 |
|
FATAL
ATTRACTION
by
Dan Blanton
 These
days it seems that the vast majority of fly anglers are
falling all over themselves extolling the virtues of
working the top. Bass-buggers scream about the thrill of
old bucket mouth humping up the lilly pads as it surges
for a perfectly tied deer-hair frog; trouters swoon at
the thought of a 20-incher sipping a size 28 whatever, a
fly so small I can't even see one with 8 X 25
binockulars; and I have to admit that a chromer,
15-pound, summer steelhead boiling a vortex large enough
to sink a float-tuber, under my size 10 Humpy, thirteen
consecutive times before I hooked it, was enough to
almost make me pee in my waders once.
A huge number of top-water devotees will even
go so far as to pronounce that anything hooked on a
surface fly is profoundly worth more in all terms, than
one stuck on a sub-surface creation; the deeper the fly
in the water column, the less important the fish, and so
on. I've even fished places in B.C. for steelhead where
some folks conspired to pressure everyone to fish only
dry - admonishing those who dared reach into a fly box
for something that would scratch bottom boulders.
Well, I guess I was just born on the wrong
side of the piscatorial tracks, when it comes to fly
fishing. I have always preferred fishing wet over dry -
particularly when it involved streamer and bucktail
fishing - my personal favorite fly type. And, I simply
don't buy the notion that a fish taken on top is better
than one that eats a fly fished deep enough to give it
the bends. Any fish taken on any fly is a good one in my
book!
 I
first started my fly fishing career nailing big bluegills
and largemouth bass in California's Santa Clara Valley,
where there were myriad farm ponds and lakes teeming with
the critters. I quickly migrated to the coastal streams
where winter-run steelhead became my quarry; and the
trout country of the high Sierras was part of my home
turf, too - not to mention salt water and of course, my
beloved San Francisco bay and its wonderful striper
fishery. And while I did fish the top a lot, I quickly
discovered that the big fish, the really big fish, liked
eating other fish, often nearly as big as they were. I
guess you can say that I became a big fish addict, a
"Head Hunter" as one old fishing buddy once
described me. It became obvious to me that streamers,
bucktails and wet flies is what it took to get the
attention of the heavy weights, particularly if the water
had color, or if I was fishing during low light, or
before or after major hatches if I was trout fishing.
To this day, I still prefer tossing streamers,
bucktails and wets (including nymphs) a vast majority of
the time. And when it comes to trout fishing the first
thing I tie on, is a big flashy streamer or bucktail
(often as large as a 3/0, salt water pattern),
particularly during periods of low light. And, Spring and
Fall will often find me tantilizing double digit browns
and rainbows with 3/0 Sar-Mul-Macs, in places like
California's Twin Lakes.
Most of my baitfish simulating trout and bass
flies aren't that big, though, ranging in size from eight
to two, usually tied on two, three or four-X long hooks.
One of my absolute favorite patterns is one I developed a
number of years ago, an attractor style that proved so
deadly on trout and bass, that my wife, Cindy named it
the "Fatal Attraction". It indeed, lives up to
its name.
I guess you might say that my Fatal Attraction
series is my answer to a hardware angler's spinner, the
likes of a Rooster Tail or a Martin Panther, which are
deadly on all manner of finny critters when in the hands
of a talented spin-fisher. Trout and bass are drawn from
great distances by the tantilizing, flashing, humming
blades of these spinners; and the first thing any lure
must do before a fish will eat it, is to get the
critter's attention. The second thing the moniker must
do, is to dupe the fish into perceiving it as the genuine
item - meal time! The Fatal Attraction fills both of
these requirements, and then some!
I developed the first Fatal Attraction for a
trip to Alaska. I needed a small, sparse but flashy fry
fly that might suggest any number of small minnows or
salmon fry. Now I'm not going to try to convince you that
this bug is a major development in fly design. You'd see
through that in a micro second. Indeed the Fatal
Attraction is very basic, much like a standard steelhead
wet fly, with a little Lefty's Deceiver thrown in. What
set this fly apart from others at the time, was its long
tail fashioned entirely from many strands of silver
Flashabou - nothing else. This glittery, pulsing tail was
my fly's spinner blade...
I first got the idea from my old friend, Al
Perryman. Al and I were fishing for King salmon on
Oregon's, Chetco river. We were thrashing Morrison hole
to no avail, when Al tied on a Blue comet, roll-cast it
behind my boat and asked what I thought of his new
version of an old fly. The first thing that caught my eye
was the fly's tail - nothing but 15 to 20 strands of blue
Flashabou dancing enticingly in the current. "I like
it! I responded. "Great idea - looks deadly!"
I don't think Al took a fish on his flash tail
comet that day, but I adapted the idea to another old
standard salmon fly, the Ted Linder Special, which I
re-named the Flash Linder. I slammed the salmon on it a
few days later when rains drove the river up making a
bigger, brighter fly necessary. I also devastated B.C.
steelhead on the same pattern a few seasons later, and I
am now never without out a variety of Flash Linders. It
made sense to me then, that if a flash tail could so
improve old, standard comet style flies, it couldn't help
but do the same for any basic streamer or bucktail.
My first Fatal Attraction was what I now call
the "natural", a simple silver and white,
weighted streamer tied on a size 8, Partridge streamer
hook. It suggests any of a variety of small minnows. It
was deadly in Alaska, and even more so the following
season in California's lake Britton (the second testing),
were my son, Rich and I caught and released nearly 300
brown trout ranging in size from 12- to 20-inches in
seven days. The water in the lake was somewhat turbid
from an algea bloom, and the fly's flash tail made a huge
difference when compared to several other well-know
favorites.
I now tie the Fatal Attraction in nine basic
colors, one or more of which will garnish a solid strike
just about anywhere, under any condition, for a bevy of
species ranging from panfish to bass, trout, steelhead
and many others. They include: the natural; the dark
sunfish; the light sunfish; little rainbow; and brown,
black, olive, yellow and chartreuse minnows. Of course
this is a style of fly which can be tied in a melange of
color combinations to meet just about any need. In fact,
I have modified my King Harbor Bucktail, bonito fly,
making it a bead-eyed Fatal Attraction which is even more
deadly on bonito than my old standard.
Of all the above, my favorites are the
natural, the dark and light sunfish (deadly on largemouth
bass or trout feeding on sunfish) and the little rainbow.
 While they can be presented on just
about any fly line, depending upon water conditions and
the depth of feeding fish, when working Fatal Attractions
in lakes, I almost always choose to use an intermediate
to fast-sinking, shooting head in order to cover the
water more efficiently. And, I suspect the new, clear,
mono line by Scientific Anglers would also be an
excellent choice, particularly if made into a shooting
head. In weedy lakes, like California's Martis lake or
Crowley lake, I enjoy huge success by fishing from my
8-foot pram, anchoring so I can cast parallel to the weed
edges and break lines, covering an incredible amount of
water from one position. I count the fly down to the
level of the fish and then retrieve it with erratic,
6-inch to one to two-foot long pulls, with lots of pauses
in between. Strikes are usually violent, wrist-wrenchers.
I suggest you tie up a
bunch of Fatal Attractions and give them an honest try. I
have no doubt that they'll markedly increase you streamer
fishing success, engendering tremendous confidence while
simultaneously establishing a permanent home in your
streamer fly box.
 
|
