J. A. R. S. 2.0

The original JARS is in the FAOL FOTW archives at 12-31-12. Haven't done much to change from the original over the years except a couple minor tweaks.

A couple weeks ago, I was thinking about the questions folks have had and some of the consternation they have expressed about the technique of incorporating the tails into the FEB ( furled extended body ).

After giving the issue some thought over a matter of days, I decided to try tying the tails to the end of the extended body. Had some ages old RIO extreme tippet which is black, small diameter and very strong laying around and picked it for the experiment. Before furling the extended body, I looped a length of tippet around the antron materials, positioned it at the middle of the bundle ( which is held between two electricians clips ), and tied a double overhand knot to secure it to the FEB. When the antron is fully twisted and ready to furl, just pull on the tailing material to start the furling.

I decided to also use the extreme tippet for the antennae. And I slimmed down the body by using medium rather than large chenille over the non-lead weight, staying with three sets of legs as in the original. One fly was tied with a bead head and another without.

The first time out, about a week ago, the new, simplified beadhead version produced quite nicely on my northern Idaho freestone home water. Then I lost it.

Today I went with the non-beadhead version under difficult fishing conditions as run off started ramping up and the water was much faster and somewhat higher than even a few days ago. The one place I planned to fish was unfishable, but a nice pocket of softer water just downstream was worth a try. And it paid off, with about fifteen fishies in a little over an hour. All but one of the fish were west slope cutts, most in the 14-16" range and several in the 17-18" range, mostly really colored up and full of fight.

But the real treat today was a steelhead cutthroat hybrid. With over a thousand days on this crick, I've only caught a two other such hybrids. Today's was the first on a nymph and by far the largest and strongest at 17". When I landed it, it was the most rainbow looking mature fish ( except for a half dozen full sized steelhead ) I've landed on this piece of water but the cutts under the jaw told the story.

With the weather forecast not so great today and the runoff ramping up, I almost didn't head out. But it turned out to be a good day with a great surprise to top it off.

Hope you all are getting out some and catching some fishies.

John

P.S. I used the new approach to adding tails on a Duck's Green Drake, and it fished well on the one occasion I've fished it.