Waddingtons vs Needle tube for salmon

As the best of the sea trout fishing is over I'm starting to tie some backend flies for salmon.

I've been using needle tunes with some success for sea trout this year and am considering the merits of needle tubes over waddingtons for salmon.


Has anyone used them to good effect for salmon?
Any reason why waddi's might be better?

Cheers
Stu

Last year in October I had 4 Salmon on greys needle flys all on this one



I have also got fish on these two

I personally don't bother with waddingtons these days as I seem to have had more success with needle tubes and tubes in general, in the right conditions though.

Cheers
Dave

I never use waddingtons when fishing for salmon or sea trout. The tubes i use are micro for sea trout and for slamon they are in sizes 1/4" - 3/4" in either aluminium or copper. Never really use plastic either.

Got some smashing micro needle tubes tied up as cascades, so will give them a bash in a few weeks time.

Cheers,

SS

Stu,

I used to use Waddingtons for seatrout and salmon; a friend of mine had a 9lb12oz seatrout in about 2000 from Lime kilns on the Dovey- on one of mine, salmon- I have used them but in the large sizes they're bitches to cast- even on heavy lines, and in the smaller sizes the needle tube has all the advantages (or indeed just normal tubes).

I don't suspect I'll be using Waddington's any more, as needle tubes offer a slimmer fly with more movement, and the sinkers we have now more than compensate for the depth that a Waddington was designed to get down to.

When the Waddington was invented- they were used to replace the old 0/1 or 0/2 salmon irons in early spring, when the fastest sinker was about equivalent to a Wet Cell 1- the use of the treble hook was much easier to drive in than a massive barbed single (especially using the newer lighter glass fibre rods rather than the greenhart that was commonly used in years prior).

I still have a load of Waddington shanks- but never really use them, they're old technology now IMO.

Andy

what's the difference between a needle tube and a slipstream tube?

Thanks for the replies chaps - very interesting. Seems that waddingtons are out of favour.
Raslyn - needle tubes are very slim stainless steel tubes - as opposed to slipstreams which are plastic/aluminium and considerably higher diameter.