Tube Flies – Why We Like ‘Em

Any guest of either Alaska West or BC West in recent years has to have seen this one coming: We’re loving tube flies more and more, and we love ‘em for a few key reasons:

1. They’re super easy to cast. Flat out, one of the best reasons to give them a shot.
2. They’re stackable, and a good selection of simple marabou tubes in a variety of colors gives guides and anglers the chance to get creative on fly colors based on light levels, water clarity and flow.
3. They’re ideal for using smaller trailer hooks (i.e.: size 2, 1, and 1/0), which seat better on a large salmon or steelhead’s jaw. And unlike the 3/0 to 6/0 ‘brainers’ of years past, these smaller hooks significantly reduce the risk of mortality on any fish that takes the fly deep.
4. They increase your hook-to-land ratio, and who doesn’t like that? Much like the original Intruder’s ‘breakaway’ concept that allows the fly to slide up and away from the hook when that severely angry gagger of a fish starts shaking its head, tube flies do the same. By getting that weighted fly away from the actual hook, breakaway-style flies offer the fish less leverage than even a fixed-hook stinger-style fly because there’s no weight going in one direction while the fish’s head goes in the other.
5. They’re perfect when used in tandem with a bullet weight, but that’s a topic for another post!

More on Tube Flies

• Advanced Rigging
• Silvey’s Tandem Tube
• Introduction to Tube Flies