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Skinny Minny Tube Flies
A selection of slim, sparsely dressed tube
flies for sea trout night fishing
Skinny Minny
Tube Flies
Illustrated here are a
few slim tube flies for sea trout fishing at
night, or for salmon during the day in clear water. They
are very simply dressed on stainless steel needle
tubes, outside diameter 1.5mm and length 15mm, a type of
ultra-thin mini/micro tube developed and manufactured in
Scotland by
Grays of Kilsyth. Longer tubes
may of course be used if needed.
The tube flies
illustrated here are dressed on a fairly short needle tube
of 15mm in length, with a long wing, the overall length of
the fly being between 5 and 6 cm. The fly is therefore best
suited to a fairly long shank single hook, as shown at the
foot of the page. If a treble or double hook is preferred,
or a single hook with a very short shank, then a fly with
this length of wing might be better dressed on a longer
tube.
Dressing the Skinny Minny Tube Fly
These tubes are very
simply dressed. They have no body dressing and all materials
are tied in at the head of the tube as follows:
Materials:
Tube: a slim
needle tube 15mm long, 1.5mm diameter
Beard Hackle:
Cock hackle fibres of chosen colour
Underwing:
Sparse bunch of bucktail, with a few strands of flash on top
Overwing: Sparse
black squirrel tail
Tie the Skinny Minny in 3 Simple Steps
-
Lay a short bed of
tying thread and tie in a beard hackle on the underside
of the needle tube
-
Tie in a sparse
bunch of bucktail with a few strands of flash on top if
desired
-
Tie in a sparse
bunch of black squirrel tail on top of the bucktail.
Varnish head.
Blue Skinny Minny Tube Fly
Orange Skinny Minny Tube Fly
Yellow Skinny Minny Tube Fly
Pink Skinny Minny Tube Fly
Skinny Minnies ready to fish with
single hooks (Gamakatsu F31 size 8)
The tube flies are fitted here with a
single hook held in place by a flexible silicone hook link.
Note that the hooks are fitted with points uppermost. This
aids the stability of the fly when fishing, since single and
double hooks (undressed) will tend to swim naturally with
hook points up. It therefore seems sensible to fit the hook
in line with, rather than opposed to, the natural
orientation of the hook. An additional benefit of the
upturned hook is that the long hair wing cannot get caught
up on the underside of the hook (as it might do if the hook
point is on the underside of the fly). Alternatively, the
tube fly may be fitted with a
free-swinging hook if
preferred.
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