Tube fly for the pike 

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With the mind free from focusing on possible hatches or nymph techniques, in winter we can dust off our large streamer boxes and try to lure hungry predators. With all the respect for the inventors of the tubeflies, I often wondered why tubeflies always have been confined within the perimeter of pure salmon fishing. In most manuals, literature, and collective imagination this type of pattern may seem to be capable of performing on Salmo genera only.


By not having to employ long hooks for big flies the patterns result far less "bulky", it is easier to cast and they gain a peculiar elegance: they are for me real "DUDEFLIES", as I like to name them. For their very nature of being a hollow tube free of sliding away from the mouth of toothy fish, they are perfect for chasing pikes. Once the fish has bitten, during the fight the 99% of the times the fly slides up the tippet and does not get chewed and destroyed, hence flies have a much longer life. Of course you'd better make sure to use a bite tippet in this case, like the 0.55 hard nylon, visible coming out of the fly in the picture above.


The possibility of using short shank hooks with long flies has the huge advantage to lower the leverage during the fight with the fish, hence far less fish will be lost. The same fly will be usable with any type of hook, adapting it to the species we are chasing. Big flies can be used with thin hooks, making it easier to release fish safely and limiting fish injure. Additionally if a hook is worn or damaged there is no need to dump the all fly, just replace the hook.


There are special vises to bind tubeflies, which are surely the best option. However if one likes to try to bind them without investing right away on a new vise, it is possible to use a big needle and secure it to a standard vise, as shown in the sequence above.


Dudeflies are very scalable, the same fly can be tied on light or heavy tubes, or be weighted with a cone head. Additionally they all fit in a small box, without getting tangled due to the hooks setting on plumage and hair.


In my box I have "dudeflies" for pikes and big predators and now have built also smaller dudeflies for trouts or aspius. Tubes are available for few Euros in most shops, they come in plastic, aluminum or brass, .


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