John Glaspy Flies

     Chartreusse Egg-Sucking Jag
          A John Glaspy Fly
             

Last week, Contributing Fly Tyer, John Glaspy, showed us his Pink Jag (which see), using an exciting new material. The Chartreuse Egg-Sucking Jag is a modification of that design, using the same material His notes about it are below. You can see more of his flies for Pacific Salmon at The Flies of John Glaspy.

John's Notes: Once in a great while you come across a new material that solves a problem you've long pondered and instantly changes the rules of your fly tying game. That happened to me when I came across Hareline's UV Polar Chenille. This chenille has very long extending fibers of silver, pearl, gold or copper tinsel with a blue UV hue given off by the cord and the fibers. Its only a little tricky to palmer this chenille on a fly body without trapping any fibers to create a fly that has the appearance of being heavily hackled with a Spey-quality feather of endless length made out of highly reflective metal. It was easy to use this material to develop a series of flies I call Jags, in pink, chartreuse and orange, which are very durable, easy to tie, inexpensive, and combine the qualities two proven Alaskan salmon flies, the Flash Fly and my favorite Pixie, with the long fiber, fish attracting action of the Spey fly.

Jags can be tied with an egg-head made out of chenille or epoxy to create an "egg-sucking" Jag, or with dumbbell eyes to make them jig up and down on the bottom or swim hook-up to decrease snagging of fish or bottom. The only drawback to the Jag that I have found is that this fly is so reflective and colorful that it is difficult to photograph without glare, especially when the silver color is utilized. This year, I am going to tie some with gold and copper bodies and a purple collar and tail to try when the fish are skittish or when the day is dark.

Both the plain Jag (in pink, green and orange) and this egg-sucking lead-head version (in orange/pink or orange/green) are easy for a beginner to tie, and together with a few purple egg-sucking leechs could get a guy through asuccessful salmon fishing excursion.