If you have watched enough cheesy action movies, Red Dawn perhaps, or maybe something starring Sly Stallone, or if you’ve hung around a fair share of camouflage-clad super predators, those lovable brothers, cousins, and friends who show up for any outing more adventurous than a trip to the local park with a minimum of three firearms and six boxes of ammo for each, then you’ve heard the über-masculine sentiment before: “I’m not going down for lack of shooting back.”

Well, I feel the same way when it comes to flies.

If I get skunked on a fishing trip, it absolutely will not be because I didn’t have the right pattern in my box. Make that boxes, in fact, as there’s no way to cram all the patterns I think I might need into a single carryall. Even the most remote possibility that a fly may come in handy, say the fish suddenly lock onto the idea of eating grasshoppers in June, even though we are in Alaska and these fish have never seen a hopper, let alone one in June, makes that fly indispensable.

Having established my bona fides as something less than an early-Rambo-styled minimalist, I feel it’s safe to acknowledge the lengths to which I’ll go in order to make sure I’ve got the fly for every occasion. And among the piles of proven takers I annually haul across the state, I find room for all sorts of new flies, a lot of which will apparently never get wet. However, every year, there are a handful of new patterns that seem to strike a certain chord within the consumer in me—they just look good, delectable even, and I usually have trouble making it from the fly shop to my house without wanting to stop and try them out. Not that I’d eat them, of course, but choosing flies is generally not a time for an anthropomorphic frame of mind. I buy the flies I like; fish eat the ones they like—hopefully more often than not our inclinations align.

With that in mind, and hoping to spare you some of my more painful misfires, here are a few flies I tried in 2005 that fit both bills, flies that will always find room in my best boxes.

Crafty Sculpin

Available from The Fly Shop in Redding, CA (www.theflyshop.com) in several colors, the Crafty Sculpin is a pattern that evolved primarily from the recent availability of a new material called either Craft Fur or Craft Fur-Plus. The pattern reasonably approximates the look of a sculpin, a prime source of food for Alaska’s rainbows and species of char, especially early in the season, it swims well, and it sheds water magnificently, making it as much fun to cast after four hours of straight fishing as it is right out of the box, a real rarity for oversized streamers.

Also, for those who enjoy tying their own patterns, I recommend picking up a few bags of Craft Fur in a bunch of colors—it’s a great material for everything from saltwater patterns to large salmon flies, and as we all know, the only thing better than finding a new pattern in the fly shop bin is inventing one yourself.

The Morrish Mouse

While technically not a new mouse pattern, this past season was the first in which I’d the opportunity to employ the Morrish Mouse, a pattern I initially loved just for its simplicity. However, once the rainbows began to feverishly track it up top, I pretty much stopped caring what it looked like.

The first thing you’ll notice is this fly doesn’t look much like a mouse, which I think is a good thing. I’ve tried plenty of those exact-replication critters, cute little things with whiskers and eyes and ears and just about everything else. The only problem is most of them don’t fish worth a darn. I’ve always had the best success with “buggier” looking mouse patterns, a fact that nicely coincides with my own tying skills, as I could never manage a mirror image. The Morrish Mouse is indeed buggy, plus with the foam back, it floats like a cork, has less tendency to waterlog, and pushes an easily-seen—and seemingly enticing—wake. Versions of the fly are offered by Idylwilde Flies (www.idylwilde.com ), The Fly Shop, Cabela’s (www.cabelas.com), and locally through several fly shops.

Jumbo Critter

The Jumbo Critter, a killer king salmon pattern available in a number of color combinations, comes from the vise of Bjorn Beach, who’s had no small amount of influence on the Alaska Chinook-fishing scene in the past. In fact, a lot of the “new” king salmon patterns I’ve seen over the past few years are really just knockoffs of his earlier work.

The Critter, from the Solitude Fly Company and available at both Mountain View Sports and Worldwide Angler in Anchorage, contains all the known triggers for Alaska’s state fish, including incredible movement on the swing. Plus, it’s almost a work of art on its own, meaning it catches as many anglers as it does salmon. I know I fish it with extreme confidence.

Double Bunny

From the innovative mind of Scott Sanchez, the Bunny was originally developed as a baitfish pattern, and in its many incarnations, it can be fished as everything from a smolt imitation to a sculpin, stickleback, or saltwater baitfish. The bulk and action of the pattern pulls fish to it, and it has proven its worth by fooling over thirty different species in both fresh and saltwater. The combination of the pulsating rabbit fur and the undulating hide give the Double Bunny an enticing action. No matter what speed you move it, it looks alive, or sometimes more importantly, half alive. It even has action when dead-drifting.

While not difficult to tie, always a bonus of Sanchez patterns, the Double Bunny is available commercially from Dan Bailey’s (www.dan-bailey.com ), The Fly Shop, Cabelas, and just about everywhere else on the Web.