What's Under Your Floss?

A recent Speypages thread concerning floss had the usual array of differing ideas on how to apply floss, and more importantly for the purposes of this post, what underlayment for floss bodies and butts gives the best results.  "Best results" usually meaning "most satisfying to the tyer's eye".   But occasionally, and hopefully, meaning "best for fooling fish."   Well, the old researcher in me got the best of me, and I decided to try a little test:  put the three most commonly mentioned underlayments individually on hooks and wrap with (in this instance) my favorite floss, Gordon Griffiths.  I used flourescent orange and green (click on the pic to supersize the image):

The top hook has a silver mylar base, the middle a white thread base, and the bottom hook has a black thread base.  Dry, they all look pretty much the same to my eye.

So next, I soaked all three hooks in a cup of tapwater for a few minutes.  The results:

Pretty obviously, the floss with the mylar underlayment really "shines" over the flosses underlain with thread.  For my money, floss butts and bodies create a "target of opportunity" for the fish you are after; might as well give them as glowing a target as you can!