Janssen Leech story by Craig Shuhmann

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://www.examiner.com/x-33959-Medford-Fly-Fishing-Examiner~y2009m12d23-Janssen-Leech-Story

Thanks to the Medford Examiner.

[SHigSpeed]

So Bill,

Do you carry the special adult natural turkey marabou?

_SHig

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I think it is the plumbs with the heavy quills.

The Jay Fair marabou might be the stuff you need?

[Terry Thomas]

The material that Hal is using really looks a lot like "aftershaft plumes." Many game birds have these feathers. Two tiers that I have followed who also used these feathers are Jack Gartside and Phil Rowley. Although Jack has passed on, several of his flies used the pheasant aftershaft or philoplume. If you have a pheasant skin, take a look. In Phil's book, Fly Patterns for Stillwaters, he has a pattern called the Aftershaft Leech. This pattern is tied differently than Hal's pattern, however, you could use the same materials and tie one up using Hal's method.

[fuzzynymph]

In talking to Hal, he had a tremendous amount of knowledge about the properties of marabou related to effective fly design (see his sculpin pattern in The Art of the Trout Fly by Judith Dunham). In his estimation, good marabou is no longer available to fly tiers. It is either too short, thus only capable of making a short length fly, or has too many straight tips, which is next to useless. Hal’s criterion then is long, heavily barbed flues and no straight tips. This allows him to tie a fly with minimal materials, 7-8 flues per fly, in lengths that imitate a fully extended leech. Hal believes trout key on leeches when they are swimming and thus fully extended, 6-8 inches or more. If, one uses the heavily barbed flues, less material is needed and the fly breaths better in the water, adding suggestive movement (sound familiar to any Denny Rickards’ fans? Not a coincidence!).

I have inspected Hal’s fly carefully, and I am fairly certain he is not using aftershaft feathers, but that is a good suggestion and maybe something to try. Hal may in fact be using a quality of marabou not many of us have seen before.

After writing this article (commissioned by Fly Tyer Magazine but as yet unpublished) I have done a lot of research on this material and came up with a few alternatives. Jay Fair uses blood marabou, but it is high quality and if you are selective, can tie a leech 4 - 5 inches or longer. The article was written in a longer format which also recommended McLean’s barred marabou. McLean also uses blood marabou, but it is select, and will do about as well as Jay’s.

The actual turkey marabou Hal recommends can be bought from some feather merchants. The drawback is, it only comes in bulk (1 or 2 lbs.) and often dyed rather than natural. One feather merchant was willing to set aside a quantity of raw feathers for me, but the minimum quantity was several pounds and too expensive.

Know any turkey hunters? I was given some large turkey feathers by a hunter and found some nice long gray marabou at the base of those feathers. So, if you know a hunter that maybe a good way to go.

Hope this helps and thanks for reading my article.

If anyone attends Hal’s upcoming presentation it would be interesting to ask him some questions about marabou.

[Jay Murakoshi]

I might be able to find some long marabou. Here in Fresno, is WW Swalef & Son. They are the main supplier of hackle, peacock, turkey, marabou, etc to a lot of the distributors. They have be in the industry for decades... I'm sure Bill has heard of these guys. It's only 3 miles from where I live and as you drive down the driveway, you can smmmmmmell the moth balls.
They also have all the exotic pheasants skins and tails in stock, macaw, partridge,

Jay

[Darian]

Hmmm,.... I'm assuming that the purpose of bent tips is to provide additional motion. 8-) While I agree that most marabou sold is straight tipped, I'm a bit unclear about what constitutes a bent tip or the acceptable ratio of bent to straight tips is.... :confused: Can somebody expand on this :?:

[gene goss]

The Janssen Leech with its heavily barbed flues to the tip was designed for the Williamson River.....which has current flow.....this fly will look and work differently in stillwater....for stillwater i like to used the long flues with the pointy tips...tied sparse for my wiggle tail.....it gives more action in stillwater.

[fuzzynymph]

Lincoln Gray from Still Water Fly Fishing Adventures just informed me that,

"J.Fair marabou is the 6"-8" Turkey Marabou. The blood quill we dye for Denny Rickards is about "4-6". There is a major difference in them."

Thanks for the clarification Lincoln.

[SHigSpeed]

I wonder how well some ostrich herl would work instead of the marabou?

_SHig

[Darian]

I was wondering the same thing.... :nod: Kinda looks like Ostrich in the photo.... :confused: Especially if you can't get the marabou that Janssen used any longer.... :|