Fishing Tube Flies
By combining floating, intermediate, or sinking lines with light or heavy tubes (easily changed streamside), your ability to fish flies throughout the water column is unmatched. You can tune your depth control by adding beads or cones ahead of the fly.

The best way to fish a fly deeply is to use long brass or copper tubes. These heavy 21/2- to 31/2-inch tubes are best fished with a long 10-weight rod or larger. Smaller plastic tubes will fish close to the surface and cast easily on 4- to 6-weight rods.

A common practice with tube flies, impossible with hooked flies, is to thread two on the tippet to build a larger fly or to fish a tube fly in front of a hooked fly.

Purple Egg Suckin' Rhea

Hook placement in the fly is critical. Late-season steelheaders often tie dedicated patterns with stinger hooks to handle short strikes. Tube flies provide versatility with the hook style and placement without duplicating patterns. When fish are striking short, try a longer connector or tie a tandem-hooked rig.

Fishing a hitched tube (a tube with a hole in its side through which the tippet enters) in the surface film is a traditional salmon technique, but it has applications for other species of fish such as smallmouth bass and trout. Hitched flies should be tied on plastic tubes because they aren't intended to sink. These patterns are fished on the swing and produce stunning results during nonhatch periods or when you're getting bright-day refusals during a hatch. Some hitched metal tubes spiral when retrieved. This characteristic may be useful in some fisheries.

Fishing to a large school of dorado with a tube fly in Costa Rica, I hooked a fish and broke it off quickly. I tied on a second tube fly and quickly broke off another fish. The water was clear enough to see what had happened. The tube fly had ridden up the leader, where another fish had attacked it and cut the tippet. To solve this problem when fishing tube flies for blitzing, frenzied fish such as dorado, false albacore, or bluefish, you should rig a stopper bead 6 inches up the bite tippet.

Basic Baitfish

Tying flies tube-style can increase the enjoyment of your days on the water. You will find no limit to innovative possibilities for your flies and for your fishing on both fresh and salt water.