Attractor patterns?

[DWSmith 0]

What determines an attractor pattern and what is its purpose?  (Yeah, yeah, I know.  I'm just a dumb beginner.  )  I would think that all patterns should be designed to attract fish so aren't they all attractor patterns?

[flytire 0]

An attractor fly is any pattern designed to grab the attention of nearby fish. In most cases, angler’s use this term when referring to large, highly-visible dry flies. Though, any fly featuring bright, or flashy characteristics — including nymphs and streamers — is technically an attractor.

 

https://youtu.be/pBUMH87YkRM

[SilverCreek 0]

An attractor pattern is a fly that looks nothing a real food item. Therefore it is not "imitative."

In my opinion there are two types of attractor patterns.

The first example is a Royal Wulff Dry Fly.

It is a bushy fly with a gaudy red floss in the middle that grabs your attention. It is one of the most popular dry fly attractor patterns.

The second kind of attactor is something that looks or acts like it could be alive.

A wooly bugger is that kind of attractor.

The marabou tail moves and pulses like a living thing when the fly is stripped through the water. The hackle at the front pushes water and creates vibrations in the water that a predator fish can feel. Predator fish can locate prey by sensing the vibrations in the water column. The wooly bugger imitates nothing in particular but can be taken for many living things like a leech, a bait fish, and even a worm.

A Prince Nymph is an attractor pattern. It does not imitate a particular nymph.

[DWSmith 0]

I watched the video.

Is an attractor primarily used as the first fly when having a trailing fly attached to it or can you be fishing only 1 fly and it has a bit of extra flash that makes it an attractor pattern?

[RickZieger 0]

The person who introduced me to fly tying said any fly that did not represent an insect or other food item was an attractor fly.

 

Rick 

 

[DWSmith 0]

Okay, I get what you're all saying but this raises more questions for me so I'll just silently/gracefully bow out now.

Thanks again guys!

[SilverCreek 0]

1 hour ago, DWSmith said:

I watched the video.

Is an attractor primarily used as the first fly when having a trailing fly attached to it or can you be fishing only 1 fly and it has a bit of extra flash that makes it an attractor pattern?

No to your first question "Is an attractor primarily used as the first fly when having a trailing fly attached to it."

An attractor can be used as the first fly BUT that is NOT its primary use or purpose.

Using "flashy" materials like tinsel is present in some attractor flies but adding flash to a fly does not necessarily make the fly an attractor. For example, midge pupa imitations sometimes have some flash to imitate an air bubble that causes them to rise.

http://www.mtfa-springfield.org/resources/fly-tying-recipes-patterns/green-gilled-tubing-midge-air-bubble/

https://www.umpqua.com/chironofla-midge/

[niveker 0]

1 hour ago, DWSmith said:

Is an attractor primarily used as the first fly when having a trailing fly attached to it

It can be but not always.  You can tie an attractor on solo when you hit a stream with no observable hatch activity.  You can tie a representative dry fly on with that fly's nymph trailing below, neither would be considered an attractor.  .

 

1 hour ago, DWSmith said:

can you be fishing only 1 fly and it has a bit of extra flash that makes it an attractor pattern?

 Yes, but just because a fly has flash doesn't make it an attractor.

[niveker 0]

SilverCreek was quick on the draw.  

[SilverCreek 0]

I think there are flies that split the difference between imitative and attractors.

For example, is the muddler minnow an attractor or an imitation of a minnow?

Is it a dry fly or a streamer?

 

I believe is that the muddler minnow is 3 kinds of flies. It can be fished as a dry fly attractor (when there is no hopper hatch), or as a grasshopper imitation, or as a streamer imitating a sculpin.

 

[Jaydub 0]

An attractor pattern could be any pattern that attracts the fish's attention through color, flash or movement or ..., but does not intentiionally imitate a particular food form. 

There are patterns that don't imitate a particular food form, but may have the impression of mulitple different food forms. Take the Prince Nymph for example. It doesn't look quite like a Stonefly nymph or a Caddis larva, but the fish might take it as either. Polly Rosborough had what he called "food nymphs" that simply looked like food, but not anything specific. His Causal Dress is an example. It has a slight bit of movement but is dull colored without a hint of flash. Is it an attractor? 

 

 

[gadabout 0]

Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of “attractor patterns”.  The fact that a fly doesn’t look like a natural insect to us, doesn’t really tell us what the fish thinks it is.  After all, a Hendrickson dry fly doesn’t really look like a Hendrickson natural, but apparently it does to a trout.

[SilverCreek 0]

It depends on the pattern of the Hendrickson dry fly.

A Catskill Hendrickson pattern may not

 

But a Compardun Hendrickson does look more like the natural

 

[DWSmith 0]

12 hours ago, gadabout said:

Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of “attractor patterns”.  The fact that a fly doesn’t look like a natural insect to us, doesn’t really tell us what the fish thinks it is.  After all, a Hendrickson dry fly doesn’t really look like a Hendrickson natural, but apparently it does to a trout.

👍

A predatory fish attacks what it thinks may be food.  I don't know what a Hendrickson dry fly looks like to a trout other than a potential source of food.  If you have something on the end of your line that looks at least somewhat similar to what the fish has been feeding on you may dupe the fish into taking it quicker.  It helps.  But if something on the end of your line looks nothing like what the fish is currently feeding on but he thinks it may be food he will still take it.

I've seen some strange non-food items in the stomach contents of fish, frogs, snakes, and others.

I've always been convinced that you could super glue a pebble to a hook and fish with it to catch a hungry fish.  People have caught fish on a bare hook and I'm not referring to snagging.

I think all artificial lures are attractors but that's just me.

[SilverCreek 0]

Try fishing some places where the trout become very selective like The Henry's Fork of the Snake or Silver Creek, both in Idaho.

The fish become super selective.

https://www.flyfisherman.com/editorial/10-tips-silver-creek/456064

"Flies for Success

For effective dry-fly fishing on Silver Creek, you must have realistic flies. This is not the place for attractors and heavily dressed patterns. Most of the drys I fish are based on René Harrop’s CDC patterns, Bob Quigley’s Hackle Stackers, and Shane Stalcup’s creations. All of these patterns are highly imitative, sparse, have the proper silhouette, and land gently on the water. By simply changing style and color, you can use these styles of flies to imitate virtually any mayfly"