I moved this out of the Crayfish Fly Swap thread, as I realized it might not have been the best place to post this info. But I thought it was interesting enough place it in a thread of its own.

I just read this on another fly-fishing website...(I'm not disloyal...I WAS TRYING TO RESEARCH CRAYFISH PATTERNS!!) ;o)

I'm reading the book Knowing Bass which is full of interesting scientic studies on bass, their habitat, food, spawning, etc.

I just read through a very interesting study and I guess the results are not that shocking but is something that I never gave alot of thought. The study was they took an anatomically correct platic crayfish and compared it to plastic crayfish minus different body parts. They tried 6 variations total; whole craw, no claws, no legs, no appendages, no head and no tail.

The results varied widely and they based the fact that the whole craw would eqaul a 100% strike response.

Here are the results

No appendages(tail only): 260%
No Claws: 160%
No Head: 125%
No Legs: 110%
Whole Craw: 100%
No Tail: 25%

This obviously shows that bass and probably other species are keying in on the tails. I have heard alot of people claim that no claws or small claws are the way to go and I can buy that but the claws in this study did not really make that much of an impact either way. Instead it was the tail of the crayfish that causes the strike response to swing widely to both extremes.
Makes me think I should try a clawless crayfish pattern...