Tube flies *

[Traditionalist]

This fly has been very successful for me. It takes perch very well!  Will also work well on trout waters where there are perch.




For complete instructions on how to make the tubes, and various other things, download the executable E-book from this link;

http://www.ains12.freeserve.co.uk/Tubes.zip

Unzip the file to a directory of your choice, and simply click on the .exe file. This will run on all windows machines, but if you have a Mac etc, you will need an emulator.

TL
MC

[Wildfisher]

That E book is excellent Mike. Oddly enough I recently  discovered too that these cotton buds made good light weight tubes for a few uses (including a leg knotter with a guitar string as suggested by you at the weekend!). I was going to post it here, but no need now! 

[Traditionalist]

That E book is excellent Mike. Oddly enough I recently  discovered too that these cotton buds made good light weight tubes for a few uses (including a leg knotter with a guitar string as suggested by you at the weekend!). I was going to post it here, but no need now! 

Indeed!  Very versatile things. I have heard that some people actually use them for cleaning their ears!  Waste of good fly-dressing and design material if you ask me!

Although,  I suppose you could just snip the manky bit off after your ears are clean?   Hmmmmm...........

Speaking of tubes, it seems quite a few people have problems holding hackles back, especially hair hackles.  Here is a little trick for you.

Cut a piece of plastic drinking straw, push it on to the spigot of your bobbin holder, before you start the thread.  When the hackle is tied in, just push the piece of straw on to the fly. This folds the hackle back perfectly. Also useful for varnishing streamres etc etc .

Only works poorly o Klinkhammers, but I am working on that!

Got an e-mail from a bloke who wants to know if he can put a hackle on the USD hare fly.  Of course you may do so, it is just not necessary, but if you want to, then go ahead.  It may affect the aerodynamics of the fly though. If you do it, make the hackle very sparse indeed. Best would be a very sparse hair hackle, wound below the wing. I will do that, and put a post up here about it.

Feather hackles will unbalance the fly. They also soak up water like sponges!

TL
MC