Tying Tube Flies - Pros and Cons

[Terry Dunford 0]

I'm trying to gather all the information that I can about the pros and cons of tying flies with tube flies, so I can determine if it will be worth it to learn how and buy all the necessary supplies and vise attachments. Your contribution to this thread would be greatly appreciated. Pros and cons related to all aspects of tube flies from tying them to fishing them. Thank you.

[bluegill576 0]

I havn't tied too many tube flies, but I think that the main pros are that for trout and other fish that strike at the tail of their prey to injure them unlike bass which eat the whole thing at once, so you could get a higher hookup rate for some species. I guesse the cons would be the price of all the materials needed to tie them.

[NJ All Day 0]

Some of the pros are.

 

1) It's on a tube so when you hook a fish your fly can move freely up and down the leader so the fly doesnt get ripped up as much.

 

2) If you use a short shank hook then the fish doesn't have as much of a hook shank to pop the fly out of the mouth.

[chrismartin 0]

An additional pro to tube flies is that you can tie "component" flies. I tie tube flies for pike and muskie. I can tie heads, bodies and tails on separate tubes in a wide array of colours and sizes. this approach gives me an almost unlimited number of colour options. I can also increase or decrease the length of the fly by adding or removing body components. The versatility of this approach is incredible!

[Jaydub 0]

The main advantage I see is that you can have a very large fly with a short shank, relatively small gape hook.

[Terry Dunford 0]

An additional pro to tube flies is that you can tie "component" flies. I tie tube flies for pike and muskie. I can tie heads, bodies and tails on separate tubes in a wide array of colours and sizes. this approach gives me an almost unlimited number of colour options. I can also increase or decrease the length of the fly by adding or removing body components. The versatility of this approach is incredible!

 

Hello Chris, thanks for that info. That sounds interesting, could you post some photos so I can see a couple examples? Thanks.

[agn54 0]

Terry,

 

I have recently gotten into tying tubes as well although I haven't had the opportunity to test them out yet. This page has a lot of really good information on tubes, I hope it helps.

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

[Al Beatty 0]

Hi Terry,

 

In addition to the other suggestions we'd like to add: You can fish a large tube fly and use a smaller hook to avoid damaging any smaller fish that may jump on the pattern. EX: How many times have you had a small fish grab a #2 Bugger and end up with the hook through its eye? From time to time it has happened to us until we started fishing tube flies with smaller hooks. Now we still fish a lot of size #2 or larger flies but the hook we usually select to trail behind the fly is a size #8 or #10. Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Gretchen & Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

[Terry Dunford 0]

Hi Terry,

 

In addition to the other suggestions we'd like to add: You can fish a large tube fly and use a smaller hook to avoid damaging any smaller fish that may jump on the pattern. EX: How many times have you had a small fish grab a #2 Bugger and end up with the hook through its eye? From time to time it has happened to us until we started fishing tube flies with smaller hooks. Now we still fish a lot of size #2 or larger flies but the hook we usually select to trail behind the fly is a size #8 or #10. Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Gretchen & Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

 

Hello Al & Gretchen,

 

Thank you for that information. Yes, I see how that could happen. Some fly patterns are on larger hooks because the pattern materials require it so there's enough hook gap to land the fish, so with tube flies you're able to use smaller hooks. Every time I see a tube fly with the hook right behind or within the back of the tube, I image problems with getting it snagged. I tend to fish around a lot of obstructions, so the chance of getting a fly snagged seems to be a lot greater because there usually isn't anything covering the hook point such as hackle or a weed guard. Or is that something that I should just not worry about? Or is there certain preventative techniques that are required in order to fish a certain type of tube fly/hook setup near obstructions?

 

One other thing that should be widely distributed (I would even post it on my site http://flytyingclub.org), is a chart that specifies what size hooks should be used to catch specified sized & species of fish with tube flies. For example (note: I just through some example hook sizes in there to provide a visual layout of what I'm talking about):

 

FISH SIZES: Trout | Largemouth | Smallmouth | Pike | Panfish | Steelhead | etc...

6"-12": 24 - 12 | 8 - 1 | 14-4 | 8-1/0 | 14-2 | 14 - 4 |

13"-18":

19"-24":

25"-30":

31"+:

 

Something like that. Maybe I'm alone with this belief, maybe it has already been done and I haven't seen it. I do know that it would help me. I'm not asking you guys to do it specifically, but if someone does, please let me know.

 

I'm a creative tier and I see a lot of potential with tube flies, so if you could help to ease my mind about their exposed hooks, then that would be wonderful. And, hearing it from you would be even better! Thanks for your help. It is greatly appreciated!