Monday, July 13, 2015

The Legend of John Deere Grows

There is a fly that is far and away my most productive and versatile fly; the John Deere mini jig.  (Just for the record, I didn’t name it so if anyone is reading this post from Moline, Illinois, you can sue someone else).  This small green mini jig has caught more species of fish for me than any other fly in my box.  In fact, it is so useful, I often forget that I have other flies and sometimes get “stuck” on this fly and just refuse to use anything else because if a John Deere isn’t working, I have a hard time believing that anything else will work…but that psychology will be a topic for a post at another time.

As of yesterday afternoon, the John Deere mini jig had duped rainbow trout, brown trout, common carp, bass, redear sunfish, green sunfish, longer sunfish, bluegill, hybrid bluegill, and channel catfish.  However, I was able to land my first bullhead catfish yesterday evening in a small tributary to the Little Blue River in Independence, Missouri.  It is tied on a 1/80 ounce jig head in a ball style without any gold or silver plating.  I dip the jig head in OS coatings paint in a color the company calls “watermelon”.  It sure doesn’t look like any watermelon I would eat and is more of what fly fishermen would call olive.  After the paint dries, I dip a cheap paintbrush in some yellow paint and dot the eyes on.  From there, I tie on a short and stubby light olive marabou tail and wrap the body in light olive chenille.  It is an incredibly easy fly to tie and perfect of any beginner. 

In shallow water, I fish it about eighteen inches under a strike indicator if I am searching for fish but will set it deeper if I find the fish are suspended deeper or sitting on the bottom.  As far as retrieval goes, I will drift it, set it and forget it, strip it in a short and erratic motion, or even bring it in on a slow and steady retrieve. 

In the future, I plan on making an instructional video showing the step-by-step process on how I tie them, but for now, if you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email me.





3 comments:

  1. The reason that fly/jig works so well: it's basically an olive wooly bugger (minus the palmered hackle). The wooly bugger and its variants are the best flies ever, IMO. I've caught pretty much everything on a wooly bugger, but no bullheads yet. Bravo!

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  2. I completely agree Jeff. In fact, sometimes I think about palmering some hackle on a john deere or giving it some sort of collar to see if it might work even better. Out of curiosity, what is your favorite color combination for a wooly? I am going to be posting on my favorite combo soon but would appreciate your input as well.

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  3. If I had to buy one, it would be a beadhead black with grizzly hackle. However, I've found that a simple black yarn body picked out a bit works as well and is quicker to tie.

    http://www.tenkarabum.com/killer-bugger.html

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