What is a tube fly?

The tube fly was originally a salmon fly design by The Scotsman Mr Alexander Wanless, who shaped a line of flies on thin lead barrels in the late 1930s.

Mr Alexander Wanless aimed to make a lightweight bait he could fish on his spinning rod with a fixed spool reel. Still today, many anglers use the tube fly on a spinning rod, but more so, the tube fly has become one of the most popular ways of tying salmon and steelhead flies –

In the Swedish Lagan River, many salmon are caught on tube flies. Either on fly gear or, more commonly, on spinning gear. When spinning gear is used, the tube fly is fished close to the bottom on a swinging trace behind a weight. 

Tubes for tube fly

In all its simplicity, the tube is merely the vessel that carries the fly pattern; hair, feather, and hook – But the tube with its ways in the water is also an alluring factor in the tube fly pattern, which can be used progressively.

Right; The FlashBack Bug is a steelhead wake-tube fly designed to use the tube’s properties to stay on top of the surface. The fly could also be tied on a hook… but it will be a fly that works differently on the surface than its cousin tied on the tube.

Tube fly patterns – in the future

We believe that tube flies will be the future fly when anglers grasp the many potentials of the various tubes.

Big rodent flies like this Tube Rat from our shop benefit significantly from being tied on a tube versus a hook. The tube rat is a much lighter alternative that is easy to cast even on light gear. The tube fly is not rigid as a big long shank hook, and less fish is lost to problems with leverage

Tube designed for tube flies

Tube fly-tying equipment is a unique part of the fly-tying kit, and fishing shops here in Europa often carry a large selection of tubes and other specialized equipment for tube flies.

The majority of these tubes are made from plastic substances called PE: Polyethylene or PA Aliphatic polyamides

With an annual worldwide usage of approximately 80 million tons of Polyethylene; it is not uncommon to find tubes in fishing tackle shops that may have been designed for something completely different from tube flies. Likewise, you may spot some tubes outside fishing shops that could work well in your fly tying.

Right: An 2 1/2 inch Danish seatrout commotion tube fly for nocturnal fishing. Dressed with a soft cone to the front and plastic beads to the body to make it push water

The cotton swab is a good example of a tube that could work as tubing for tube flies. On the other hand, cotton swabs are just as diverse as the tube-fly tubing you find in shops – and some cotton swabs will easily split and bend, others might float – an exclusive feature you could use for an extraordinary tube fly.

The right tube for the job

Fishing an entire season for Atlantic salmon or steelhead could be a technically demanding affair involving a lot of know-how and special gear.

Here a salmon caught on a Garry tied on a 1 1/2 copper tube – When fishing – the hook is kept in place by a hook guard made of soft plastic tubing tied to the rear of the copper tube. The tube fly will slide freely on the leader when a fish is hooked.

Heavy tube flies

Weighted tubes can get down in fast water – They can also be used during the cold part of the season, October – November, and during the first month of the season – January – March.

Above right: Classical Slipstream tubes from Veniard in England – The tubing inside the metal tube (inner tube) may be frayed or otherwise damaged when used – You can change the inner tube by cutting the ends of – then pulling the inner tube out  – then inserting a new piece of inner-tubing – You can use our 1.8-millimetre tubing for this job.

Tube flies are an English invention designed by Mr Alexander Wanless in the early 1930s. It soon became a popular way of doing flies –

Some of the first tube flies made by Alexander Wanless were tied on oblong lead barrels. Mr Wanless used the flies with small hooks on his light spinning gear.

Still today, the heavy sinking tube plays a role in fly fishing; mainly, Atlantic salmon anglers use weighted tubes during the season.

Left: Special tool for cutting thin diameter tube

Not possible to buy tiny brass tubes? Cut your own! – I have cut a big brass tube into several small heavy microtubes using a unique tube-cutting tool. In the background, a tiny Frances Fly tied on such a micro brass tube. Tubes fitted with our hook-guard

Heavy tube flies in many shapes and sizes.

Scandinavia and Scotland are blessed with fast-running rivers. European anglers have developed a long line of heavy tubes to be used during the season – most of them are designed for summer sport with a floating line and a presentation of the fly some 10 inches below. Many of these microtubes and the conehead on the photo to the right are designed for this purpose…

We aim to present the individual tubes from the photo on this page – during the following year.

See another page on Fishmadman where we use copper tubes for fast water tube flies

Tungsten Tubes – The heavy boy in the class

Weight is not everything when it comes to surging to the deep – density is an all-important factor – Tubes made of the material tungsten has a density almost 200 % higher than an equivalent copper tube – A real depth charge

Light tube fly

Most Scandinavians would choose tube flies for their salmon and trout fishing. The tube fly is convenient and gives us versatility that is hard to beat – But foremost, the tube fly allows the angler to fish big or small fly patterns correctly in all kinds of water.

Tying a tube fly for summer conditions

When summer conditions call upon a tiny fly pattern that will work with the most subtle current in the river – you should tie on a micro-tube fly – The fly may be more prominent in volume than a small single-hook pattern and fitted with a hook. It could also weigh more than a single hook pattern – But it also acts much differently.

Left three miniature tube flies tied on different tubing – The two top patterns are tied on relatively soft tubing from a BIC ballpoint pen – hooks in the picture is # 18 – a single hook is # 14

The best tube on the market

A Fishmadman speciality is our tubes designed for Riffling hitch and wake flies – No one made a good enough tube for the job …so we designed the perfect tube for this purpose. The tube has low memory and will take a lot of mechanical abuse before it breaks.  Buy this tube from our shop

Building the tube fly

Modern tube flies in Scandinavia are often built from various sections of tube – and getting dimensions and tubing right is a bit like building LEGO.

Here I have assembled our 1.8 mm. hard tube with our 3.0/1.8 mm Riffling Hitch tube – In this case, the riffling hitch tube is used as a hook guard, but a hook guard of soft tubing may also be slid onto the rear of the riffling hitch tube to accommodate bigger hooks than the Owner Chinu # 1/0 shown in the photo. Coneheads are often used to the front of the fly – fixed with a tiny drop of glue or Zap-A-Gap – Finally, a collar is formed on the tube by heating it with a naked flame.

Above: The artificial wet-fly icon: The Jock Scott – allegedly conceived by the ghillie Jock Scott – on his way to Norway accompanying his employer Lord Scott. Here is a 6/0 version from the hands of the fly-tying company: Redpath Kelso-on-tweed. Such big single-iron flies were used by British anglers in the early season as late as the 1940s when tube flies replaced them, and later again, big Waddington shanks.

Sometimes surface fishing is the ideal choice. One will be able to out-fish all other anglers by dead-drifting a small Bomber dry fly or trailing a tiny riffling hitch tube fly as opposed to using a subsurface salmon fly technique – But more often, it is the angler using the conventional wet salmon fly that will have the best chance of catching the fish of the day.

Salmon fly – sub or surface ? Even though it isn’t all that obvious… surface and wet-fly fishing is worlds apart.

10 inches below the surface, is a well-established guideline for the depth to fish a conventional salmon fly during summer. This is the type of fishing most anglers expect to fish and buy fly fishing gear to fish – This depth could be achieved by using a full floating line, a salmon fly tied on a single, treble or double iron, and a 9 – 10 foot leader – Add a medium or big river in summer conditions with a fair flow of + 9 degrees Celcius water (48,5 Fahrenheit), and that should bring the fly close to the desired depth of 10 inches below.

This is not always the case and the setup as described before will probably get you somewhere between the surface and 10 inches below – and sometimes you may have to look for the fish a bit deeper

10 inches below the surface – is not always the case – More often the fly will be in the area between the surface and 10 inches below

To be truly successful throughout the season anglers may have to fish for salmon and steelhead in different places in the water column – Numerous manuals have been written on this intriguing subject and this could very well be yet another set of guidelines – so before I start I would like to make a few notes on details in salmon fishing that may have a great influence on your choice of fly line and flies this will not be a fixed manual but a set of guidelines based on experiences I have had over the years with river height the temperature in the water water flow and how all this may progress during the season.

Depth of the river – The river depth is of great significance when you chose the sinking rate of fly line and flies especially in those cold months in the beginning and at the end of the salmon season where the fly must be presented at specific lies at a specific depth – But sinking lines are not always necessary – even in extremely cold June – July rivers ( 1 – 2 degrees Celcius 33 – 35 degrees Fahrenheit) salmon may come to the surface and snatch a fly in a low river (1 – 2 meter 3- 6 foot deep) and I have friends that never would think of changing their trusted floating line that they used to the end of the season the previous year.

Even in a extremely cold June – July river Atlantic salmon may come to the surface and snatch a fly

At the same river and time, other anglers may use sinking lines of various densities and unmistakably also hook up with salmon – it goes to show that fresh running salmon are active hunters with great stamina and appetite that can move a lot in high waters – in fact, it could be highly beneficial to have more than one setup of equipment ready in times of high water.

Big + 90 centimetres (+ 36 inches) salmon caught in 2 degrees Celcius ( 35,6 Fahrenheit) water on a full floating line – in an extremely turbulent part of a shallow river – Shallow rivers don’t always dictate sinking lines even though the water temperature is low

Late-season fishing in low-water rivers with a mixture of dark and silver fish can make a fascinating sport and is also one of the most demanding forms of river fishing anglers can participate in. Fish can be extremely picky, and anglers would have to spend time by the river to learn the ways of the fish. The low water narrows down the area where the fish can see the fly, and precise presentation and tiny details in flies are the names of the game.

Caught on a dwarf, Frances fly – An excellent fly for tricky presentation

Late season fishing in low water rivers: Even a small change in the depth the fly is fished can be of great importance

Salmon from October – caught in a shallow Scottish river – In the late end of the season temperatures can drop to a few degrees Celsius (35 – 36 degrees Fahrenheit) and even a tiny change in the depth the fly is fished can be of great importance – Use different density sinking poly leaders to find the right depth – Here I used a floating line and a 10 foot super fast sinking leader

Early salmon fishing and – choice of line and technique. Early fishing for Atlantic salmon has a different meaning to anglers fishing in Norway, the southern part of Scandinavia and Scotland. In Scotland, the season starts as early as February – March and heavy sinking lines and bigger flies are considered to be the correct approach if one wants to connect with salmon in cold water and air temperatures that might be below the river temperature. In Norway, the early season in June and the beginning of July could easily mean low temperatures in the river and, at the same time, high temperatures in the air. Sun and heat might bring further cold melting water from snow and ice. Early fishing conditions in Norway could easily change, and it is well worth getting different line densities to the river.

Photo: I prefer to use full lines for my riffling hitch and dry fly fishing – but I consequently use shotting head systems when I fish sunken lines and high water early in the season – The ability to change lines fast and easily during my fishing is second to none with the shooting head system.

It is not known exactly why the Atlantic salmon prefer bigger flies in the very early part of the season – and then smaller flies as the water temperature rises

Fish slow and deep in the early season. Salmon is often found in the back end or deeper part of the pool, and the fly is best presented from the bottom and up to the middle bit of the water column; this could be done using high-density sinking lines. Often bigger flies are used in the early part of the season, and it is not known why bigger flies work better at the beginning of the season – but as the temperature rises during the spring and summer months, smaller flies become the better choice. As a general rule, flies are fished slowly with the early fish, and anglers should use a smaller angle on their cast as opposed to summer fishing, where a steep curve and fast flies could be desirable.

Photo: Various sizes of  Garry flies tied on Waddington shank – biggest is 80 millimetres + 3 inches. Favoured flies for early season fishing – or when the river is in a spate 

Fishing with an artificial fly is the art of deception and we are actually in the game to cheat fish – animals ranking lower on the ladder of evolution than a toad. This doesn’t mean that fish are easy prey, and anglers will humbly practise their skills as fly fishers throughout their lives.

Getting the right salmon fly for your fishing is certainly an axis point in the world of salmon and steelhead fishing – so obviously, it is well worth spending time & money on making or buying the ultimate flies. Generally, one can look upon the salmon fly as a miniature aeroplane or, rather, a submarine. The fly’s ability to manoeuvre and finally deceive the fish will very much depend upon or be determined by the river you have come to fish – so the salmon fly has to be able to perform in the river. Hairs, feathers, colours and details in the fly will work with you to complete the illusion –  and if convincing enough, you might hook up with Mr Fish.

Making the perfect illusion

Deceiving a salmon into taking a fly is directly comparable to a magician making the perfect illusion – Use your mind to imagine how your fly is looking at the end of the leader – this could help you succeed

A bold statement – and this is not the whole truth as big fish also get caught on very small flies and everything in between – but it is a fact that many big salmon are caught on bigger flies. One could think that this was a case of anglers thinking; big fish – big chunks of food and therefore generally used big flies on big fish … but ask the seasoned local angler on a Norwegian river what he would tie on if a bigger fish entered the pool – He or she would know that the bigger fish have a weakness for bigger flies and would quickly change the # 12 to a # 6 – # 4 or even a size 2 – 1

We can only guess why this is the case – and my guess would follow some of the facts we see in surveys done on The food Atlantic salmon feed on at sea – There is no doubt that consumption of larger bait fish at sea is part of the overall success of big salmon in rivers across the Nothern Hemisphere – but their love for bigger bait could also tie in with their passion for bigger flies

Sea-liced Atlantic salmon fresh from the tide caught on a 2 1/4 inch black & Blue tube fly. Bigger salmon love bigger flies, and most skilled anglers I know have a larger fly ready for the bigger fish – should it suddenly arrive in the pool.

Do the fish see the fly as food or as an intruder? That is not always obvious but as the season progress your choice of  salmon fly and tactics might have to change profoundly.

Fresh, curious, aggressive like this male salmon, is the fish we frequently connect with – but the river holds fish in many stages of life. Some will never touch your fly – others may only be fishable for a few minutes during the day. Salmon fly fishing gets interesting when you find the right flies and fishing methods for all these “different” fish.

The resident fish

The resident fish is the fish that has been in the river for some time – that has lost some of its aggressiveness – It has travelled through pools and rapids – it might even have been out in the estuary again. It could also be a fish that has settled in a holding pool. That is starting to take colour. Who will jump when new fish enter his pool and occasionally rise to the trail of drifting insects… This is a fish well in tune with the surrounding environment, and it will take a special salmon fly to hook him – A fly that will work just right in that specific area – The local guy who comes to fish this spot…might have just that salmon fly in his box. Most likely, it will be a small neutral looking fly that in pose resembles some of the aquatic life the fish may encounter through the long days of waiting.

Stale fish, like the fish in the photo, is the salmon most anglers will meet when they visit the river during summer and early autumn – They are hard to catch. Still, the observant angler may notice that these fish have various levels of attention span where they act differently and may bite a fly. It could be when early morning slides into a sunny day – In the last hours of light – When new fish enter the pool and their patch. Small sub-flies that drift towards them like an insect  – A small heavy fly that suddenly appears and rise to the surface near their patch – can result in a bite. This particular fish was caught on a Micro Conehead Frances tube fly # 16

an excellent fly – This version of the Frances fly tied on a small aluminium tube. Fitted with a small brass conehead is an outstanding salmon fly. All the details come together in this fly that fishes at its best when presented drifting towards the fish, ultimately to be lifted in the last second. .

Another resident fish I spent an entire June day to catch – It was occasionally feeding – on something – not visible to me – It had looked and refused my tiny Frances fly several times, but after hours of casting and presentation, it suddenly took the fly – like it was the first time it had ever seen a fly.