Crawfish

I've fished a crawfish pattern my daughter picked up at BPS. It was and is pretty good, but she said it cost $8. What! I need to go over the value of money with her again.

I've fished rough versions before and they work. I refined these a bit more. All tied on size 8 60 degree hook. Tied with turkey feather, the marabou and the tips,1/8" tungsten bead, and the glass eyes.

Those look very solid. I always believe the main key to a good craw pattern is that it rides hook point up since crawfish are naturally going to hug and bounce along the bottom.

My two favorite patterns are the Near Enuff which is a time consuming tie but very realistic


And the Ball Peen Craw which is a cheaper, easier, and faster tie.

That Ball Peen pattern looks interesting. Kind of crab like. I didn’t see any material or instruction list when I did a search.

I get in ruts or grooves on fishing certain patterns. Lately, it’s been the Woolly Bugger. Sometimes, it’s nice to break out and do something different. Fishing the crawfish is a lot like when I fish the tungsten shrimp in the salt. I enjoy bumping and moving both across and near the bottom or even let them sit a little. Fish will scoop up a still fly off the bottom if you give them a chance.

The Bass Pro crawfish rides point up and has a weed guard. It’s pretty heavy, though. I like my crawfish patterns to be lighter to cast better with the lighter rods and still sink fast and the tungsten goes a long way towards making that happen. I’ve gotten where I’ll put on a little heavier tippet and when my fly gets snagged, I’ll either edge over and free the fly or just bend the hook open if I’m fishing from the shore. I just don’t like weed guards very much.

The mature crawfish in my lake are almost black with red spots. The yellow crowned night herons work them over and I see the remains in the shore. That’s one reason I did mine so dark, plus I liked working with the turkey feathers.

My first attempt turned out looking like a shrimp craw. I made the eyes with 25# mono and used magnum rabbit strips for the claws. I used furry foam for the shell back. My second attempt was worse than the first. Tying on eyes, claws, legs, dubbing, and the shell back has proven to be a challenge. I'm gonna tie and try again till I get this one right.

That’s looks cool. I’ve never worked with furry foam.

I used to be obsessed about making a good epoxy spoon fly. I never could make it work like I wanted. I don’t even like spoon flies so I don’t know why I put so much effort into making a good one. I have a box of those and other flies that’s just for my experimental, not quite there flies. The other day, I was in that box looking for tungsten beads since I was out and found a few on some of the flies. I’ll even fish some of the rejected ones here and there.

Just about any ribbed feather can work as a back for a shrimp or crawfish if you ever want to go that route. I used turkey feather on these and I’m not even sure what part of the turkey. They came from a ranch and just were on the ground. Woolly bugger chenille serves as a base to provide a bit of bulk to put everything else on. The turkey had some nice marabou at the base for mouth and feelers action and the trimmed end and trimmed out shiny parts served well for claws, head, back and tail.

One neat pattern that uses a single mallard feather is Martin’s Mallard Shrimp. It kind of gets you into the mode of what all you can do with different parts of a feather.

All of the patterns on here look like they'd catch fish. I am partial to a pattern I came up with last year that is super easy to tie and catches all types of fish. All it is is a single zonker strip tail, some rubber legs and a body made up of Sand Crab dubbing from Fly Tyer's Dungeon tied in a dubbing loop. The dumbbell eyes make it ride hook point up and it fishes pretty much snagfree over rocks and grass/weeds. I have tied them in sizes 4 to 8 and with the tail left longer or cut shorter, with fish not really showing any preference so far. To date, this fly has hooked largemouth and spotted bass, longear sunfish, green sunfish, bluegills, carp (hooked two different ones, but didn't land either) and gar. The best part is that once you get the hang of tying it, you can knock them out in 3-5 minutes. I have tied them in olive, rusty brown/orange, and black/purple, and hooked fish on all of them.



And to brag a bit about my dad, who isn't on any message boards. We went looking for white bass right after Christmas in the Brazos below Whitney (they are not there yet) and while the bass eluded us, he did hook and land this 3-foot gar on one of the size 6 rusty brown/orange craws I tied. The fish was hooked right at the tip of the snout, which kept the 3x tippet from getting cut by the teeth.

Nice, I like the combination of an easy tie and a fish magnet.

I’m not super crazy about the crawfish I tied. I think it needs a little more weight for what I want it to do. An up size on the tungsten bead to 5/32” might do it.

I had to give it one more try. I'm way past due for field testing some flies.

Looking nice. Where did you buy that furry foam?

AvidMax
Hareline Furry Foam Material Color: Rust $1.95

AvidMax,
The Furry Foam is great stuff. If you are looking for it in DFW, they sell 6-8 colors of it at Barlow's in Richardson.

Good stuff guys!

Crawfish was working off the dock this evening.