I have been looking through the winners of the Irish and Atlantic fly tying competitions, I have a question about the majority of the flies shown. there appears to be what looks like a braided loop where the hook eye should be, is this me being a fool or am I correct?
Born to fish, forced to work.
What you are seeing is a gut loop which some people like to include if they are tying a traditional type Atlantic salmon fly on a blind eyed hook as the originals were.
If you look at any book on salmon flies from about 100 yrs ago, all of them were like this.
Donald/Scotland
Thanks for clarifying that for me Donald, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me 
Born to fish, forced to work.