Hook Size: 3/0
Those of you that have seen our new “Perfect Pink Rabbit Baitfish Fly”, probably
thought we had gone nuts adding a “pink” fly to our line of streamers. Maybe so,
but at least I have a reason for it.
The “pink” fly is almost identical to a “Flesh Fly”. In case you don’t know, a Flesh
Fly is a fly used where salmon have spawned and died. The bodies of the fish turn
pink and drift downstream where pieces of the decaying flesh are eaten by other
fish.
I was fishing the Madison River in Montana one year using large rabbit strip
streamers. Often hanging up, I managed to go through all of the flies I had except a
couple of Flesh Flies that happened to have been left in the same streamer box. I
had caught a few larger brown trout drifting the streamers by the rocks in the
Madison using a large strike indicator. I tied on the pink fly desperate to continue to
catch fish. The results was amazing. I caught far more on it than I had using sculpin
colored rabbit strip streamers.
At first I thought the browns were just in a feeding frenzy. Latter on the same trip I
again tried the pink flesh fly. It continued to work well. Since that time, about seven
years ago, I have tried the fly in numerous other streams across the country. The
simple bottom line is that it works.
I think the reason is the fact that in many cases the fish don’t see shades of red
colors, including pinks, as red or pink. At a distance they see them as shades of
brown. That has to do with light passing through the water. Without getting
technical, I believe that when the fish first sees what appears to be a brown fly and
approaches it, it suddenly changes to a shade of red. Many fish change colors
suddenly when they are attacked by other larger predator fish. I think the change in
the shade of color just adds to the realism of the fly. I also think this is why red
crankbaits work for bass so well. I could name a dozen or more examples of the
same principal but let me end it by saying this.
I first discovered this when I used a marlin lure made famous by a Captain in St.
Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was bright red and named after a red headed
boat captain named appropriately, Captain Red. His anglers had caught lots of blue
marlin on his home made red trolling lures.
In the early eighties, my close friend Frank Johnson, owner of Mold-Craft Lure
Company of Pompano Beach, Florida, began to mass produce the red lure. Since
the lure has caught hundreds of marlin worldwide. The marlin thinks the lure is a
baitfish and as they approach it at fast speeds, it appears to change colors and lite
up. I think this principal is why our “Pink Rabbit Baitfish” works so well.
