Kinky Scooby Snakes
Kinky Scooby Snakes
SECTION 4
PATTERNS 1-5
DRESSER-MathewS....
I fish scoobie snakes. I'd like to share some of the thoughts that I've put into my scoobies. I've no doubts my ideas are not original, but having arrived here myself, I've found the rewards very exciting.
They look a bit odd don't they?
Ignoring the actual tyings, it's the hook area that I have focussed on.
All of the scooby snakes I've seen tyed by others have used straight eye hooks, whether singles, doubles or trebles. Straight eyes just look so right when loaded into the tube, helping achieve the profiles that, well, just look so right.
I use down eye hooks drawn from my coarse fishing experience, and I'm sure you can see the "kinked" effect that this produces at the business end of the snakes. Most notably in the first image I loaded. This "kinked" effect has completely changed the hook-up ratio to strikes from fish.
When an object (your finger, or mouth of a fish) comes into contact with the point of the hook, it instantly becomes difficult to avoid a deeper hook hold. In fact, just handling the snakes is a finger nipping business. If you apply any pressure to the hook point, then the softness of the scooby snake allows the "kink" to bend upward. This causes the point of the hook to align more perfectly with the object it is penetrating. The more you pull (and it only takes a very gentle pull), the better and better becomes the penetration angle. Wheras with a straight eyed hook, the moment that you apply pressure to the hook point, the scooby snake angles upward and reduces the penetration angle of the hook point. It's always working away.
I wish I could write proper english
I've explained as best I can the rationale behind the down eye. Perhaps someone can help if you can see what I've tried to say? It doesn't look pretty, but it's been very very effective for the hook-up ratio to nips and strikes.
I've also opted for quite small single short shank hooks. Mine are Kamasan B170's in a 10's. I took the "small" theme from grayling fishing. With their boney mouths and erratic fight behavior (similar to sea trout), grayling are notorious for escaping a good hook hold. Reducing the hook size from a 16's to 20's results in many more fish in the net. Whether this be due to the reduced gape of the hook, or perhaps some slight leverage effect, I don't know, but it works and gives a superb hook hold, and was my rationale for the hook I have chosen. I crush the barb on all of them, to further help penetration, and stick with singles once again, because I believe they provide better penetration.
Some notes. I dress the bodies of the tubes short (tinsels and wires). This is to make sure that at the hook end of the tube, the suppleness of the scooby tube is not compromised by having materials wrapped around it (it's amazing how much different tinsel makes). The kink effect still works to its optimum and the leverage effect is reduced. It also causes the snakes to appear to have a tag/tail. For example, on the silver stoat snakes that I tie, I use a yellow scoobie, in-keeping with the gp topping of the original.
I tie some of them very small and have no body materials on the tube, using the colour of the scoobie snake as the colour of the body. The smallest I've used is about half an inch, as the supplness of the scoobie is still there. They do however look very odd with a size 10's hook. I've not experimented with other hooks yet for these smaller size scoobie snakes.
I don't use braid through the tube. I simply pull out the hook, thread my line through the tube, tie the hook on directly and then slide it back into the tube. Again, suppleness (is that even a word?
).
Just one last very obvious one. When making scoobie snakes, make sure that the hook eye of your chosen hook (whether straight eye or down eye) does actually fit inside the tube first. I tied up a whole batch once only to discover that the diameter inside the tube would not allow my hooks to sit
