Those are nice looking, I really like the lower right hand one, I've started tying it with a black tail and a red body.
Now were talking! Love the brown - n - black. Something I thought I would mention, after fishing this spring and bending many large long hooks on big fish with buggers I have just bought the shaft's to tie articulated leaches with tuff line and single hook trailers! I lost the biggest fish this spring from a straightened hook and also lost a few from long shanks getting bent and would have to straighten them back up which weakens hook shanks! I purchased the loop at both ends - shafts - to drop back a #4 or #2 strong steelhead hook, after this spring I think I'm done with long shanks. will post how they look and work when I tie some. great flies trout!!!
Mark, I hear ya. Finding hooks that consistently hold big trout and still provide the right platform for the bug I'm tying is not easy. Since I started targeting bigger fish and using 10 lb + tippets, I've been learning the hard way which hooks fail. Lose a fish 10 seconds into the fight and find a 45-degree bend. It's disappointing, to say the least! Everything in the pics I've posted have been on heavy gauge hooks in configurations that have held up for me (so far). I'm interested to see and hear about how your articulated fly experiment works out!
Yes the problem I was having had to do with fish being able to pry the hook point with the longer shanked hooks - I just did some double waddington shanks with 50 pound tuff line using a circle type - loop to loop to a good single steelhead hook. the problem was what knot to use to form the circle in the tuff line so I could loop to loop over shank and hook! I used a blood knot first then a surgeons knot, the surgeons (without hook on it) the knot is bigger and leaves more material from line. the blood knot (with hook looped on) the knot is smaller and leaves less line material - both are very strong but the surgeons is easier to tie! Any advice for knots to form a circle with tuff line would be welcomed, but these two seem to work well and are very strong! havent tied any flies with them yet but here is the shaft with hook looped on circle! being 100 pound and so small the fish will not know what the hell happened until they are in the net for pics ;-)~ Notice the blood knot with "hook looped" on and how small the knot is compared to the surgeons knot "no hook"! I can trim more line off the surgeons knot ends and it would look better, I could also just tied a simple knot to the shaft and to the hook for a single strand but I know how tuff line does not take shock well! and stronger is always better!
