Tingler Tube Flies for salmon, sea trout and steelhead
The “Tingler” is simply a tube fly (more specifically a Needle Tube Fly) armed with a lightly dressed single hook, hence Tingler. The idea is by no means new. Single hooks have been used with tube flies for a long time. Their use today in salmon, sea trout and steelhead fishing, appears to be increasingly popular, partly due to their preceived benefit for catch and release, allowing the return of hooked fish to the river with minimum harm, allied to increasing regulation and restrictions imposed on fishing tackle and methods, where the use of treble hooks, for example, is often now prohibited.
The Needle Tube
The Needle Tube is a very slim plastic-lined stainless steel fly tying tube, similar to those used to make fine hypodermic medical needles. It has been produced by Grays of Kilsyth since 2008 and has, over the years, proved extremely successful, with countless notable catches of salmon, sea trout and steelhead internationally. It was originally developed, as a successor to the Needle fly (which I had used successfully since 1999), with night fishing for sea trout in mind, where I wanted a long slim lure with a detachable hook, in the early days a small treble hook. In recent years I have increasingly been replacing the treble hook on my needle tube flies, for both salmon and sea trout fishing, with a single hook, with no noticeable loss of hooking efficiency.
Tingler Tube Fly Variants
The Tingler shown below, comprising a slim stainless steel needle tube of 1.5mm outside diameter combined with a lightly dressed single hook, was tied as a night lure for sea trout.
The hook has a fairly long shank (I like a hook with a shank length, measured from eye to rear of hook bend, three times the width of the hook gape – my preference also for night sea trout singles) but is very light in weight, allowing the lure to be extended in length with no significant addition of weight at the rear end of the lure. An undressed single hook can, of course, be used but the light, sparse, tail-like hook dressing of a few hackle or hair fibres may add, I think, to the attraction, mobility and balance of the lure. When dressing the Tingler hook, a short length of the hook near the eye should be left undressed to allow the hook eye to be inserted into the silicone tubing at the rear of the tube without compressing the fine hook dressing, as in the photograph below.
The dressing of the tubes and hooks in a variety of colours also allows the interchange of hook and tube dressings to create a wide range of colour combinations. The change from one dressed hook to another in a different colour can alter the overall appearance of the lure quite dramatically.
The Tinglers illustrated above have been dressed on 20mm long Needle Tubes, outside diameter 1.5mm. The hooks are size 8 and the overall length of the lures is about 6 cms (2.5 inches). The tube length, hook size and dressing of the Tingler may be adapted for a range of fishing situations for salmon, sea trout or steelhead. The hook, held in place by a short link of silicone tubing, is likely to detach from the lure when a fish is hooked, with a minimum of leverage on the hook.