Attractor Tails

Recently I purchased some attractor tails that are made my Hareline from Rainbow Fly Shop.  I had seen some flies on the internet that had these types of tails and I was curious about how I could use them.  Specifically, I saw some musky flies that had been made by Tony Sandrone of Nightmare Musky Flies.  While I don't come close to having the skills that Tony has, the tail he was using interested me and I wanted to see if I could incorporate it into some of my patterns or create something entirely different.  I had another purpose in mind other than experimentation.  The bass that I fish for in farm ponds seem to respond to vibrations in the water and in one pond in particular that is especially murky, the bass seem to key on movement.  I have caught fish on different streamer patterns at these ponds but I almost always seem to do better with a lure on conventional tackle, such as a spinnerbait, that can cause a lot more disturbance in the water.  My thought was that the tail will act like a grub tail that you might find on conventional tackle and would create a larger agitation in the water and trigger more strikes.  Now this is all in theory but will be put into practice this spring and that can't come soon enough.

After tying a few patterns, it also donned on me that these might make excellent flies to throw at hybrids/wipers.  My buddy Gary from Gary's Guide Service fishes with a similar grub tail on large bucktail jigs when trolling for wipers on Truman.  He does REALLY well employing this technique and what I was able to produce has many similarities to what Gary uses.

So below is what I came up with and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.  I do however see some potential flaws or problems.  I am a little concerned that the tail, which is made of a thin leather-like material, will get fouled in the hook causing it to not behave in the manner that it is intended.  In response to that problem, I started attaching marabou tails to some of the flies in an effort to kind of "direct" the tail backwards and keep it out of interfering with the hook.  I am also a little concerned with how the tail is going to behave after being colored.  I used sharpies to color them and I noticed afterwards that the material seemed to contract and became tighter.  I was able to stretch the material back out but I hope I didn't cause the tail to lose its action.