I recently got some eyeless tenkara hooks from Tenkara Bum and have been having a lot of fun trying out different patterns. But I was curious…are the claims about eyeless hooks having more action in the water true? So, I decided to do a (very unscientific) test and see. I tied two flies with identical materials, put them underwater, and took video so I coud compare. I realize this doesn’t exactly replicate stream conditions where you have cross currents, etc. that might contribute more motion to the flies, but I think it was interesting. In case you’re wondering, here is the recipe used in each of the flies:
Eyed Fly
Hook: TMC 2499 SPBL #12
Thread: Ultral Thread 70, Hopper Yellow
Hackle: Whiting Brahma, Cream Badger
Thorax: Peacock eye
Body: Thread
Eyeless Fly
Hook: Owner Super Yamame #7
Thread: Ultral Thread 70, Hopper Yellow
Eye: 30 lb. Dacron backing, orange
Hackle: Whiting Brahma, Cream Badger
Thorax: Peacock eye
Body: Thread
Great video, I just received my eyeless hooks from Tenkarabum and tied some flies this weekend and was wondering how they would look under water with movement! Perfect timing for your video. I love the hooks, I used some old fly line to form the eye, it worked well.
Cool experiment. I couldn’t see any noticeable difference in movement between the two flies. I would have thought that the “thread” eye fly would show more free lateral movement, that it would bend and oscillate around a bit more than the metal eyed fly. I think that maybe the 30lb dacron is too heavy and is in practice as rigid as a metal eye. I thought both flies looked awesome.
Very interesting video. I would also expect to see more natural lateral movement from the eyeless hook. I know some people have another way of tying on nymphs, like on a open loop of tippet, so that they’ll hang more freely. That effect could be responsible for improved take with eyeless hooks. Who knows.
Alex, funny, I was just talking to Karel this morning about using an open loop knot attach sakasa kebari to give them more movement. I used to use a knot like that for saltwater fishing. Gave a great action to Clouser Minnows & Decievers. Will probably have another video about that soon.
quite honestly, I like the movement of the fly with the regular hook eye better; the loop on the eyeless fly seems to slow down the fly’s movement and action. I wonder if it would make a difference if the loop would be smaller? but then, when fishing, the action will be more horizontal than vertical, so it might all be a mood point.
Karel–I agree, the loop seems to add buoyancy to the fly.
It’s hard to see too much difference – maybe it’s all about the “hot-spot”. Of course, like you said it’s hard to simulate the stream like that. Maybe you need to create a flow-through test tank with water pouring in the top from a height to create a plunge pool effect. :0 Or find a friend with a wet-suit and snorkel to film in-situ. You know, in all your spare time.
I’ll stay tuned…
Always fun to see what you come up with – the video production is looking good.
Hi Anthony, I think you’re right. The hot spot is probably the main appeal. Not sure if a flow tank would show much of a difference or not.
Jason, great video sequence. I also did not see as much difference as I expected there to be. I believe an interesting comparison would be to use an open Duncan Loop Knot on the eyed hook fly to see if it would make any difference between the other two tippet/fly mounting systems in action in the water. Just a thought but you could get a loop connection with a standard hook, without the bright spot of color of course, but there are other ways to solve that particular problem if desired….Karl.
Karl, thanks for the suggestion. I think a Duncan loop with an regular eyed fly would produce more movement than the loop. We’ll see…
Nice video. Not much difference. Like anthony said, I think that it is the hotspot. I have been using 210 thread for the eyeless hooks and haven’t had a problem. Also something you may want, I saw at the fly fishing show today there was a guy who had a small long tank with the water being sucked out at one end and then pumped back in at the other to create current. If you want more info on it let me know.
Loften, yes I would. Can you send me a link?
Thank you, Jason!
Very interesting. No differents… really.
But. I think anyway that a Eyeless Fly can work best as the indicator for angler on the boundary of two spaces – the air and underwater worlds. The rich red color is better visible for the angler on the big long distance from him and that’s why you can cast your fly very far away, as you can.
May be it’s not right so think, and it’s a bug in my brain process.
We have a siberian winter still, and I am unable to check it out in a practice. Maybe someone will try to verify this point before I can do it in our summer.
Hi Vlad, I think you’re right. I can thing of many situations (especially in lakes) where it would be beneficial to see the fly underwater and the loop would certainly be visible.
All I know is that was the coolest puppet show I have ever seen, two dancing kebari doing the trout dance. 😎
Jason, you always make such cool videos and it is always fun to see what you do.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
I also did not see any difference between the two but I sure did notice the colored eye on the eyeless hook more and was drawn to it. I wonder if the trout would be the same, drawn to that fly because of color? I know some would say yes.
Thanks again for sharing.
tj
thanks for this.
on a somewhat related note, I’ve been continuing my own experiments of various materials too in a similar setup.
Recent testing was all about peacock, my favourite thorax material, the real herl vs synthetics, to see if a synthetic dubbing was close as synthetic dubbing thorax’s are far more durable. since I’ve got a lot of different manufacturer’s “imitations” I thought I would compare them all with the real thing.
I selected long 4XL shank flies in size 4 for length, and then tied various dubbings in sections interspersed with sections tied with the real peacock herl. The concept being that the real herl was my benchmark, the standard I am trying to imitate. I then examined the test samples in water (VERY important – dry all the materials are vastly different) under light with mangification – from the side and from below, with movement and without.
Results:
almost no synthetic dubbings look or behave much (at all?) like the real thing – I tested all the current brands and many that I have collected and are no longer available;
the real peacock herl thorax often retains a close layer of air around the thorax at first, creating a close sheen for imitating the air in a thorax of an emerging nymph; only a few synthetics do this (many don’t at all), and of those that did, all bar one didn’t even approach the look of a peacock thorax with air;
even more important, when this air goes, there is both a translucence and color shift in peacock herl in the water in light that all synthetics currently available did not seem to match, to my eye. the fibres in real herl irridesce across different colours.
there is also some movement from the fibres if you have used a fat herl from a full feather (not the compressed herls you get from strung peacock in a packet), and this type of movement isn’t matched by dubbing strands teased out.
does it matter? possibly only in my mind, and I certainly fish more confidently with real peacock herl, so the end result is biased. What I CAN say is almost all, if not all, synthetics look quite different from the real thing to me when tied on a hook in water, which does nothing to help me find a more durable and cheaper alternative (pity).
all the best
craig
Thanks for reporting Craig. I agree–there’s no substitute for real peacock.
and by the way, doing this sort of thing raises strong doubts about one’s sanity if your partner doesn’t fish, including somewhat sarcastic comments in the background….
a question – has anyone ever observed a reverse hackle fly like a sakasa kebari from the fish’s perspective, under water? not in the synthetic world of a short hand held line to a fly in a tank, but on the end of someone’s rod with a 15foot line and 4 foot tippet. It would require someone to cast and move the fly in a pool/lake/river as though fishing, with a camera or someone else in the water.
I am suspicious that much of the action is lost, as the line can go fairly slack quite easily when moving it and with very light lfies (not a problem if when nymphing). I was playing with a very light test fly with a fluro bright orange body so I could see it and observe its action in the water at my local waterhole, to improve my skills. I noted that it was too easy for it to not be moving like I’d hoped it would because the line wasn’t tight, and unless the fly was weighted, it was far too easy to pull it up in the water column and then the movement in the rod wasn’t reflected in the fly – unless it had some weight in it to sink it down quickly, such as a wire ribbing.
Has anyone had a shot at examining things in this way in the real world yet? what were the results?
I haven’t seen any specifically for sakasa kebari. I think Ralph Cutter might have taken some underwater footage while working with Daniel. I could try to get some with my waterproof camera.
that’d be very interesting. When I was younger, we’d done some experimentation in the local river with a facemask and nymphs for our own skill improvements, and it was quite amazing the first time we did it. I’ve seen a trout take and hold a nymph for a long time before a floating indicator gives it away, and many times I saw the take and rejection and my partner hadn’t seen anything from the floating indicator on the surface. It was what convinced me to move away from floating indicators into straight level line connections to be more in touch with the fly. And still, I’ve strongly suspected that many of the times I miss fish with straight connections are due to differences in water flow in the water columns creating slack and obscuring the take. In light of the differences in the way weighted nymphs can actually be moved aournd under water by laminar flows, I’ve been wondering about the more lightly weighted kebari and whether it does actually move in moving water as we’d expect from demos in the controlled environment of the tank. some would say “why bother, if it works, who cares”, but in my case, I’ve not found the tie to be highly productive in my country, which means either I am not fishing it correctly (possible) or something more fundamental (another strong possibility).