Tuesday, February 28, 2012

I'm a fan of the B10 Stinger


For me, no other season or species of fly fishing leaves you questioning yourself more than winter steelhead. The grabs and fish are so often few and far between that we always believe "there must be a better way to do this". That internal thought drives me to tie all sorts of various winter bugs of different styles and sizes. I've tied em' on shanks with a fireline trailer, shanks with a tube style trailer, fixed hooks like a 7999, small tubes, and so on and so on.

I really enjoy tying on tubes. I have to have confidence in my bug, and part of that confidence is the hook I'm fishing. The tube fly with a small piece of junction tubing allows me to rig and fish my fly with confidence. I've often times rigged a non slip loop with a gammy octopus #4 cradled in the loop so it sits upright(similar to a loop to loop connection). That has worked great for me at times, but I've also had my fair share of yanks that don't stick or fish that come unpinned. That is winter for you, right?

My brother has been fishing the Gammy B10(straight eye) stinger hooks with a non slip loop recently. Instead of the cradle method, you rig the loop through the eye of the hook. I commonly use this method during the summer when fishing hairwings instead of the double turle. On the winter tube, simply pull the knot into the tubing and your hook basically become a version of a siwash setup like you might see on a spinner. On smaller tubes, you might also choose to fish it fixed, with the eye of the hook pressed inside the junction tubing.

I converted this weekend and this hook is sticky................







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