Importance of "Mocking"

[iacas]

I see flies tied that look very much like bait. "Match the hatch" they say.

Yet, today, I caught fish and saw fish caught on artificial lures that really look nothing like actual fish. Who's ever seen a chartreuse fish? Or the ever-popular red-head/white-bodied fish? Purple? Jigs? Spoons are just a silver or gold flash, after all. And how many worms (popular for bass and all) just fall randomly through the water?

As a kid, my dad and I tied flies that looked cool to us. They'd catch fish just the same as the others - and often times more fish because a chartreuse fly was easier to see, and thus it became easier to see the fish take the fly.

So - serious question - why does it matter if a fly mimics a baitfish? The fish don't seem to care. Is it just the for the art of fly tying that we try to replicate baitfish, or do they get hit harder or more often because they look similar?

[striblue]

Those are good questions which I ask myself many times. I don't have an answer..But sometimes I think that fish are more eager from an attractor pattern and movement that gives life than they are on shape and color. I think there are so many factors that come into play in various situations... I have been in situations and I think a lot of guys here have been in situations where a sand eel imitation will only work and the fish will ignore baitfish and vice versa...or the times when They will swim right over a life like crab on a flat...but if there is a school of fish swimming over the same crab.... two or three might rush to it...as though one must get there first. I don't think we will ever really know. There is no question that "silver Spoons" for example will grab fish. I remember several years ago on Monomoy Island when I was fishing with a guy named Peter Alves who was the manager at Orivis out there and we could not get the fish to take ANYTHING, He then rumages around his fly box and picks out an Orange redish Tarpon fly... with the pointy nose... he had put it in his box as a convience instead of leaving in his trunk and never expected to use it... so he trys it and he then can't stop hooking stripers with it... finicky stripers on the flats... weird. I have been in situations were only the fly rodder took fish and the spin fisherman did not... and vice versa... I also think that if you are going to tie flies you might as well make them look as real as you can because fly tying is more than just catching fish... like a nice real or rod is more than just catching... It's part of the whole thing. It's all how you feel about it. Afteral , the early flies were only a white chicken feather tied on a hook...so was that appearance ? I don't think so... but it did have movement and it seemed alive. Wish I could answer that... but if I could... and knew how to react to every situation with success... I would play more golf... because, like fishing, I can never get it right.

[calebsb]

I think the main reason is that fish change their eating habits from day to day. While your average bass will tend to hit things that are in its strike zone or have some sort of compelling action, they also can get stuck on one thing and suddenly have a discerning eye for fakes. With bass this seems to happen most when they are already ridiculously well-fed, like when they fix onto a school of mullet and just cruise under it. Look at trout; there are times when you can catch them on an egg-sucking leach (and when was the last time you saw a leach swimming around with a salmon egg stuffed in its mouth?) and there are times when they only want blue damsel flies and will push green ones out of the way to get to them. I myself prefer to use flies that sort of could be whatever the fish might be looking for without actually looking like anything, and save my lookalikes for those special choosy fish who refuse the bunnies and clousers.

[Sean Juan]

I'd also love to know why one pattern may work better than another.

I've had nights where I could hook up consistently with an all black deceiver, have my last one get destroyed and switch to an all black bunny bug and get nothing...even though the flies were the same general shape and color.

The there was a time I was in danger of getting skunked so I was throwing everything - learned that I could catch fish with a green over white clouser tied with fish hair but not the same fly tied with bucktail.

Just some trigger in their brain I guess...

[ruge13]

I don;t think its a matter of matching the bait to every fin and scale, but as said before its more behavioral characteristics that do the trick. For example, how many times have you heard people say they got fish on a fast retrieve but not a slow one, or visa versa. Action is obvious, if the fly doesn't "swim" like a fish or float and twitch like a worm fish will ignore it, at least ones you are probably interested in. So lets take a clouser for instance. Your Chart over white is a good example. In general most clousers are a color over a lighter color. Same as any fish in the ocean. But why is the color chart so effective and are there fish with these colors? Sure...look at some pics of bait fish. These are peanuts and silversides that glow. They do have a Greenish Chart color over a light color in the light in clear water. Light angle is obviously a factor but all you need is a hint of that natural color in a pattern to trigger a strike. Like the spoon example, all they are is flash. Exactly right, but when bait school, or shoal, all they do is flash. Again, just a hint of a natural behavior may be enough to signal a strike. The clouser has eyes that cause a jigging motion in the water on slower retrieves. Since you live in Florida, go snorkeling. Watch bait fish swim around anything. They dart around and change direction in a seemingly random motion sometimes often feeding on particles in the water. Weighted flies like the clouser and jigs like the bucktail mimic this behavior to some extent and may signal a strike because of that. Eyes are always a good argument point. Some people say eyes on a fly don't matter. Some swear that eyes make a difference. Why do fish have fake eye spots? If eyes were not important to predatory fish, why did mother natre cause fish to evolve like butterfly fish to have multiple eye spots towards the tail? However, these spots are not a detailed eye picture, they are just a black dot. I think its more the contrast of color that is needed, in the right place and proportion, not the detial of a perfectly painted or glued eye. Back to color, some people swear by red hooks, and red/white plugs have stood the test of time. Take a look at the Mackerel in the pic. The gills are obvious. Again snorling if you watch fish close you can see the gills flare. Granted this is only a hint of red, but just having that color present may be enough to trigger a strike to a predator. Worms are a good point, when do they fall into the water. Rain storms and they cannot breath and will drown in he dirt so they flee to higher ground, like pavement and are washed into ponds and streams but the ocean? Sand worms and clam worms can be found on the surface when mating but most of the time they are buried. But, watch a striper feed in the water (snorkeling is great for this). 80% of the time they swim right past bait fish, just cruising along and ignoring what you would expect them to go crazy for, and they start digging in the rocks taking crabs and ignoring bait fish. Often you will catch stripers with noses that are worn red or fleshy. That's because they root like pigs for food in the mud and sand. Often you can see them tailing in shallow water. They use their noses like shovels and stir up the bottom un earthling these worms, crabs, isopods and other stuff. Then they turn and swallow the swimmers. You hear of sand eelers saying how schools of stripers will follow their boats waiting for them to turn up worms and sand eels. So, it does happen, sometimes worms do just float around. Areas where boats come shallow and props can stir up the bottom are a good example. Its definitely an art form to make a fly look exactly like a bait fish. I think what skilled tiers try to do is not only get a fly to be a mirror image aesthetically as an art form, but more one that can encompass as many natural behavioral characteristics as a normal food source like flash, color toning, swimming action, size, etc. That's my guess....having said that I don't tie but if and when I do, thats what I would try to do.

[striblue]

Great Post!!! ruge

[iacas]

While I appreciate the help, might I offer the suggestion that paragraphs make for easier reading? It'd be a shame for you to share some of your knowledge only to have someone ignore it because they find it difficult to read.

That's not a veiled insult - I read and digested your thoughts in their entirety - but only a suggestion. Please take it for what it's worth.

Back on the subject at hand, I guess I'll simply go with the idea that "looks like natural bait" is just yet another plus in the long list of "why fish bite." It's not the be all or end all, just another factor.

I completely understand the "fly tying is zen" and the "it's an art" side of it. Art mimics life in more than fly tying, of course, but also in fly tying. So that much I get. My query was re: whether or not fish care particularly whether art mimics life. :)

[striblue]

Well... probably not.

[Armando]

After reading those awesome posts, it came to my mind the necessity in terms of energy that predators need to spend and regain while hunting and eating. For instance a bigger fish will spend the double or more energy than a smaller fish in the hunt, therefore bigger fish will be more likely to attack anything that passes thru and close enough to eat, and save all the energy that will be used in the diggestion process. I think metabolism also has lots to do with the triggering action a baitfish, crab pattern etc.. will play in that moment.
Maybe thats why strippers will pass thru baitfish schools and look for crabs or any other organisms hiding in the rocks or the sand, they mey spend lots of energy but on a nutrimental base this ones will be richer, so as soon as they have their quota, they may be apt to go run after some baitfish and get some extras on their daily diet.
Try a zonker pattern or any other baitfish pattern when a mayfly or anyother hatch is happening, you can see big trout swiming thru with their mouth wide open swallowing everything and sometimes as they see the baitfish pattern just right a side that imitates all those smaller fish feeding from the same hatch, wont hesitate and will swallow them too.
Who knows anyway, just some thoughts, as jou guys say "no pain no game".

[ruge13]

Thanks for the suggestion, I tent to type too much. SO here I go...can you tell I am bored at work today?

As for the question, I think if art didn't mimic life fish would never be caught. Life is not just a picture though. Lure companies spend millions of dollars air brushing lures and plugs to make them "look" just like a fish. They look sweet and you say, if I was a fish I would eat that. But, out it in the water it looks like a piece of art but it swims like a stick. Look at Storm Wildeye for example. They are deadly lures. Not for the color (sure they have the basic contrasts) but the swimming action is great. The tail swims like a fish so they are very successfull. There will be another painted stick next year that people will want and the fish won't, but Wildeyes will be here (and have been here basically) for a while because they have stumbled on a pattern that is a great mimic. Flies are no different.

If you could cast and make a rock swim like bait, something would eat it for sure. I bet you could get a bonefish to eat a leaf if you could make it swim like a crab. If you just painted it to look like a fish everything would ignore it. Mimic the behavour and you are succesful, do that and mimic the visual apearence and you are an artist.

I tried to show that some of the items you questioned, like Chart, or a red and white plug, or a jig may not look exactly like a bait fish to you because for obvious reason it is not a fish. They were designed to mimic aspects of the natural environment that fish will identify and be atracted to. Like the gill flare, or a flash, or an eye, color contrast, "swim", etc. Though they may not be a perfect image, they are proven succesful because they do mimic some aspect of bait behavior, and thats all it takes.

Break down a basic jig. You have a lead jig head with a hook. That will catch a fish. Add a curly tail or bucktail to that jig and now you have an imitation with some tail action to it and is far more succesfull. Both mimic a bait fish, but with the addition you now have more than one behaviour of a bait fish that is copied.

I think flies do the same and thats what tiers try to do. A bait fish flashes when it schools up. So tiers add a bit of flash to their flies. Sure you can have a basic white fly and it will catch fish, no doubt. But if you attemted to mimic another behaviour, like the flash, you made a more attractive pattern not because you made it look more like bait but because you copied a significant characteristic of bait fish.

Bluefish hitting soda can tops and beer caps is a good example. They flash, people throw them into blitzing fish and the take them. Not because they like caps, they look nothing liek a bait fish, but because they flash like schooling bait, and will flutter when they sink. Maybe they do like caps....who knows. I made one out of a quarter this year, blues took it. Granted they are not usually the most finicky of examples.

[ruge13]

Another example, This is a bait Fish Sam Riley made last year. It is nothing more than a laminated picture on a hook. Looks like a fish but swims like paper on a hook. So it was ignored by visibly actively feeding fish. They swam up, turned and ignored it. With some different creative retireves it was made to swim like a fish. As soon as that happened, fish on.

[boba]

Woo, Ruge. Nice pics and nice point, especially the last set.
It all goes back to the same debate, imitation vs. presentation or some combination of the two. That said, those were good points made by all.

[scruffy_fish]

You know that is why we love this sport. Nothing is ever the same. The challange is new everytime you wet a line. That's fishing and not catching. TG for the diversity.

[LandlockedinMI]

I'm gonna sound like Kenny Abrames here but here goes:

Presentation is more important than pattern most times.

LArge fish that are feeding "casually" (as in not in a blitz) will NOT expend alot of energy to chase down their prey. The "usual" modus operandi is they set up a feeding station, positioning themselves either in the current, so their food is brought to them, or in structure to enable an ambush.

If your fly behaves like what they expect, they will not have to make up their minds. They just engage instinct.

We get into trouble or routines when we think about "what worked the last time". Which we all do.

Couple of things I think I know:

1- do not ever look at a bait fish out of the water and tie to imitate that. Makes no sense. Study pictures of how they look in the water (again StriperMoon web site has a phenominal baitfish gallery with tons of pics of bait photo'ed under water----priceless!)

2- the amount of water a fly pushes, or it's acoustic signature can be the most effective attractor pattern there is. How does a bass find your little fly in the dark? The example in the thread where fishhair vs. bucktail worked could be attributed to the fly's acoustic signature (if they were indeed identical).
The lateral line is your friend or enemy, you choose.

3- using droppers when fish are not blitzing will tell you what they want a hellava lot faster than switching one fly every 10 minutes.

4- I'd rather throw fly line all day and get skunked, than go lure washing (trolling) for 5 minutes.

[iacas]

4- I'd rather throw fly line all day and get skunked, than go lure washing (trolling) for 5 minutes.

I'd rather catch fish, which is why I both spin and fly cast. Yet another weapon in the arsenal.

P.S. Hardly all lure fishing is trolling. Big difference. Especially from a kayak.

[Sentience]

this thread should be put in the hall of fame.