It’s raining today, so I figured I’d spend some time at the vise, tying flies and contemplating my life choices. My cousin Wayne and I are both practicing dentists and retired commercial fly tyers—though at this point, our fly tying skills might be more reliable than our dentistry.  Maybe it’s our age, or maybe we’ve just achieved peak laziness, but Wayne has convinced me that the best fly is one that’s fast, easy to tie, and actually catches fish. None of this 45-minute, artisanal, museum-piece nonsense. The trendy term for this kind of pattern is a guide tie—a fly that gets tied in bulk, tossed to clients, and is cheap enough that you don’t cry when it ends up in a tree.

This year, I’ve been relying on one such fly, introduced to me by my buddy Frank from Modesto. Frank’s been chasing stripers since before I knew which end of a fly rod to hold, so when he talks, I listen—sometimes. One day, while we were hammering stripers left and right, I asked him what he was using. He tossed me a fly that looked like a rainbow pride woolly worm that had lost a fight with a lawnmower, wrapped in tinsel and flash. I took one look at it, nodded politely, and buried it in my fly box, where it remained ignored for a full year.

Then, last season, I ran into a pod of particularly stubborn stripers. They’d swim right up to my flies, follow them for 20 feet, and then turn away like I’d just served them gas station sushi. No matter what I did—faster strip, slower strip, dramatic pauses—they just weren’t interested. In a moment of desperation, I dug down to the bottom of my box and found Frank’s ratty, beat-up fly. With nothing to lose, I tied it on.

The fish went nuts. It out-fished my Haskins Smelt, outperformed my tried-and-true patterns, and made me question everything I thought I knew about striper behavior.  Since then, I’ve tied up a pile of them in different weights, lengths, and colors—some sparse, some fuller—because San Luis fish can be annoyingly picky. The best part? This fly takes minutes to tie, stands up to abuse, and doesn’t break my heart when I lose one.   I still don’t have a name for it, but it looks suspiciously like an oversized shad fly. Maybe I’ll just call it “Frank’s Fuzzy Miracle” and call it a day.