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I've been fascinated with tube flies since the British Fly Fair International last year and I recently purchased some Eumer tubes and tube adapter from Balticpikeflies in Finland... my pal Simon Graham for those that know him runs the highly acclaimed PikeFlyFishingArticles blogspot and BalticPikeFlies. I've played with plastic tubes but having seen Simon's ties using the teardrop tubes I thought - I must have a go... And they are not as fiddly as they look...
The Hollow Tie... first attempt at a hollow tie on a tube and following a talk thru on the internet from Andy Elliott... him tying in Belfast and sending me a photo of each stage - this is what I came up with! The Hollow is on the 22mm gold teardrop and only uses Bucktail secured with Bug-Bond... it'll never come apart... sadly no dubbin in between the ties! Maybe next time. Tying on a tube that isn't parallel was interesting, never mind not on a hook shank
By contrast the Orange Baitfish is on a 15mm tube and uses Icelandic Sheep, SF Blend, 2 reverse ties of bucktail then a veil of Orange SF topped off with black slinky and orange tape eyes encapsulated in the Bug-Bond...
Both tubes were tipped with Sakuma Manta 2/0 for the exercise. The Sakuma Manta is a Varivas Big Mouth by a different name... I believe... but stand to be corrected
Both have been tied with the salt in mind BUT as my first love is pike - so who better to try them out on... proof of the pudding and all that!
I have a lake 5 mins from the house that I do all my fly testing on... mostly for big patterns I have to use knotable wire for obvious reasons.
So off to the lake for 6am Friday and by 8.30pm these 4 beasties were in the bag... 2 a piece to the two patterns... the orange Bfish was fished on a floating line whilst the Hollow tie on an intermediate rio striped bass... a great day to be out... spawning having finished 3 weeks ago on the lake... but some still carrying the scars of the annual passion fest!
The net Is a York Salmon Gye which I believe is 24" in diameter for scale...
May not be picture perfect ties but who cares with the fish caught... now to tie more for a salty trip!!
(For the truly anal amongst us who look at photos in detail... the Rio Striped Bass set up is on a Loomis Crosscurrent GLX 9# with an Abel Super 10 whilst the Cortland Pike Pro 333 Floating is on a custom built 9/10# Harrison Advanced Rods fly rod built in Liverpool by my pal Steve Harrison with a Daniellson 8/11 LW reel (non stock size)... I had the rod named "Caledfwlch" which is the old Welsh name for King Arthur's sword Excalibur... I come from Celtic parentage... my father is Welsh and mother from Northern Ireland...)
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The Hollow Tie... first attempt at a hollow tie on a tube and following a talk thru on the internet from Andy Elliott... him tying in Belfast and sending me a photo of each stage - this is what I came up with! The Hollow is on the 22mm gold teardrop and only uses Bucktail secured with Bug-Bond... it'll never come apart... sadly no dubbin in between the ties! Maybe next time. Tying on a tube that isn't parallel was interesting, never mind not on a hook shank
By contrast the Orange Baitfish is on a 15mm tube and uses Icelandic Sheep, SF Blend, 2 reverse ties of bucktail then a veil of Orange SF topped off with black slinky and orange tape eyes encapsulated in the Bug-Bond...
Both tubes were tipped with Sakuma Manta 2/0 for the exercise. The Sakuma Manta is a Varivas Big Mouth by a different name... I believe... but stand to be corrected
Both have been tied with the salt in mind BUT as my first love is pike - so who better to try them out on... proof of the pudding and all that!
I have a lake 5 mins from the house that I do all my fly testing on... mostly for big patterns I have to use knotable wire for obvious reasons.
So off to the lake for 6am Friday and by 8.30pm these 4 beasties were in the bag... 2 a piece to the two patterns... the orange Bfish was fished on a floating line whilst the Hollow tie on an intermediate rio striped bass... a great day to be out... spawning having finished 3 weeks ago on the lake... but some still carrying the scars of the annual passion fest!
The net Is a York Salmon Gye which I believe is 24" in diameter for scale...
May not be picture perfect ties but who cares with the fish caught... now to tie more for a salty trip!!
(For the truly anal amongst us who look at photos in detail... the Rio Striped Bass set up is on a Loomis Crosscurrent GLX 9# with an Abel Super 10 whilst the Cortland Pike Pro 333 Floating is on a custom built 9/10# Harrison Advanced Rods fly rod built in Liverpool by my pal Steve Harrison with a Daniellson 8/11 LW reel (non stock size)... I had the rod named "Caledfwlch" which is the old Welsh name for King Arthur's sword Excalibur... I come from Celtic parentage... my father is Welsh and mother from Northern Ireland...)
