What is your favorite dry fly attractor pattern? When there isn’t a visible hatch, but it’s a dry-fly kinda day, what fly do you reach for first?
Mine is either an elk-hair winged egg-laying caddis, or a deer-hair winged X-caddis (Craig Matthews), both with no hackle so they ride low in the film. No matter where I go during late spring, summer and early fall I reach for one of these patterns first when nothing else seems to work or make sense.
What works best for you?
Kelly.
Either a parachute adams or if it’s mid/late summer, a royal pmx.
an Improved Beetle. the wings Improved it a lot, though it was good to begin with.
Lately I’ve been liking the Foam Back Royal Humpy. Kind of looks like John has been favoring it lately also.
Kelly, I’m witih you on the X-Caddis. Usually a small one in about a 14 is what I reach for. For fishing the film, the first fly I go to is a Baillie’s Black Spider, folliowed closely by a Pritt’s Water Cricket.
Ron, I’ve heard you mention these, They sound interesting. Is this the one of the ones you tied on YouTube? If not, get some pics.
Thanks,
Kelly.
The 1st fish I ever caught on a fly was fooled by a Royal Wulff. So I always start with it. Then I’ll switch to a Stimulator if nothing happens with the RW.
Define…attractor pattern…
I may be wrong, but I’ve always thought they were a pattern that catches fish without imitating any bug in particular.
PMX here with hoppers close second.
Right on, Lotech.
Kelly.
“without imitating any bug in particular”
Well I’m in a hurry tonight so went through this post quickly…and I think so far the suggestions are imitators not attractors…
I really hate to see this sort of thing get started:rolleyes::rolleyes::p:p:p
Kelly,
PM your snail mail addy to me and I’ll send you a few to play with. That’s better than pics.
REE
Seems like I’m always pulling out a Red Humpy.
Beaver
from somewhere on the web
“Most Attractor fly patterns are not tied to imitate any one specific insect, but to instead effectively imitate a wide variety of different insects”
royal wullf, h&l variant, adams, adams parachute
Ditto…and these are attractor patterns. General imitations of upright and downwing dry flies.
Bob
Ditto…and these are attractor patterns. Generic imitations of upright and downwing dry flies.
Bob
I’ve only been fishing dries for a few months, but back in the spring I had about 4-5 10+ fish evenings (about 2 hours of fishing) with a #14 para-adams, on a 2X fine hook. Such an impressive showing (especially with a klutz like me behind the cork) made that fly my go-to dry anytime I cant identify what bug is coming off.
I later learned I was fishing that week through a good iso hatch, which explained the fantastic results, but I’ve pulled fish to the surface to take that fly on days where the only rise I saw was the one that took my para-adams. 
I don’t fish any dry fly attractors, but I do fish nymph attractors all the time.
H.W. Rio Grande King