The Bonito Deceiver by Anthony Lombardo

A few years, a lot of fish, and my enduring affection for Dave Skok’s Bonito Deceiver

There are flies that catch fish, and then there are flies that become part of your fishing life.  Every saltwater fly fisherman has one. Maybe it is the first fly that ever produced a striped bass. Maybe it is an old pattern that has been sitting in the corner of a box for twenty years. Or maybe it is simply the fly that has somehow earned your confidence through thousands of casts and countless fish.  If I had to choose one saltwater fly above all others, mine would be the Bonito Deceiver tied by Dave Skok.

I realize that is a bold statement. The Clouser, the Deceiver and the Flatwing have all earned legendary status in saltwater fly fishing, and there are certainly people in our shop who would choose one of those over anything else. I wouldn't try to convince them otherwise. This is simply my opinion. For me, nothing has ever seemed quite as perfect as one of Dave's Bonito Deceivers.

I came to the fly several years ago as a shore-bound angler, when much of my fishing was done after the sun went down. Night fishing has a way of teaching you what really matters in a fly. You learn pretty quickly that a fly can look wonderful in your hand and still be a terrible fly to fish.

In the darkness, I wanted something I could cast easily, something that would survive fish after fish, and—perhaps most importantly—something that I didn't have to constantly check. The Bonito Deceiver gave me all three. It cast beautifully. Its dart-like weighting made it surprisingly effortless to throw, and once it hit the water it seemed to swim exactly as it was supposed to. It had a clean, baitfish profile without being overly complicated. And it simply didn't foul.

That may not sound like a revolutionary characteristic, but spend enough nights standing in the surf with a fly rod and you'll appreciate it. There is nothing quite like making a long cast into complete darkness, beginning your retrieve and wondering whether your fly is actually fishing or has somehow wrapped itself around the leader. Flatwings can be magnificent flies, but they can also have a tendency to foul. A Clouser can be wonderfully effective, but after enough abuse its materials can begin to look like they've been through a lawn mower. The Bonito Deceiver just kept fishing.

I've always been intrigued by the prominent feather that runs along either side of the fly. From certain angles, it looks almost like a lateral line, or perhaps even the suggestion of the skeletal structure of a small baitfish. Maybe that is what a fish sees. Maybe it isn't. The truth is, I have no idea. But I do know that the fly looked right in the water, and the fish certainly seemed to agree.

Some of my earliest memories with it came from Little Buttermilk Bay and the beaches that surround Buzzards Bay. We spent countless nights there, fishing in the dark and catching fish after fish on the same fly. There is something uniquely satisfying about catching a fish on a fly that has already caught a dozen before it. Eventually, you stop thinking about the fly altogether. It becomes an extension of the rod. You tie it on, make a cast and simply trust it.

One October night stands out in particular. We were fishing an estuary in Falmouth as fish moved in and out of the river. The tide, the darkness and the movement of the fish seemed to come together perfectly. I kept casting, retrieving and hooking fish. By the end of the night, I must have caught around 30 fish on the same fly. I don't remember ever seriously considering changing it.  That was becoming a pattern.

The following June, I was fishing the mouth of Scorton Creek with Joe Goodspeed. The fish were there in numbers, and between the two of us we must have caught close to 50. Again, I don't remember changing the fly.

For a fly fisherman, durability is an underrated quality. We spend an enormous amount of time worrying about how realistic a pattern looks, but there is something beautiful about a fly that simply refuses to quit. The Bonito Deceiver had that quality.

The next year, I spent a lot of nights wading the Cape Cod Canal. The Canal is a different kind of place after dark. You can make hundreds of casts without so much as a bump, standing there listening to the water and waiting for something to happen. And then, sometimes, it does.

What surprised me was how well larger fish took the Bonito Deceiver. I had initially thought of it primarily as a baitfish pattern for the usual saltwater suspects, but the Canal showed me that big striped bass had no reservations about eating it. Those long nights changed my relationship with the fly again.

Then I got a boat.

Suddenly, I had another education to go through. Fishing from a boat meant learning new retrieves, new angles and new ways to present a fly. More importantly, I discovered that the Bonito Deceiver wasn't limited to the relatively shallow situations where I had spent most of my time fishing it.It fished beautifully on heavy sinking lines. That opened up an entirely new chapter.

We had some spectacular mornings in Narragansett Bay, My Hope Bay and the Sakonnet River, throwing the fly at blitzing fish. There is nothing quite like seeing a school of fish erupt on the surface and knowing you have only a few seconds to get a cast into them. Those were the moments when the fly's simplicity really shined. Cast. Strip. Fish on.

Bluefish provided another test. If a fly can survive repeated encounters with a bluefish, it has earned my respect. The epoxy head on Dave's Bonito Deceiver is incredibly tough, and the feathers have an almost unbelievable ability to survive those razor-sharp teeth. Of course, nothing survives forever. But the Bonito Deceiver came remarkably close.

Weakfish developed a fondness for it too. I still remember floating around East Greenwich and hooking a monster. Some fish become permanently attached to a particular fly in your memory, and that one is always going to be connected with the Bonito Deceiver for me.

But if I had to choose my favorite memories with the fly, they would probably come from Point Judith. Fall mornings there were something special. Bonito. False albacore. Chub mackerel. The kind of mornings where you could stand there with a fly rod and feel as though the entire ocean had suddenly come alive.

We spent countless mornings along the jetty casting to those fish, watching them appear and disappear, trying to get the fly in front of them before they vanished again. Those are the days when you appreciate a fly that does everything well. It has to cast. It has to track correctly. It has to stay together. It has to withstand sharp teeth. And it absolutely cannot foul. The Bonito Deceiver checked every box.

There is one other part of this story that I probably should admit. I was a commercial fly tyer. I've tied a lot of flies over the years, and I've tied plenty of Bonito Deceivers. Yet whenever a shipment of Dave's flies would arrive at the Bear's Den, I would greedily grab at least half a dozen before they ever had a chance to make it onto the sales floor.

There was something about Dave's flies that I could never quite duplicate. I could tie the pattern. I just couldn't seem to tie his pattern.

His flies are impeccable. Every one is consistent. The proportions are right, the materials are right, the heads are clean and hard, and the finished fly has that unmistakable look of something made by someone who has tied the pattern so many times that every movement has become instinctive.

That consistency matters, especially when you have developed a relationship with a particular fly. When I pull one of Dave's Bonito Deceivers from my box, I know what it is going to do. I know how it will cast. I know how it will swim. I know it is unlikely to foul. And I know it is probably going to look remarkably similar after a dozen fish to the way it looked when I tied it on.

Over the years, the fly has followed me through almost every phase of my saltwater fishing: from dark shorelines and Little Buttermilk Bay to the beaches of Buzzards Bay; from the estuaries of Falmouth to the mouth of Scorton Creek; from long, lonely nights at the Cape Cod Canal to blitzing fish in Narragansett Bay, My Hope Bay and the Sakonnet; and from bluefish and weakfish to bonito, false albacore and chub mackerel along the jetties of Point Judith.

The places have changed. The techniques have changed. The tackle has changed.  The fly hasn't needed to.  And perhaps that is why I've become so attached to it.

We tend to think of flies as tools. We talk about their profile, their materials, their weight, their durability and their ability to imitate a particular baitfish. All of that matters.

But eventually, a good fly becomes something more. It becomes associated with places. With people. With particular mornings and nights that you can still remember years later. It becomes the fly you reach for when you don't want to think about whether you've chosen the right fly—you just want to fish.

For me, that is Dave Skok's Bonito Deceiver.

Maybe the Clouser is the greatest saltwater fly ever designed. Maybe it's the Deceiver. Maybe it's the Flatwing. I'm perfectly comfortable admitting that I may be in the minority.

But after several years of fishing it, hundreds of casts made in the dark, more fish than I could possibly count and countless mornings chasing everything from striped bass to false albacore, I have yet to find anything that has made me want to replace it.

Some flies earn their reputation because they catch fish. Some earn it because they are beautiful. A few manage to do both.  And then, every once in a while, you find one that simply becomes your fly.  The Bonito Deceiver is mine.  And whenever another batch of Dave's flies arrives at the Bear's Den, I suspect I'll still be the guy quietly taking my half dozen before anyone else gets to them.

Some things are worth paying for.