Attractor patterns look like food to a trout when they are presented properly to a hungry fish. The patterns are often big, bright and/or flashy. They float high, sink fast or move lots of water to attract - there's that name again - a strike from a fish. Many patterns use lots of different materials and colors. In my opinion the contrast in colors and material types probably makes the flies more visible to fish. Perhaps hungry trout focus on one portion of the fly that looks like food and eat the entire bug anyway. Who knows? Who cares? Attractor patterns work!

It may seem that gaudy or fancy flies are tied more for the angler's than the fish's delight, but that's just not the case. Historically, many flies were called fancy flies, and were tied with bright colors and lots of flash. Our British and Scottish ancestors were quite creative on this front. (Perhaps fly fishing was their way out of the straightjacket of the tyranny of the immediate, too?) The flash came from shiny tinsel materials made of gold or silver and the colors from brightly dyed seal fur, silk and natural bird feathers from far off places on the globe. Today, tiers use what's readily available to concoct fly inventions....Continued