Field Test Results: The Blingnobyl Wrecks...

A Serious Attractor Pattern Emerges

A cutthroat that slammed the Blingnobyl Ant

The Blingnobyl Ant is another field-testing work-in-process pattern that has been seeing some time on the water this summer. As I wrote about a few months ago, the pattern was originally designed to capitalize on this sparkly craft foam I found at the craft store. I like sparkly things and project that fascination onto the fish I'm targeting. It's only logical.

Be that as it may, a recent trip to a high mountain lake brought up the possibility of throwing some bling at some native Bonneville Cutthroats. The evening hatch was more midge-focused than terrestrials, but I tied on a Blingnobyl as sort of a pop-gear type effect from which to trail some midge emergers. Even though the fish were laser focused on the Foamerger pattern, I caught a surprising number of fish on the big glitzy dry. Logical.

The following day proved to be the litmus test for the pattern. Both during and after the morning midge hatch, the fish started to really key in on the Blingnobyl. When fished side-by-side with other terrestrials and even some match-the-hatch patterns, the Pink Bling really dominated. We ended up trying to throw other patterns, even in similar colors, but the fish still keyed largely on the Bling. By the end of the day, we were left scratching our heads as the fish literally destroyed and tore apart several of these patterns.

So I'm left to wonder what the "secret sauce" is. Orange legs? White Estaz underbelly? Hard to say, but this pattern just passed the field test and earned a spot on the varsity team with flying colors. Logical.

Anyway, the original post was here, but you can see the video tutorial below. Get some of these patterns in your box. Now.