Pro Sportfisher Drop Weights

The Pro Sportfisher Drop Weight is a brass tube fly component shaped like a teardrop, and it does two jobs at once. It helps fly tyers control sink rate, profile, and movement when building modern tube flies. These drop weights do more than simply add weight. When hackle, marabou, dubbing, or shoulder materials are tied directly in front of the weight, the larger rear edge helps flare materials outward, creating added movement and a fuller profile without needing a separate dubbing ball or chenille bump. That second trick is what sets it apart from a standard conehead or bullet weight. You get sink rate and material control from one piece of brass.

The Drop Weight is made of brass and sits on the heavier end of the brass spectrum. It comes in four sizes: Small at 4mm and 0.40 grams (10 pcs), Medium at 6mm and 0.60 grams (10 pcs), Large at 8mm and 0.80 grams (9 pcs), and X-Large at 10mm and 1.00 gram (8 pcs). Made to fit the Pro TubeFly System, these weights are compatible with Pro Micro Tubes, Flexi Tubes, and other Pro tube components, making them a clean choice for tying steelhead tube flies, salmon flies, spey flies, Intruders, and fast-sinking swing patterns. If you swing flies for anadromous fish and you want your tube to punch through the surface film and hold the zone, this is the component that gets you there.

How to Use It

The Drop Weight can be installed traditionally on your tube fly, but it is also designed to have the larger or flared end of the weight facing forward on the fly, creating erratic pulsating action when stripped. Slide it onto your Microtube, Nanotube, or Flexitube, orient the flared end toward the head, and tie your hackle or winging material directly in front of it. By winding hackles directly in front of the drop weight, it causes them to flare and function just as you used to accomplish with a chenille or dubbing ball. This makes the Drop Weight a natural fit for steelhead and salmon swing flies, Intruder-style patterns, Scandinavian-style tubes, and any streamer where you want flowing materials to hold their profile in current. You can also mix drop weights, bullet weights, and Flexi weights on the same tube fly, which lets you fine-tune sink rate and balance without changing your pattern design.

Why We Like It

Most tube fly weights solve one problem: they get the fly down. The Pro Sportfisher Drop Weight solves two. It gives tyers a simple way to adjust how fast a tube fly sinks. Smaller sizes are great for lightly weighted patterns, while larger sizes help get flies down quickly in heavier current, deeper runs, or cold-water steelhead and salmon situations. But the teardrop profile also acts as a built-in hackle ramp, propping marabou, rhea, ostrich, Lady Amherst, or dubbing loop collars outward so they breathe and pulse in the water. That means one fewer step at the vise (no dubbing ball, no chenille bump) and a cleaner fly.

The weights are made with tight tolerances and a perfect surface finish, and they fit all of the Pro tubes. Whether you are building sparse Scandinavian-style flies or larger winter swing patterns, Drop Weights allow you to fine-tune both the fly's depth and silhouette. Four sizes across a 0.40 to 1.00 gram range give you real control over how your tube sits in the water column, from summer low-water presentations to deep winter swings with a Skagit head and a heavy sink tip. The polished brass finish also takes color well, so you can match the weight to the overall color scheme of your fly.

Example Flies

Tube Intruder (various colorways): The Intruder style was developed for steelhead and salmon and relies on long, flowing materials like ostrich, rhea, and marabou that must be propped outward to maintain profile. What tends to denote a pattern as an Intruder is the very pronounced and active tail and thorax regions which are encouraged to flare and dance via some type of sturdy support chassis. The Pro Sportfisher Drop Weight serves as that chassis on a tube platform. Slide it onto your Microtube and wind hackle or a composite dubbing loop collar directly against the flared edge. It replaces the traditional dubbing ball or chenille bump that tyers used to build by hand, giving you consistent flare and added sink rate in one component. The Drop Weight is not part of the original shank-based Intruder recipe, but it is a direct functional substitute for the weight-plus-prop system that every tube Intruder requires.

Scandinavian-Style Tube Fly: Scandi tube flies for Atlantic salmon and sea trout are typically sparse, relying on a slim profile, a few turns of soft hackle, and a short wing of natural or synthetic fibers. The Pro Drop Weight is designed for light summer flies when the water gets lower, but you still want the fly to go through the surface film and start fishing instantly. A Small (0.40 g) Drop Weight adds just enough brass to break the surface tension and hold the fly in the top of the water column without overpowering a delicate Scandi presentation. The flared end also gives a sparse hackle collar a subtle lift. This is a substitute for a traditional conehead on patterns where a cone would add too much bulk and visual weight to the head of the fly.

Purple Thunder Tube Intruder: This Jay Nicholas pattern uses brass cones at both the rear station and shoulder station to balance the fly and control sink rate. Purple Thunder overcomes the tendency of a plastic tube to buoy the fly by the addition of two brass cones: one at the rear station and one at the shoulder station. These two cones serve to balance the fly, allow it to sink at a modest rate, and swim in the same zone as a similarly dressed shank fly with light dumbbell eyes. A Pro Sportfisher Drop Weight can be used as a direct substitute for either cone station. Its flared profile props the arctic fox and ostrich collars outward at each station, giving the same material flare the pattern demands while adding comparable brass weight. If you are already in the Pro Tube system, swapping in a Drop Weight keeps everything compatible without mixing tube platforms.

Comparisons

The Bullet Weight's slim tapered profile allows you to keep bulk to a minimum toward the front of your fly while still adding weight. It is a streamlined, low-profile brass weight that sits flush against the tube and disappears under your tying materials. The Drop Weight, by contrast, has that distinctive flared rear edge that props hackles and winging materials outward. If you are tying a sparse, clean-headed pattern where you want the weight hidden and no flare, reach for the Bullet Weight. If you need the weight to do double duty as a hackle ramp for Intruders, spey flies, or any collar-forward design, the Drop Weight is the better tool. The Bullet Weights weigh between 0.21 to 0.44 grams, while the Drop Weight range runs from 0.40 to 1.00 grams, so the Drop Weight also gives you access to heavier options for deeper winter swings.

A standard conehead sits at the very front of the tube with the taper pointing forward, creating a classic bullet-nose silhouette that sheds current and helps the fly track straight. It is a head-position-only component. The Drop Weight can be placed at the head, but it can also be positioned mid-fly or at the rear station of a multi-section tube. The Drop Weight is also designed to have the larger or flared end of the weight facing forward on the fly, creating erratic pulsating fly action when stripped. That reversed orientation is something a cone simply cannot replicate. If you want a traditional, streamlined head profile and a fly that knifes through current nose-first, the cone is your pick. If you want positional flexibility along the tube, material flare, and a more erratic swimming action on the strip, the Drop Weight opens up design options the cone does not.