I have had several people get hold of me over the last couple of weeks with regards to the construction of my tube fles and how do I attach the hook on to the tube. Well I use Eumer tubes but any tubes will suffice if they slot into each other.Here Ihave the large tube at the bottom,the XL Tube in the middle & the XXL tube at the top.
I start by placing the large tube onto my tube tying needle and start wrapping my thread directly at the back of the tube. Most times one would start wrapping his cotton further along the tube purely because this is where you would be sliding in your hook from but as pike hooks have much larger eyes and wouldn't fit inside this tube,one needs to construct it and having a base of cotton at the back one can super glue the next section of tube on which will stay tight.
Imagine now I have finished the fly itself and I'm now going to make the hook system for the back.I cut a small piece of the XL Tube 6mm long.Superglue the cotton and then slide the XL Tube over the large tube
Like so
I then place a blob of superglue over the XL tube & slide the XXL Tube over that.
Like so. Then cut to the desired length. The XXL tube is a soft tube which I like to have around 10mm long
Slide your wire leader (I use LOOP Pike wire) through the front of the tube out the back.Tie onto your hook and slide the hook into the tube. Although the XXL Tube is soft it just holds the hook in place but is soft enough to allow the hook to be pulled out of the tube, thus allowing the fly to move freely away from the pikes mouth up your leader. Once you start using pike flies this way you'll truly see the benefit of how practical it is.Not only will your flies last a hell of a lot longer but one only needs to replace the hook once its either damaged,blunt or rusty. 
2 comments:
Hi Simon.
Thanks for sharing this Tube "instruction" I have bought a tube kit but still haven't been tying tube flies.
One thing why I still haven't been tying tubes is because the connection with the leader.
I use 100 lbs fluorocarbon leader without wire leader. It seams to me that I almost should have one leader each streamer I use...
So I do see the advantages of using tube flies. But haven't found a user friendly way of using the fly in the field.
Auke.
With tubs I'd suggst using wire leaders Auke. Loop pike wire is probably the best for this type of fishing.
This year during the pike fly tournament one of the english chaps who has been using 120 lb mono leader traces for the last 5 yrs had one bitten through by a pike.This was the 1st time it had ever happened to him in 5 yrs and he lost a very big fish,which probably would have won the tournament for them.
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