The Added Invisibility of Umpqua's New Pink Deceiver HD Big Game Fluoro

Fluorocarbon has a light refraction index of 1.42, which is close to the light refraction index of water. In simpler terms, they both bend light in similar ways. Umpqua’s new Deceiver HD Big Game Fluoro Pink, is a different color, but it still has the same light refraction index, so it bends light in exactly the same way as other fluorocarbons. However, not all wavelengths of color pass through water equally. Reflected blue light passes through water best, green light is second, yellow light is third, followed by orange light and red light. The low end of the color spectrum at 380 nm travels through water best, and colors at the high end of the spectrum—like red and pink—basically disappear in deeper water.

In other words, Deceiver HD Big Game Fluoro Pink offers all the advantages of premium fluorocarbon but goes a little further in terms of added invisibility. When standard fluorocarbon gets scratched or nicked, light gets refracted and Umpqua Deceiver HD Big Game Fluoro Pink reflected in all directions. If you look at a fluorocarbon tippet after it’s been abused by the mouth of a striped bass for instance, you’ll see it’s abraded to the point where it looks white in the water. When Umpqua’s new fluoro gets nicked up, it still has that pink color going for it, and it doesn’t stand out in the water nearly as much. The new pink fluorocarbon comes in spools of 25 yards and in 8-pound-test up to 40-pound-test. The 10-pound-test has a diameter of .011" which equates to 0X.

Although the idea of pink fluorocarbon came from the world of conventional big game fishing—think about billfish and their great vision—I used this tippet with great success on the mostly white sand flats of Crooked and Acklins islands in the Bahamas, and that pink tippet simply disappeared (to my eyes) over the white sand background. In this environment, light pink is a natural color, and a pink Gotcha was the number one fly during week where I landed dozens of bonefish wading in ankle-deep water, and many more than that from the boat. Striped bass on Cape Cod also seemed to ignore this tippet, both on white sand beaches and in churning rips with squid and diving birds.

$15 | umpqua.com

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