Trailer hook style flies have become extremely popular for salmon and steelhead for a number of reasons. They allow dull hooks to be changed, reduce the the number of ‘short’ strikes, and allow large profile flies (i.e. intruders, leeches, and so on) to be tied with shorter shanked hooks for better holding power.
However, when tying flies with trailer hooks, it’s important that the loop at which to attach the hook is long enough to prevent short strikes, but not so long as to risk hooking fish too deeply, potentially causing injury to the fish.
Finding this happy medium can be difficult, but our buddy and fly tying guru, Stuart Foxall, recently showed us a simple way to gauge the length of your trailer hook, leaving you with perfect loop every time. Today, we share that tip with you.
Tying Stinger Loops the Right Size – Every Time
- At the front of the fly, give a couple of thread wraps to hold the wire loop on top of the shank. Keep these first few wraps loose to allow the wire to be pulled either way along the shank in order to be positioned correctly.
- Attach the largest hook you’re liable to use onto the wire.
- Pull the wire loop so that the eye of the hook is at the rear-most tying point on the shank (see photo above). This is where the first dubbing ball will be tied and makes sure that the loop is large enough for hooks to be changed, without extending too far back. This is the ‘happy medium’ point.
- The loop is now the correct length. Remove the hook to keep from impaling yourself and get tying!
Looks like you guys definitely like your stinger hook set ups, understandably so when you are chasing the large species that you do up north. I live in Colorado and love fishing streamers but hate throwing articulated junk with two hooks. Almost all of my articulated streamers are tied on long shank streamer hooks- which hook should I clip to minimize missed strikes and accidental snagging?
Hi Zach,
We couldn’t agree with you more. We do love stinger hook set-ups, but even while targeting larger species we only ever use one hook as well. The benefit of this is we can still tie very large flies which our fish (including trout) tend to like, but we can still use small ‘stinger’ hooks that are safer on the fish as well. So, if we tie a big fly on a long shank streamer hook, with a trailer hook hanging towards the back of the fly, we would clip the bend of the long shank streamer hook at the front, leaving a smaller trailer hook at the back.. This way, short strikes are less common, AND there isn’t a second hook present causing ‘ugly’ hook ups.
Hope that helps Zach, thanks for reaching out!