tube flies

my buddy Simon over at pike fly fishing articles has been raving about tube flies lately and rightly so , although tube flies are nothing new in fly fishing and have been around for more years than i am old (and that's a lot) but and here's the big but , in all that time they have usually been the preserve of the posh tweed set salmon angler (well here in Scotland at least)

spot the posh fly fisher

our brothers in fluff over the pound in the US of A have been using them for a while for saltwater flies and bass

a few examples of there work for strippers now tell me you can only use them for salmon "i think not mr laird" these would not be killers for the snotrockets

so tube flies for pike (i say old boy that's just not the done thing) er wrong Ive been making tube flies for a few years now , my main interest in making them was to use for trolling with big wind resistant wiggle fins on them , hence trolling and not casting the ones below are a couple of my favorites , i troll these on sinking lines and lead core lines mainly when its a bit to windy to safely cast a big pike fly and they do work

these tube flys above are 9 inch's long and tied with buck tail stacked up from the back end of the tube when wet the back thins out leaving a nice fat body shape and the hooks stand proud of the buck tail when wet so no problems with hook ups . the casting tubes i use a single hook these were proto types , the pink fly has a large dumbbell eye tied whipped to the front of the tube to allow a slower sink rate if using these on an intermediate line , the big wiggle fins give the fly a great action

the tube fly above is a real monster made from Christmas tinsel bunched around the tube and folded back on itself the eyes are 12 mm and epoxied in

same as above but without the wiggle fin the movement has to be seen to be believed

the pictures below are all in my early experimental stage with tubes a couple of years ago

big conical eyes on this fly above gives it a nice glide action when stripped in short bursts

big eye and a flashy body a sort of perch pattern

the fly above was pre rigged on tyger wire , although i have since moved on from this kind of rigging with a treble there really is no need when a single will do the job just as well

big fly for deep water rigged with a cone head this fly will sit bottom up


done some fish with the fly above the body is UV chenille in orange a sort of fire tiger pattern this

lots of pearl Mylar in the fly above again big eyes epoxied in when wet slims down to a nice skinny bait fish size

all of the tubes are a minimum of 7 inches in length some bigger but cast very easily on a 9/10 wgt rod

this fly has a big dumbbell eye to get to the deck fast

tube wise i use 2 kinds one is the straight sea booms they use for sea angling like the ones shown below i use the sakuma black booms they are very very long so you can get a lot of flies out of them and to any length you like , just heat each end of the tube when you have cut it this will give you a ridge at each end to tie to

also another money saving exercise is to use plastic cotton bud tubes you can buy them in bulk for pence just pull the cotton wool off each end and heat slightly to give you a ridge at each end ill do a demo in the next few days so you know what I'm talking about.

so thanks to Simon for me wanting to have another go at making the tubes i will post the results in a couple of days , well worth having a go as there is so much you can do with them as Simon has shown on his blog . tube fly adapters don't cost very much and i reckon they are great to have a play with

so go give it a go I'm sure you wont be disappointed