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Fishing Attractor Patterns
by Dale Darling
How to Fly Fish Using Large,
Bushy Flies!
As summer approaches, my mind turns to fishing with
attractor patterns.
And just what, might we ask, is an attractor pattern? Is
it used to catch the fisherman - they are pretty, after
all - or do they actually fool
fish?
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.
 When
Lee Wulff presented his Royal Wulff to friends they
asked what it imitated in nature. The fly is red, white,
green, brown and black! Lee is said to have made the
comment that the fly didn't, in fact, look like anything
in particular, but was more like strawberry shortcake:
the fish ate it because it looked like dessert! He must
be right because that pattern continues to fool trout! I
fish them at every opportunity.
Many attractor patterns are excellent when folks are
getting started in fly fishing because the flies are
visible on the water. White wings on large,
high-floating flies often make the fly easier to see
than match-the-hatch fakes. Bead headed nymphs sink and
stay on the bottom longer allowing a better drift to the
fish, and gaudy streamer patterns move lots of water to
attract prowling lunkers looking for a big bite of chow.
Flies come in several styles and designs, varying from
exact to suggestive imitations. Exact imitations, which
usually take a long time to tie and are, therefore,
expensive to buy, look very nice and will hook fish, but
so will suggestive patterns that just look like trout
food. The key to successful fly fishing is putting a fly
in the right spot and making it drift in or on a stream
or sit on or in a lake in a manner that represents the
food organisms trout are eating. Size, shape and
movement are usually more important than color when
selecting a fly.
When fishing any fly be sure to rig to make the cast and
allow the fly to drift, swim or float properly. Begin by
dividing the size of the fly by 3 and using that tippet
size to attach the fly. When fishing a size #12 Royal
Wulff, for example, use a tapered leader and 4X tippet
material. (If smaller tippet is used the fly may
"helicopter", twisting through the air while making a
mess and weakening leader and tippet material. Not
good.) If the fly is designed to float try using more
tippet length to get a good drift. When fishing a fly
that sinks or swims - a nymph or wet - just use enough
to get the fly down and keep it there. Many times this
is a trial and error issue. Keep trying, then remember
and use what works.
I enjoy fishing Attractor Patterns to search for hungry
- or perhaps greedy - fish. I fly fish with the credo
that fish want to get fat, that they are impulsive and
opportunistic, and that when they are eating they'll eat
a fake. That gives me confidence to cast a fly to likely
looking spots - those are the places I've seen or hooked
fish in the past - and to fish the fly.
When water in streams is higher than it might be later
in the summer, use larger attractor patterns to tempt
trout. As the season moves ahead and water levels drop
switch to smaller patterns, but keep on fishing
attractors.
One year on a local stream two friends and I began our
season as the ice was melting. It was mid-February and
ice still lined the edges of the river. The water was
low, cold and clear. Walking the bank we noticed a
lovely brown trout hanging just beneath an ice shelf. I
looked at my friends and asked them to hook the fish.
And they tried, using small nymphs and so on. The fish
did not move.
 I
asked them to stand aside as I tied on a size #18 Royal
Coachman Trude, which is one of my favorite patterns to
fish. On the first drift the brown slid out from under
the ice and ate the fly. All three of us whooped and
laughed - the fish wasn't quite as enamored with the
process as far as we could tell. We took a picture of
the fish and made a deposit in our memory banks.
At the end of the season on the same stream, one of the
same friends and I were fishing the same stream. The
water was low and clear. It was windy and falling leaves
were dropping on the water and drifting along like so
many small dinghies floating gently down the stream.
Life was such a dream - for the leaves, that is. I'd
hooked a few fish that day on small dries and decided I
was going to make the last cast of the season. I tied on
a size #16 Royal Coachman Trude and cast to a pocket. On
the first drift a lovely rainbow rose confidently and
ate the fly. I shook my head, smiled and took an extra
moment looking at this rainbow treasure of my trout
stream, recalling the lovely brown of February while
etching this memory beside it in my memory banks for
further review during the winter. The harmony of that
fishing season is music to my ears.
Fishing is fun. Fooling trout with attractor flies is
too. Please, go fishing soon.
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