crawfish fly

[lj1909]

what is the best and eaisest pattern to imitate a crawfish, i have very limited materials and im pretty new so i wanted to be able to tie a quick, simple, and effective crawfish fly

[ol' blue]

Here are several entries from a swap we held right here on FAOL.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ghileman@ ... /my_photos

IMO, none of them are too difficult to tie. The custom crawfish was my entry is my favorite. It takes bead chain, chenille, hackle, swiss straw, gold or copper wire, lead wire, rubber legs, and zonker or pine squirrel strips. You could probably substitute cut strips of brown plastic grocery bags for the swiss straw. Not much there that is too exotic. The zonkers would probably be the most expensive. If you want a recipe or step by step with some pictures, email me and I'll get something to you. I'd also suggest tying it reversed on the hook so that the point rides up instead of down. It can be tied in any color you want.
If one of the other patterns is what you are after, each pic has the tyer's name on it. The original swap thread has been lost during the update, and original postings and recipes are no longer available, so you should probably contact each user for the pattern or recipe. All of the patterns were pretty good ones, IMO.
The crawbaby was my other entry and would be the easiest. It is a stripped down version of the custom crawfish. You only need eyes, body material (either dubbing or chenille), rubber legs, and something for shell material (swiss straw, plastic bag, etc.). You can rib the shell with thread or even add some wire for that. That is as simple as you get.

[davpot]

Tie up some Dee flies in smaller sizes. 6-8. Long haclles and sub white goose strips for wings. I use them for seatrout and they sure work!
Dave

[SkipS]

An all brown wolly bugger or a brown with orange tail wolly bugger works as well as anything.Very simple to tie.A crystal bugger tied with brown estaz and orange tail is a killer.

[BobC]

I would have to agree with Skip that probably a few mods on a woolly bugger would be a fast and very easy way to get a somewhat crayfish looking fly. Another possiblity is to look at the Clouser Swimming Nymph (pattern is here and elsewhere), which with a few tying mods on the tail (maybe use rabbit instead of marabou) could give a nice imitation of a cray. There are only about 5 ingredients needed, and it is a very easy tie. On that application I would thing about a TMC 200R, or a Mustad C53S for a nice shape, but a streamer hook would work as well!
Good Fishing!

[lee s]

lj,
There are a LOT of good craw immi's out there. We too opt for the ease and simplicity of a wollybugger done to immi a craw. As you gain "stick time", it may surprise you in finding that WHAT YOU DO (placement and puppeteering) with the bug will generally be far more important to success than WHAT BUG you use.
.....lee s.

[pspaint]

I use a cross between a bugger and a brook's stonefly, tied olive and brown mixed. I got a nice 5lber on Saturday with it.

[gfmd33]

I would tie a clawdad you can see it on http://www.kreeltackle.com/

You may not want to buy the tails, but you can cut them out of a chamois

For me this pattern has outfished all other crawdad patterns

[billknepp]

Brown wooly bugger with a tailing of Fox Squirrel, or Wild Cottontail Rabbit, Fastest I know of....

[rainbowchaser]

Cornmuse just posted a link to a video for tying one on the warm water board called skipdad. It looks easy and should be effective.