hughes, it seems that every Wet Fly he refers to as Olive, looks Brown or Tan.

I thought I knew what Olive was, but now I'm mixed up.

So if the book says Olive Hare's Ear or Olive Emerger, do you make it Greenish or Brownish? :doh:

Gee whiz but I feel dumb today. Heh heh!

 

[mcnerney]

I think the issue is there are a lot of slightly different shades of olive.
Here is what Wikipedia says:
Olive is a kind of muddy green color. In actuality, it is really a shade of dark yellow (when gray or black is added to yellow, the various shades of the color olive are produced). Some dark shades of olive can also be made by mixing a darker color (like brown) with green.

The color of old U.S. Army field uniforms is a shade of olive called olive drab (shown below) that was used because it was hard to see against trees and grass.

The most common place you will find the color olive is on an olive. It is the color of the outside of an olive. An olive's center is usually brown or sometimes orange or red.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_(color)

Hope that helps.

 

[flytire]

wait til we get into "blue dun" color

 

[Rip Tide]

I'm pretty sure that the term "olive" when pertaining to the mayfly was imagined by the same fishing writers who fished in "gin clear" water :icon_mrgr

 

[Liphookedau]

Rip.
Very good Proof of The Olive Colour.
Even though I've eaten my share of Olives over The Years The Colour variation,as with all The other Colours many of which we all have,goes from A Black Olive to a very light Olive Colour.
I'm not over keen on Martinis I prefer Beer Wines & a Wee Drop of The Good Spirit.
Another thing over The years I've bought heaps of Olive Pheasant Rump Feathers for Mrs Simpson's & other Flies very seldom have The Colours been an exact match.
Brian

 

[darwin]

Olive has got to be the most confusing noun/adjective as related to fly tying colors! Most of us automatically think of an earthy green to be the color of olive, but if you consider the shades that the olive fruit can be the variations is numerous, anywhere from tan to green to purple to black. Add in the shades of olive that the Irish have for fly tying materials and it get more confusing. (light olive, medium olive, dark olive,green olive, sooty olive, dirty olive, black olive, golden olive, copper olive, brown olive, Donegal olive, Ballinderry olive, orange olive and then the mayfly shades might add another dozen)
As there are no real standards the colors from one company to another can be different, I have accepted the idea that the name of a color is usually just an indication and not an exact science.

 

[brucerducer]

Okay Guys, thanks. So when they say Olive, they are referring to a Generalized Spectrum of Colors from a Green to a Brown. Got it!
:thumbsupu

 

[flytire]

olive is the color of the bugs in your area

example: not all blue wing olives are the same color around the world

 

[silver creek]

Have you ever wondered why the adams is the most popular dry fly pattern?

I think it is because the body of the fly is gray. Gray is a combination of white and black. We think of white is a color, but really it the combination of the entire visible wave lengths. White is a reflection all wavelengths. Black is the absence of any reflection so it is not a true color. Black is the absence of a color and white is the presence of all visible colors.

Why then is the most popular dry fly gray instead of olive, brown, tan, yellow or any of the other mayfly colors? How many common mayflies are actually gray in color?

I think the adams imitates many mayflies because color is the least important of the 4 features of a fly. AND the underside of a floating fly is shaded. I think gray can mimic the color saturation of the mayfly color the fish see, especially the olive and browns. So if you don't have the right "shade" of olive, there are fish that will be fooled by the same "shade" of grey.

 

[bigjim5589]

How about chartreuse? That's another shade of color that there seems to be much disagreement about.

I agree with flytire's assessment, except that same reasoning can be applied to most anything that fish eat. Match the hatch! I stopped trying to match specific shades of colors a long time ago. I found as Silver Creek stated, that most of the time, exact shades or even specific colors made no difference to the fish. I've seen fish get picky, and not just trout, but cannot say with 100 percent certainty it was necessarily due to color.

I've gotten to the point, that when I select a particular color, such as olive, I end up with various materials that cover the range of shades, which could be black olive, to brown olive to the lightest pale green. So, I tie with what I like the appearance of, and many flies of the various shades, ( such as Woolly Buggers, you can't have enough of them) so I have it all covered.

I'm also not a big fan of humogeneous color when it comes to materials such a dubbing. I've yet to see any insect or other critter that fish eat, upon close inspection, that was a single, homogeneous color. I much prefer to mix & match, which IMO looks more natural.

If you're dyeing your own materials, try dyeing a white feather & a grizzly feather the same color. You may get the same color, but the grizzly feather will appear to be a different shade. At least it looks that way to me. If you dye over white, or over something like a natural red/ brown hackle, you get two different shades. The possibilities are endless what you might end up with using a single color dye, such as olive, but different natural colors of materials. (hackle, hair, etc.)

So, stop worrying so much about it, pick a few shades you like,and tie with it. You'll catch fish with whatever you choose!

When the fish get picky, which is not usually too often, I can usually show them something they'll eat.

 

[brucerducer]

Well BigJim, get a load of this. Ain't this Scientifical and all?

.
Chartreuse (color) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

[Rip Tide]

Well BigJim, get a load of this. Ain't this Scientifical and all?
Chartreuse (color) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Not to be confused with electric lime :wavetowel
(which is the REAL chartreuse in my book)

 

[silver creek]

Years ago Gary published and sold the BCS (Borger Color System). He discovered that the fly color does not have to be spot on to fool fish; and that by having a color chart that is "close enough", an angler and fly tier could functionally cover the colors of the hatches.

Gudebrod sold their tying thread in BCS colors.

Here is my BCS system. In addition to colors, the data pages allow you to enter insect stage, measurements and colors for just about every part of an insect.

There are regional differences in the color of identical insect hatches, and the color of the insect can change as the hatch progresses from week to week. So precise color matches vary by location and the date of the hatch.

The BCS is no longer sold, but a curious angler can use regular paint chips to do the same task.

 

[bigjim5589]

:lol2: Bruce, I've read that before. Thanks for the link! :thumbsupu

Rip, the more I look at that, the more it changes color!

You guys also have to consider that since we're viewing these colors via a computer monitor or other electronic device, the color shade may look a bit different to each of us. That's another problem with attempting to show colors of flies & trying to get exact shades. Even photo's don't show exact shades.

I like all the shades of "chartreuse" for tying but tend to favor a slightly greener shade of what Rip posted. I like the fluorescent chartreuse color shades the most for flies or lures.

He discovered that the fly color does not have to be spot on to fool fish; and that by having a color chart that is "close enough", an angler and fly tier could functionally cover the colors of the hatches.

It appears to me that most of us agree with this idea. However it's not confined to flies & Borger's system was not the only one to do this. Roland Martin promoted the Color C-Lector system for lures many years ago. The premise was similar to the Borger system that a lure color could be selected that was "close enough" for the conditions. The difference is that it's based on water clarity & other conditions rather than the prey color as would be the case with insect hatches.

Spike-It, a company that makes dyes for plastic baits & plastic baits, markets a Color C-Lector system now that uses the colors that they produce in their dye & plastics line.

 

[caseywise]

olive is any mixture of brown tones and green tones.
lighten or darken with black or white, results are endless

casey

 

[random user]

Olive, (like dun) is one of those things you go after with #12 trap shot and a 22" improved cylinder barrel, because there is no hitting it with a scoped riffle.

For me, "Olive" is all the murk between green mixed with tan, yellow and brown.
"Dun" is all the murk between grey, mixed with blue, brown and tan.

 

[wichaka]

Looking over photos of the real fly, it shows shades of not only olive (green), but shows the fly in shades of brown and dull yellow.

Hard to call it a BWO, with the color variations. Guess that's why PMD and some mahogany are needed as well.

I have Hughes "Essential Flies" book, and the blue wing olive in the dry fly section looks like a PMD. Could be a typo though...