Tom Jones – The Real Version — Peter Hayes

An original John Lanchester ‘Tom Jones’ and a commercial bastardised version. Commercial versions are rarely anything like the original.

Tom Jones and the Imposter

Peter Hayes reveals the real Tom Jones.

Ilearnt to fly fish in my early teenage years while I was living in Melbourne. At that time I was mentored by Jack Joyner who was a fly fisherman of note and also a past accuracy fly casting champion.

Jack had previously competed against the American casting champion Jon Tarantino and easily beaten him and set a new world record at the same time. In those days it was widely accepted that Jon Tarantino was the greatest caster in the world.

As an aside, at about this time the English Hardy company named a range of their fibreglass rods that Jon E Tarantino had designed for them after him. They were called the ‘Hardy JET’ series.

Sadly, Tarantino died at an early age at the peak of his tournament casting and rod designing career with the ‘Fisher’ company when he was shot dead by a burglar at his father’s San Francisco warehouse. But this story is about another tournament caster, John Lanchester, and a fly he developed — the Tom Jones.

Jack Joyner had some experience as a fly fishing mentor. Some decade or so earlier he had taken under his wing a new arrival to Australia – John Lanchester aka ‘The Yank’. Jack taught the yank to fly fish and to tournament cast. I remember Jack telling me that The Yank was somewhat of a natural and whilst I only remember seeing him cast on a handful of occasions I can tell you that he was poetry in motion and his name is engraved on many trophies from that era.

The Yank always seemed to be a man of some mystery to me, and to many others. The stories of his fishing prowess were legendary. Because of his accent everyone assumed he was from the USA – hence his name, but I remember Jack telling me that he was a Canadian that jumped ship in Melbourne and decided to stay. That’s probably close to the mark.

In those days the Yank was a fishing machine and also a fishing machine bent on catching huge trout. If you were good enough, and The Yank was, in

those days 10 pound fish could be caught in Bullen Merri, Purrumbete, Lake Fyans, The Nhill Swamp, Lake Ettrick, Lake Burrumbeet, Hepburn Lagoon and Tullaroop which are just the spots that come immediately to mind. I remember also the Yank as being a very innovative and thinking angler too. Some examples. He was one of the first people that I knew to make up his own fly lines. Old lines would be ‘cut and shut’ with scarfed razorblade and superglue joins to suit his needs. Mostly shooting head type lines to achieve longer casts. These were in some ways forerunners to Lee Wulff’s Triangle Taper lines. The Yank would also soak the running line section of these lines overnight in radiator fluid. This would help to remove the plasticiser and stiffen this section of the line – giving better shootability. I also remember The Yank as always using made up leaders of 20 feet. This was a huge and unheard of length for a leader in those days (I’m talking about 40 www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

years ago). It is now almost standard for competition fly anglers.

In those early days (to me) of fly fishing very, very, little fly fishing (more likely none) was ever done from a boat. Float Tubes had not been invented then either. I often saw The Yank fishing the Ballarat lakes from his blow up Clarke Rubber kiddies boat. He half lay, and half sat, in the boat after blowing it up with a little foot pump. A half a brick was used as an anchor. He was so clever that when the lakes were low he would do a scouting trip without any rod. The purpose was to identify where the channels and drop offs were, The rocky areas of bottom and the weed beds. He stored this information for the fishing times when the water came back and he could blow up his little kiddies pool toy. The Yank was no fool !

So it was John Lanchester, The Yank, fishing the central Victorian lakes I’m guessing in the late 70s that invented the Tom Jones fly. Since then the Tom Jones is to a Victorian fly fisher what a Red Tag is to a Tasmanian fly angler. It is that popular and effective.

Fished in a rapid, stop start, pulling retrieve it can be a very effective smelt imitation (Victorian smelt are generally smaller and slimmer than the Tasmanian galaxias). When fished on a slow figure of eight hand twist retrieve it is as good a stick caddis pattern as you will find. It’s a versatile wet fly just as useful to cast at a sighted trout or to use as a blind searching pattern.

When I started guiding 26 years ago I asked The Yank three times over as many years, if he could send me a couple of his original patterns — none were forthcoming for some reason, so I gave up. A couple of years after that I came across a group of Victorians staying in their new shack at Arthurs lake. They said The Yank was staying with them and as they knew that I was an old friend of his they invited me to dinner with them all that evening.

I arrived on the door step with my bottle of wine a little before the arranged time and as It turned out the Yank and Ray Horsey were still not back from looking at a trotting horse in Hobart. When I asked if they had taken their fishing gear with them the answer was no, all their gear was hanging up downstairs in the garage.

I heard the car pull into the driveway and met the Yank at the doorway. As soon as he saw me he grinned. You had to know him to know that grin. It wasn’t a grin – I’m pleased to see you again Haysie but a grin of - I guess you finally have those flies you’ve been after Haysie. He was right onto me.

I asked John that night how he came up with the name Tom Jones. He said that at the time he was reefing in big browns, fish after fish, in the spillway hole below Lake Cairn Curran. This is the start of the Loddon river.

John’s wife Sue came down from the car after watching the action and she asked what fly he was using. He showed it to her swimming thru the water at their feet and she commented that it didn’t look like much of a fly but rather it looked just like a piece of grass in the water. Just at that time Tom Jones was singing ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’ in the background on the car radio. Sue suggested ‘Tom Jones’ as a name for the fly. It stuck. A Tom Jones will work all season long and can be fished a variety of ways. The author with a good early season brown.

The Dressing

Guided Fly Fishing/Accommodation Tasmania

Like so many flies, commercially available versions seem to be bastardised versions of the originals. This is very much the case with my ‘Guides Tag’. From what I see in tackle store fly compartments this applies the Tom Jones too. Commercial versions are usually very, very heavily dressed. I remember The Yank telling me the following about the important things when tying a Tom Jones.

Firstly the wing fur and body dubbing was soft underbelly fur from a Bennetts Wallaby. It has to be soft to give the movement you want. Also, “Peter, when you are tying the fly pretend that this fur is gold – you don’t want to give too much of it away” were his words.

It was dyed a mid olive Dylon colour and I don’t remember the colour number but I have got it written down somewhere.

Tie the tail out of black Squirrel and use just the right amount and length to give the fly good balance in the water.

A substantial head of black tying silk should be coated with glossy black nail polish.

The photos are of the flies that I borrowed on permanent loan from John’s unprotected vest hanging in Ray Horsey’s garage. I noticed in John’s wet fly box there were dozens of variations on his original pattern. As an example some had shiny, facetted plastic bead heads. Mess with your versions and tie in various sizes and weights to suit.

John Lanchester is a smart man and perhaps one of the greatest fly fishermen ever to cast a fly and not many people know that. I feel lucky to have shared his mentor and to have been influenced somewhat by him. Peter Hayes