March 2001
by Rich Johnson
Tube Flies
Notes: Tube flies have never seem to catch the fancy of American fly fishers. Atlantic salmon anglers have been tying traditional patterns on tubes for years, and saltwater fly fishers are using tube style flies for many blue water species. Tube flies do offer a couple of advantages over traditional patterns tied on hook shanks. Hook size can be varied. Because the hook is tied directly to the leader, which is threaded through the tube body, you can use a hook style, or size, that is appropriate to your fishing that day. You can also combine different parts into one fly. Saltwater anglers often will add a popper head in front of a tube fly when surface commotion is needed. Also, the fly will move up the leader once a fish is hooked. This helps in keeping fish with sharp teeth from shredding your pattern. Leverage is eliminated. The hooks used with tube flies are short shanked, and since the body of the fly is not connected to the hook there is no leverage being applied against the hook from a long shank. And finally, my favorite, movement.
Last August while at the TalStar Lodge I had the opportunity to see tube flies in action. Dave Scheer had a couple hanging from the rod rack in his boat. He said an English angler had used them with great success the previous year so he had been tying and fishing them for salmon all season. Dave was using a sinktip line, casting from the boat to the bank and then allowing the fly to hang in the current below the boat after the swing. About half of Dave's strikes came to the fly as it hung in the current below the boat. The only thing I could see different, that would trigger a strike, was that Dave's tube fly was spinning on the leader. Not fast like a spinner blade, but slowly; showing additional movement that my traditionally tied pattern did not provide.
Long story shorter; Dave showed me the nail trick with his vise, I tied up a few Stealth (see FOM Aug '00) and Arctic Leech patterns on tubes; and we caught fish for the rest of the visit.
The pattern I'm using to demonstrate tying on a tube was shown to me by Bob Churchill several years ago. He had success with this variation of the egg-headed woolly bugger in North Western Alaska and gave me a sample, calling it an Arctic Leech. Bob is the current president (and a past president) of the Alaska Flyfishers and hopefully will not mind that I've converted his pattern into a tube fly.
Weight: If desired, use metal tubes which are available in aluminum, brass, and copper in different lengths.
Tube: Stiff plastic tubing used for models, available at most hobby shops
Thread: Danville "Plus", white
Tail: Marabou, white (wrapped as a hackle)
Hackle: Saddle, grizzly; palmered
Body: Chenille, white
Head: Cactus Chenille, chartreuse
