I’ve been working with some beadhead ideas. My fly tying buddy Willy Self likes to talk about fuds…flies under development. Willy experiments obsessively. Like me, 95% of all FUD efforts end up in failure. But a 5% success rate (or what ever it really is) ain’t bad.
Anyway. Back to beadheads. I’m going to dodge my main point for a few more sentences and start with an observation no one will dispute (all of which has grown out a recent FUD development session).
Jigs ride in the water with the hook up. A jig hook has its eye on an upward-pointing appendage to the hook. The weight below the tippet attachment point forces the hook to ride up no matter what. Barbell eyes tied opposite the eye-direction of a standard down-eye hook will do the same. Now closer to the point I want to make…
Lot’s of tiers are making bead head nymphs on bent-shank scud and in some cases hopper hooks. They may or may not have noticed. But those flies will almost always ride hook up. I see dozens of scuds tied on those hooks, all tied as if the hook would ride down. But it doesn’t. A bead on a bent shank hook will force the hook to ride up.
What about bead head flies tied on traditional straight shank down eye hooks? The answer appears to be the same. But I’m a little less confident saying so than about curved shank hooks. I need to test this a little more.
If the shank of the hook has a curve, however, as with scud hooks and small hopper hooks (which I and many others use for bead head nymphs) the hook will almost always ride up. Even though almost nobody ties them that way.
Soft hackle wet flies–like Charlie Brooks stonefly nymphs–are omni-directional. But the minute you put a thorax and wing case on a nymph you are making an assertion about hook orientation and fly posture in the water. And more often than not the hook will ride up, with thorax facing down.
Hi Pittendridge, some good points. I had thougt about jigs, dumbell eyes on hooks, and the tiny lead head jig hooks they see for fly tying riding hook point up, but not the scud hooks when they have bead heads on them. Something to think about.
Second thought, the flies still seem to work, even if tied upside down in the way they fish. Maybe they work like cripple drys, in that the fish looks at the upside down scud or nymph and thinks “that nymph has had too much to drink, and will be easy pickings.”
I am wondering if they only ride hook point up if they are under tension from the fly line leader and being moved through the water. If they are not under tension in a rapidly moving trout stream they may tumble though the water.
At any rate, good points that many of us have probably not thought about.
That the flies work when upside down may mean complex fly design is beside the point.
Good thought about tension on the tippet. I should have mentioned that. In my bathtub tests (in between the rubber duckies) I noticed the orientation of the fly is almost random when in free-fall. But any tension on the tippet at all immediately turns the hook up. Drag free drifts are the fly fisherman’s holy grail. But most of the time the best you can hope for is limited drag on the fly. And limited drag isn’t enough. Any tension at all turns the hook up.
When there is no tension anything goes. Upside down, sideways, rightside up all have an equal probability.
I believe that complex fly design really IS beside the point, to the point of irrelevancy.Complex flies are fun to tie. They do work, no argument with that. But simple flies work too. Just as well, and in my limited experience, better than the more complex designs. I’ve begun tying almost all my nymphs, and ALL my midges, omni directional. I’ve eliminated wing cases, most dubbing operations, and tried to simplify my trout flies to the point where they don’t imitate anything in particular. They just look and act like something a trout will eat. I’m catching more fish, although that could be just a matter of more experience trout fishing, and I’m certainly being more efficient at the vise. You are right on the money about fly orientation regarding beadhead flies, or even shank weighted, flies on down eyed hooks. If the bead or weight is heavier than the hook from bend to point, then the fly will ALWAYS ride hook point up unless there are bouyant portions of the dressing that effect the alignment. Simple physics. I really want most of my flies to ride that way, though. Fewer hang ups. Good Luck! Buddy
There was an article about this in one of the mags about a year ago. Can’t remember which one off the top of my head. The author advocated other weighting techniques or tying in wings and wing cases on the underside of the body, rather than on top.
In his book, Good Flies, John Gierach points out that even small mono eyes will turn a damsel nymph upside down. He advocates using the Dai-ichi 1180 hook. The hook shank curves down before curving back up to the eye. The fact that mono or weighted eyes sit below the eye of the hook, seems to offset the natural tendency to turn upside down.
As for scuds, I’ve read they roll every which way when dislodged in streams. The fact that they are drifiting upside down may not matter.
Cool. Good info. I wonder how I can track that magazine article down. I personally like the upward-pointing hook. If I continue to tie nymphs with wing cases, I’ll simply reverse the orientation 180 degrees. This is interesting. Others (obviously) have also noticed what I only noticed a few days ago. But none of this has bubbled up (or down) into the commercial fly bins. I will visit my local fly shop today. I’ll buy a few standard beadheads, tied on straight shank down-eye hooks: Prince Nymph, Hare’s Ear, etc. Then I’ll do some more testing. I did this once already, but I concentrated on bent shank hooks the last time. Now I’ll zero in on traditional straight shank hooks. The first time I did this it sure looked to me like there was no difference…that straight shank beadheads tend to ride upside down too–at least they do so when ever there is any tension on the leader. Which (despite our best efforts) is almost always.
Another interesting test session will have to be with un-weighted (not beadhead) straight shank nymphs.
RE> Scuds tumble anyway.
Sure. I’m sure that’s true. And in a larger context wing cases and/or scud backs may not even matter. But most of us do tie them and most of us expect them to orient up. And they don’t. That is interesting. Even if it doesn’t really matter in terms of fish catching efficiency.
… on Charlie Brooks’ ideas refers to “in-the-round”. My recollection is that his thought was if fish see a fly that looks like how they see a nymph from any one direction, it will represent a food item. Tying flies “in-the-round” presents one view of the nymph from any direction.
I’ve been tying virtually all my nymphs that way since I first read about Brooks’ ideas. Using the simplest view of a nymph results in the simplest fly, which will be just as effective as a fly that looks like the most complicated view of the same nymph. Eliminate the wingcase and legs on most smaller nymphs and add a few wraps of soft ( hen ) hackle and you have an “in-the-round” nymph.
Sandy’s experiments with how the hook rides depending on the style of hook used and where the weight is placed are very interesting. Looking forward to seeing some more test results.
A corrollary question is how fish actually get hooked. Not something I’ve studied or plan to study, but have been curious about time to time. It does seem to me that fish are often actually hooked as part of the process of spitting out something they have “decided” is not a food item. If that is true, will be the hook up rate be the same with a hook that rides point up as it will be with a hook that rides point down ??
Yes. Charlie Brooks was onto this a long time ago.
In my experience upward pointing hooks seem to hook more reliably. That’s my non-scientific hunch from experience. But I do believe it strongly.
There is evidence, in the fisheries biology literature, that fish bite minnows hard and then immediately let go. That behavior doesn’t necessarily translate to nymphs. But in the minnow case there is evidence they swirl and attack from the side. Bite down hard, in order to disable the minnow. And then let go and grab the disabled minnow a second time, so it can be swallowed head first (Headfirst Prey Manipulation in Piscivores, by T.E. Reimchen).
That has interesting implications for streamer fishermen. That’s why streamer fishing results in so many more missed strikes than any other technique. That’s why soft streamers (that they bite down on a second time) take streamer fishing to another level. I’m digressing badly here. But you did get me going on another interesting topic.