Tube Flies for Great Lakes Steelhead
Knowledgeable steelheaders throughout the Great Lakes region are slowly realizing the beauty and the effectiveness of tube flies. Conventional tube designs are still the most popular, but modern Scandinavian tube designs and patterns are beginning to draw a lot of interest.
Conventional tube fly designs use straight-diameter plastic or metal tubes. Because straight-diameter tubes without junction tubing have a tendency to spin, most flies on these tubes were historically tied “in the round” with the wing and hackle tied completely around the tube. In recent years Great Lakes tiers have converted many of their most effective patterns into this conventional tube style, including streamers, Zonkers, Woolly Buggers, leeches, standard steelhead wets, Spey flies, some nymphs, and even egg flies. The popularity of these conventional tube designs is no doubt a result of the easy access tiers have to straight-diameter tubing from both fly-tying manufacturers and unconventional sources.
Scandinavian tube-fly designs are leading the way in innovation today. These modern tube flies are tied asymmetrically—with a wing on top—in the “fatback” or Temple Dog style, in which a long, soft wing is angled high away from the body and the fly is finished with a characteristically small head.
These fatback flies are well balanced, swim level on the swing, and allow fly tiers to create specific patterns to imitate baitfish, which are the primary food source for Great Lakes steelhead.
The Tube-Fly Advantage
The advantages of tube flies are many. At the top of the list is the benefit of a big fly with a small hook. A tube fly allows you to use a smaller, short-shank tube hook instead of the larger, long-shank hook commonly used in long streamers or traditional salmon flies. Long-shank hooks can be hard to cast and can lever themselves from a fish’s mouth, resulting in a higher percentage of lost steelhead. Short-shank tube fly hooks cause less injury to fish compared with the lever action of a long-shank hook, which can gouge a much bigger wound during a long fight.
After hooking a steelhead, a tube fly normally disengages from the hook and slides up the leader out of the way. This greatly extends the fishing life of the fly, since it is not damaged by the steelhead’s teeth during the fight. This also makes it easier to remove the hook from a steelhead’s mouth, because there is clear access to it.
Other advantages include:
• A damaged or dull hook can easily be replaced with a new one onstream without discarding the fly.
•Tube flies allow you to control the weight of the fly by changing the tube. In general, plastic tubes are ideal for moderate to lower flows and small streams, although fast-sinking lines and cone heads can effectively sink plastic-body tube flies in faster, deeper flows. Metal tubes of various densities and designs are also effective for getting down quickly.
• Tube flies are more economical to tie, since only a handful of hooks are needed for dozens of patterns.
• Hooks can more easily be positioned upward, like a keel fly, reducing the chances of snagging bottom.
• Hooks can sit farther back in longer tube-fly patterns by using a longer tube body or extending the junction tubing to compensate for short-striking fish.
• A tube fly enables you to easily change the hook size and design—thereby increasing or decreasing hook weight—in order to balance the fly and make it swim level.
Plastic Versus Metal Tubes
Conventional tube patterns can be tied with plastic or metal straight-diameter tubing. Because of the diameter of the tube, these flies often have bulky finished heads, which some tiers consider unsightly.
Straight-diameter metal tubes get you down quickly in deep or fast water but the weight of the tube can take away from the natural movement of the fly, and they are difficult to cast with single-handed fly rods. Double-handed fly rods generate much more energy and seem to handle heavy tubes better. Long, heavy metal tubes can also hang up on the stream bottom and experience “hang down,” in which the rear of the tube fly tips downward slightly and the fly does not swim level during the swing.
Most Great Lakes steelheaders use plastic tubes because they give the fly a more natural and lively swimming action. Getting these light plastic tubes down in heavier water is not a problem with a fast-sinking line and a short leader. Plastic tubes rarely get caught on the stream bottom and are easier to cast than heavy straight metal tubes, especially when they have some added weight—such as a cone head or bead—to help turn over the leader. Aluminum tubes provide just enough weight to turn over the leader and don’t get hung up on the stream bottom as often as copper and brass.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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