Shawn Bennett was a dedicated gear fisher , using down-riggers, flashers and herring as bait until 10 years ago, when he took a fly tying course.The rest, you could say, is fishing history. Today Bennett and his wife, Lise Peters, are professionally tying some of the hottest salmon flies to be found on the West Coast, and they are at the vanguard of a movement that's finding innovative new ways to catch salmon.

The flies are so good that even gear fishers are using them. At first only a few stores carried their flies, but word soon got around. Today, under the company name, Moonlight Flies, you can find their in many tackle stores in British Columbia.

One look at their work and it's easy to see why the flies have become so popular. The Epoxy Fry, developed by Peters, has such a deep, resonating luster that it looks like it just flipped out of the water. The Dart, a general bait fish imitation, Smiley's Needlefish and the shrimp and krill patterns all have wonderful shapes and colors. The flies don't look much like the traditional polar bear streamers that have long been associated with fly fishing for salmon in B.C. "What we're trying to do is tie baitfish and shrimp imitations that match what the salmon are feeding on," says Bennett, applying a match-the-hatch philosophy well established in the freshwater fishing community. "I still tie those traditional streamer patterns for bucktailing, but I like casting and that's mostly how these flies are fished." He adds, however, that Vancouver Island anglers have had a lot of success using his small, casting flies behind their flashers, to take pink salmon. And anglers have also found they can use them behind flashers to take winter springs on deeply trolled lines.

The Epoxy Fry has proven itself as a sea-run cutthroat pattern - and there's little doubt that a sea bass or rock cod would snap up any of the Moonlight patterns if they drifted by. Bennett says his favorite type of fishing is to wade the beaches, casting for coho. Early in the year he'll use the shrimp or krill patterns, but come late spring he goes to baitfish imitations, like the Dart. The Dart has a contoured body of silver, with a dark stripe down the back, a red gill marker, dark black eyes and a flaring tail.

The body is covered with a hard, shiny coating of epoxy, which characterizes many of the Moonlight patterns. "It's tough to come up with an original pattern because there's just so many flys tied, so many variations. I'm not sure how the Dart evolved. It's just something that I thought looked neat." It has proven to be one of Moonlight's most popular flies and has been used to catch sockeye, coho,springs, chum and pink salmon.

A lot of the allure of Moonlight Flies is due to the epoxy cover. First a fly is tied, then it is put on a rotating wheel for an hour where it is smoothly covered in liquid epoxy. Then it's left to stand for 24 hours. "I like to have a hard, glassy finish and to get that you have to be careful not to touch it too soon, or the oils on your hands will mar the look." Some purists are critical of the fly, saying it has crossed an invisible line and become a lure. But Bennett shrugs that off.

"They are all tied by hand, with fly tying material," he said. And they all catch salmon. Over the past few years fly fishing has become increasingly popular in salt water. Malcolm Ruddick, whose Granville Island fly shop in Vancouver stocks Moonlight Flies, said there's an increasing demand for saltwater patterns. But some anglers get sticker shock when they find out the flys sell for about $4 Canadian each.

"Canadians still want to pay 99 cents for flies like that," he said with a laugh. "But those days are gone." He adds that an American customer recently took 70 of the flies - because they'd have cost him $6 each in the U.S. Malcolm, one of the pioneers of saltwater fly fishing off the West Coast of Vancouver Island, said new fly patterns are emerging as more and more people try their hand at the sport.

From behind the counter he slides out a display of his own work - which includes some killer streamers and a white squid imitation that glows in the dark. "I think a Chinook's going to go for that," he says. His partner, Kathy Ruddick, jokes that if it works she'll have to lock him in a room and force him to mass produce them. Either that, or he'll have to get Moonlight to start copying them.