A while back, I
posted about my first experience of tying with
Cohen's Attractor Tails. To summarize, they come white but you can color them with a sharpie and put them on the back of a larger fly pattern. A couple of weeks ago while I was bass fishing at some farm ponds, I was able to throw one of the flies I made and wanted to pass along what I experienced and subsequently learned.
Pros
These things put a lot of vibration in the water and provide a lot of action. It is hard to create this sort of turbulence with conventional materials and the bass seemed to key on that as well. I decided to key on bass in farm ponds because the bass I fish for seem to respond to motion and action more than anything else. On spinning tackle, I usually do pretty well with spinnerbaits and buzzbaits so trying this tail out on a fly made sense. The water was especially muddy on the day that I fished it and the bass seemed to need to "feel" that something was heading their way. However, since the water was so murky, I wasn't able to get a perfect look at the action that was produced but the fly put out a pretty good wake.
On a somewhat insignificant note, the fly I was using sounded like a weed wacker buzzing past your head when casting. I didn't think about the fact that the disturbance that the tail would produce in the water would be compatible to the vibration in the air, but it got my attention pretty quick. It was actually kind of fun and funny. I also learned that you can use this sound to your advantage. If the fly didn't produce the customary sound, then chances were that the tail had gotten wrapped around the hook and you needed to fix it.
The final positive note is that you
GET to paint them and make them look however you want. I thought this was a lot of fun and liked experimenting with some different colors and patterns. I tried to include some patterns that might get some attention and "flicker" as the fly gets pulled through the water and my favorite patters so far are the yellow with red & black dots and the green with black bars.
Cons
There aren't many bad things I have to say about this thing, but one thing I would mention is that sometimes the tail gets wrapped around the hook. With as long as the tail is and with a hook with a wide gap, it is to be expected but that doesn't make it fun to fix. Another thing is that there aren't a lot of patterns that incorporate this material so you kind of have to make things up as you go. Finally, one of the previous positives could end up being a negative here. If you don't want to color your tails, then you
HAVEto do it rather than
GETTING to do it. That might not be something you want to fuss with and might frustrate you. On the other hand, you could just leave it white which might work too.
In Closing
I highly suggest giving this tail a try if you are going after bass, hybrids/wipers, pike, musky, or any other species that likes a lot of action and movement. The tails come in sizes that range from small to extra large and are easy to incorporate into your fly. I hope that other folks that are more creative and skilled at tying than me are able to come up with some good patterns so we can share ideas. Lastly, in my opinion, the tail getting hook wrapped is a small problem if it produces strikes. So why not give these things a try and see what you can come up with. I would love to see any patterns that you create and are proud of so as usual, feel free to shoot me an email at
showmeflyguy@gmail.com or post on the
Facebook page.
