Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

This can be a weird time of year to fly fish. You know you are not alone.

From now until the first week of December (or January, depending on where you live in the state), there will be a lot of other people in the woods.

Unfortunately, some of them are armed and dangerous. They call themselves hunters – but they are not.

Almost 99.9 percent of all hunters are credible sportsman in every sense of the word.

A genuine hunter knows what he is shooting at before he pulls the trigger, but every year we suffer too many accident and fatalities by irresponsible hunters who shoot before they look.

Unlike a lot of anglers, most hunters eat what they kill, and they give what they don’t to Hunters for the Hungry. This season, Virginia’s Hunters for the Hungry hopes to receive, process, and distribute 250,000 pounds of venison to the less fortunate across Virginia.

In addition to feeding the poor, all hunters do the Commonwealth a service by controlling a white-tail population that is increasing beyond control.

But like the fisherman who litters, or poaches, hunters are not immune to actions of the very few that can ruin the experience for everybody.

Already this season, four hunters have been accidentally shot… not counting the heartbreaking story of the 5-year-old little girl who was shot and killed by a loaded gun.

Why? Because “buck fever” is very powerful emotion.

The sound of rustling leaves at dawn or dusk is “code red” to a hunter. After sitting motionless, often cold and alone, intently listening for hours, the crunch of rustling leaves is THE sound that jacks you up.

When you hear it, you know it has to be a deer. You check your safety, quietly raise your rifle and get ready.

Sadly, and dangerously, this is the exact sound we fly fishermen make as we scuffle out of the woods at dark.

For this reason, it makes good sense to wear blaze orange.

Whether deer can see blaze orange remains something of a debate. What we do know for sure is hunters can see blaze orange.

A landmark study conducted at the University of Georgia confirmed that deer possess two (rather than three as in humans) types of cones that limit color vision.

The cone that deer lack is the "red" cone, or the one sensitive to long wavelength colors such as red and orange. This suggests that wearing bright colors while hunting does not affect hunting success.

This does not mean that these colors are invisible to deer, but rather that they are perceived differently.

Deer are essentially red-green color blind, like some humans. Their color vision is limited to the short (blue) and middle (green) wavelength colors.

As a result, deer likely can distinguish blue from red, but not green from red, or orange from red. Therefore, it appears that hunters would be equally suited wearing green, red or orange clothing but perhaps slightly disadvantaged wearing blue.

The results regarding the ultraviolet capabilities of deer were equally fascinating.

Study results confirmed that deer lack a UV filter in their eye and that their vision in the shorter wavelengths was much better than ours. Deer also were found to have a relatively high sensitivity (good vision) in the short wavelengths where UV brighteners and dyes are active.

While not entirely conclusive, this finding suggests that deer are capable of seeing some UV light and that fabrics containing UV dyes and brighteners may be more visible to deer than to humans.

It is impossible to dispute that a sportsman wearing blaze orange is invisible to another hunter.

Any safety conscious hunter wears orange in the woods, and we should, too.

The gents at Whitetail Outfitters in Riner agreed. Every hunter I talked to there last Saturday wears blaze orange. “They don’t leave home without it.”

They also said, they never drink and hunt, and this cannot be understated or laughed off. They also thought a hat was most important because that is what they see first in a moving deer.

The guys at Whitetail make their living on deer season and they were all about safety.

A hat is key, but so is a vest.

If you want a vest that has function and color, I suggest the Simms G3 vest. Simms is one the most, if not the most recognized names in high-end waders and vest.

The G3 guide vest has several handy features that make it a lot more than an orange vest. Among them are vented shoulders, water repellant collar, magnetic buckle and zipper closure with whistle pull out, a magnetic tool catcher below retractors, thermo-laminated tippet pockets with a zipper closure, and molded foam pockets.

For color alone, any discount department store will have plenty of blaze orange to wear.

With these cool nights and bright afternoons making for optimum water temperatures, this is a wonderful time to be in the water. Another reason this is such a sublime time to fly fish is hunting season puts most of the pressure in the woods and takes it off of the water.

Just as I was leaving the creek Saturday, I waved to a pick up loaded with orange. One look and you knew these guys were serious hunters … and the only thing in danger was the deer.