A crayfish pattern tube fly showing the hook separated from the fly during hook up. Photo Will Turek – FISHDOG.
2023 Rehoboth Beach. DE
Tube flies have existed for thousands of years
By Henry Clement
Ten thousand years ago, the Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest used tube flies to catch salmon by passing ‘leader’ [leather sinew] through hollow bird bones, at the end of which would be hook fashioned out of bone or wood with bait.
It was not until 1945 that tube flies regained provenance as the best way to tease Atlantic salmon into an eat. Professional fly dresser [tier] Minnie Morawski of Aberdeen, Scotland, is credited with that discovery.
Today, tube flies are universally accepted in Europe as sometimes the best way to fly fish for several species of game fish, including brown trout, Atlantic salmon, zander, sea trout, grayling, and others.
Offshore anglers trolling for billfish customarily use tube flies. Outriggers dragging baits engage the billfish in a bait-and-switch ploy. The fly, separate from the hook, skates up the leader, leaving the hook as the prey’s only leverage point.
Avoiding tube flies ignores the fact that you can improve your angling successes.
Tying tube flies does not require changing your tying modus operandi. In many instances, it only changes the catching outcome, surpassing your catch statistics. Again, one key design feature of a tube fly is that once the fish is hooked, the fly rides up the leader away from the fish. This salvages the fly while lessening the leverage the fish can apply because it can only use the bare hook.
Why Tube Flies?
1. Tubes give you more control over the weight of your fly. By changing the type of tube your pattern is tied on, you can have the same fly with dramatically different weights.
2. With tube flies, the pattern can be broader and longer without being governed by hook size.
4. Tube flies are long-lived. The fly usually slides up the line when a fish is hooked. That way, no fish teeth will touch the feathers and fur.
5. With tube flies, you can quickly change the hook size or orientation to accommodate whatever species you are fishing.
Eumer (product name) adapter attaches to your conventional vice for tying tube flies, $20.
6. Tube flies can also be combined with beads, cones, and spacers in front or behind, giving you more possibilities.
7. Tubes are much easier to carry – stored in a pants pocket.
8. Hooks can also be transported in a pocket, original packaging, or a pre-tied leader’s zip-lock bag.
9. Tube flies are generally easier to cast than similarly tied conventional hook-tied flies.
10. Most fly fishers with experience using tube flies say that they catch more fish compared to fishing with conventionally hook-tied flies. Thus far, the agreement on that subject has been almost 100%, and it has also been my reality for more than a dozen years of saltwater and freshwater angling.
Fly fishers, except those in pockets around the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the US, Canadian and US Great Lakes regions, and Canada Maritimes, have embraced tube flies as a viable alternative.
However, that said, tube fly products are generally found in small supply in most up-to-speed fly shops, with some even having a decent inventory of tying products and knowledge of tube fly tying.
Some helpful tube links:
The Canadian Tube Fly Company . . .
Tube fly tier you need to know-Ruben Martin
Royal Wulff Tube Dry Fly . . .
Micro Nymph Rubber Legs Tube Fly . . .
Sculpin Streamer Tube Fly . . .
Dry Fly CDC Caddis Tube Fly . . .
