Larry's Winning Fly
2001 Dorado Tournament
by Larry Dextraze
Being a newcomer to dorado fishing allowed me the luxury of having no preconceived
notions of how good fishing can be in Mulege, Baja California. Armed with a couple of ten
weight fly rods and a dozen or so flies, I started with high hopes. However after my first
hookup on the first day, I promptly blew my rod up in half and found myself at the mercy
of a good fish . Thirty minutes later after eye popping jumps and runs the fish arrived to
a spent angler with remnants of a rod and damaged fingers. "well at least it liked
this Fly", I said to myself trying to salvage the rest of the morning without a rod.
Try this style of saltwater fish pattern on your next saltwater
excursion. Original pattern ideas and synthetics from
http://www.successflies.com. the colors of mackerel green and sardinia olive were created with the use of indelible markers used on
fluorescent white kinkyfiber.
Over the next few days and armed with a backup rod I proceeded to
do well on dorado averaging 4 to 6 fish a day for 5 days from 10 pounds to over 30.
No monsters though and looking back I feel grateful. I had a hard time with a
40" fish on the second day. An 11 weight rod is looking better for the
future. With the questionable performance of my gear came the confidence in the
flies I was using. Granted dorado are not very picky most of the time on fly
patterns but there are occasions when standard patterns did not work well especially over
fish that saw the same fly a number of times. With the flies shown above, I received
very good response with fish that were cast to numerous times. Dead drifted or
stripped erratically this style of fly produced consistently all week. It was
fascinating to watch wise dorado come up and mouth these patterns even when they were dead
drifted. I use two patterns namely mackerel or sardinia about 4 inches length on 2/0
Tiemco 600SP hooks, they worked the best. The synthetics I used from Success Flies
were dynamic, producing an awesome 3D look and life like flash and motion. Compared
to standard clousers and deceivers, they were stunning fish catchers. No more
bucktail and saddle hackles for Me.
