Fly Rattles

[Fredrick]

Just curious who ties rattles on their flies ? Do you think the noise from a rattle will help your fly catch more fish as to one without ?

 

[Hooligan]

The only fly I've ever tied with rattles is the Hairy Fodder crawfish imitation. I can't say whether the rattle has any positive effect or not. I don't tie them often because I tend to tie simpler ties. FWIW, I hooked a 30" or so carp on one while using a 6 wt. (small for this size fly) and opted to break the fly off rather than lose my fly line- the carp was getting too far into the backing on his downstream run (and, as far as I know, he's still running downstream!).

 

[JerryC]

I've put them in Crease Flies and have tied some Clousers using them. Not sure whether they've made a difference or not.

 

[MKern]

The closest thing to a rattle that I use is on my bass flies I will use 4 beads in a bead chain eye to make a little noise.

Probably doesn't help at all considering that streams and rivers are very noisy places under water, with all of the rocks banging together and the sound of flowing water.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I've been wondering the same thing, especially considering the added cos, time and annoyance of tying in rattles to a fly.

To me, it makes some sense to add "noise" to a pattern for turbid water or night fishing, but it probably makes no difference. Consider it the density of water. It seems to me the rattles would have to be pretty loud to move enough water far enough with sound vibrations to attract fish not right next to the fly.

Pcray could speak to this concept with greater knowledge.

 

[lestrout]

Yo Fly- re "It seems to me the rattles would have to be pretty loud to move enough water far enough with sound vibrations to attract fish not right next to the fly." - wouldn't the greater density transmit sounds better than less dense media such as air? Also the click of the rattling beads might stand out against the background of white noise in the stream.

 

[midnightangler]

I tie them in musky patterns and some other larger streamers. The drunk & disorderly and the swingin' D are two patterns that incorporate the rattle pretty nicely. It's hard to say how much it helps, but I don't think it hurts. Certainly other factors are more important when it comes to getting the attention of big trout.

A lot of the productive hardware lures have rattles in them.

 

[Dave_W]

midnightangler wrote:

A lot of the productive hardware lures have rattles in them.

This is a good point. Many plugs with plastic bodies have large and elaborate rattle systems that some gear anglers swear by (not to mention the red treble hook fad).

I've pondered this and thought about how to design a good rattle system for flies. The pre-made fly tying rattles seemed too small to be effective so I have not tried them. I did try some years ago to string larger glass beads into an effective rattle system for big streamers but was not able to get the beads to move enough to create what I thought would be a good sound. The project went to the back burner.