ON THE POINT UP
TUBE FLY
FARUK EKICH
In my opinion, the traditional fly, with it's long hook shank, has three major disadvantages for fish safety: a long hook shank, point down keeling and the potential for snagging.
During a prolonged fight, the long shank can act as a lever making a larger hole and inflicting greater damage on the fish over time. In addition, the point-down hook often embeds in the tongue where blood vessels
reside and can result in excessive bleeding. In a pool disturbed from fighting a fish, fish lie low and often, in an attempt to get down to them, one snags a fish's back. The ensuing fight exhausts the fish and it may not recover if it was intended for release.
Following upon these observations, I developed my point up tube fly concept with a fixed short shank hook held point up. In addition to reducing fish injury, it offers the following benefits:
- leverage is minimized with a short shank hook in comparison to a longer shanked hook
- better hook-ups, especially on a downstream hanging fly when a fish dives straight down after taking the fly. In this instance, the full width of the fish's upper jaw is in reach of the hook point, rather then just the tip of the lower jaw
- it reduces the frustration of having to scrap a fly due to a broken hook. Simply replace the hook
- the fly disengages from the hook at the beginning of the fight & usually slides up the leader out of harms way of the fish's teeth, thereby lasting longer
- "point up", like the "keel fly" eliminates bottom snagging
Tie Faruk's point up tube polar shrimp
Tie Faruk's point up tube stonefly
Tie Faruk's tube sculpin