Left: The Thread Line Salmon Flies: An excellent colour plate from the book; The Angler And The Thread Line by Alexander Wanless. Book published 1932.

The first tube fly was probably made by the British author and angler Mr Alexander Wanless who, in his book The Angler And The Thread Line from 1932 shows`s the angling community his tube fly system. Alexander was an avid spin-fishing angler but wanted to bring the fantastic properties of the fly into his type of fishing. To do so, he devised a line of flies that could be fished on a spinning rod. Alexander did various kinds of flies in his Thread Line Salmon Fly series. Some are tied with trailing side hooks. Others tied on shaped lead barrels. They all had one thing in common they could be tied big but could be used with smaller hooks and would not work as levers when salmon took them: Alexander describes it this way

It has been observed that the first type of fly is designed so that when a fish is hooked the fly will slide up the line out of harm`s way or rather to prevent it from levering the small hook out of the salmon`s jaw

Alexander Wanless from the book: The Angler And The Thread Line 

In fishing literature, the tube fly is often tributed to Mrs Morawski, but it is the ingenious Mr Alexander Wanless that probably was the inventor of the tube fly system

Left Photo of Alexander Wanless from the 1950s. Mr Wanless lived in Dunblane, a small cathedral town north of Stirling in the Stirling council area of Scotland

Credit for the first tube fly was given to someone else.

Alexander Wanless never got the proper credit for doing the first tube fly – probably because he was an angler spinning more than a fly fisherman. In fishing literature, it is a woman fly tier: Mrs Winnie Morawski, who worked with one of the fishing tackle companies in Aberdeen, gets the credit for the first tube fly – in 1945. Mrs Morawski initially made her flies on quills from larger feathers.

The first tube fly

To the right: Another excellent colour plate from the book, The Angler And The Thread Line, showing other flies from the Thread Line Salmon Series. Top two with detachable hooks, the middle one with added weight enabling the angler to fish it on his light spinning gear