A menhaden fly is not a big fly. It’s a fly that has to look as wide from the side as an actual menhaden, nearly as narrow from the top, and still cast like something you’ll fish for three hours instead of three minutes. Most “bunker flies” in the bins fail at least one of those three tests. The EP Bunker exists because Enrico Puglisi’s synthetic fiber is the only reliable way to pass all three — and because when bass key on bunker, the fly that fails even one test doesn’t catch.

That sounds like a marketing claim, but it isn’t. It’s a materials argument. If you tie your own flies and fish for striped bass between the Chesapeake and the Gulf of Maine, it’s worth taking seriously.