I have tied few flys that use tinsel for ribbing. First time used one of them hooked pretty good pickerel. Fish got hooked in the corner of the mouth and by the time I got him landed he had a chance to chew on the fly a bit. Needless to say the tinsel did not took kindly to this kind of treatment. So the question is : is there a way to attach tinsel to dubbed body to make it a bit more resistant to “gators”? Glue? What kind?
pike and pickerel teeth vs plastic tinsel! those teeth are gonna win every time. you might try to counter/reverse wrap with some fine wire but the teeth may get that too.
Here in Texas we have tons of Gar and these buggers are massive tooth machines which will tear about everything up that you can throw at them. What we do here is tie up some flies with nylon rope like the type used for dock lines. Unravel it and add flash materials to it and your ready to rock with these critters. Oh did I mention we also use no hooks on this type of fly which are 7 plus inch long. PM me for more information.
Hobo
What I do, is use heavier mylar tinsel. If that is still not adequate, try oval tinsel. If that is not adequate you may want to try different colours of fine wire. I often rib with copper wire, but you can also buy gold, silver, red, green colours.
The toughest tinsel/mylar that I’ve found is the inside of a common Potato Chip bag. When tying it on the hook tye the “colored” side up. when you wrap the hook ,the tinsel or “silver” side will be showing. You can cut it in any width that you want. I use a razor blade for this. hope this helps!
Randy