Sufferin Crawfish!

[Gigmaster]

I ran across a neat and easy crawfish pattern on YouTube, and I had to try it out. It looks great in the water, and the smallmouth Bass around here pounce on it like they're never gonna get to eat again...

I modified the pattern slightly by adding bead chain eyes to the rear, instead of a conehead to the front. It makes it move more realistically. And, I use Renegade Craft Fur instead of marabou because it moves like marabou in the water, and I didn't have the correct colors of marabou handy. The bass don't seem to mind much.

And, much to my surprise, a large Brown Trout rocketed out from behind a rock and exploded onto it on my 4th cast. It scared me half to death, it was so sudden and vicious. I wasn't aware that there were any trout in this section of the Ocoee. The trout was 22" long (according to my Zebco De-Liar scale).

Here it is...the Pancora Crawfish:



Hook: Cabelas Model 40 size 8
Thread: 6/0 Uni Thread Olive Green
Tail (claws?): Renegade Craft Fur-Orange on the bottom (it rides hook point-up) and OD Green on top.
Eyes: Large Black Bead Chain
Body: OD Green Chenille
Hackle: Brown Hen Neck-palmered
Legs: White Sparkle Silli-Legs

[quivira kid]

That's what I'm talkin' about! I'm gonna tie up a few for spring when the fish are heavy in the riprap. Thanks for posting.

[JeffHamm]

Another simple crayfish pattern is the Red Setter from New Zealand. There's a step by step in the FOTW archives (one of the earliest patterns).

The Red Setter is a particular variation of Fred Fletcher's "Fuzzy Wuzzy" series, which in it's original tie it was really just black squirrel tail for the tail, wool body, and black hackle palmered up the body. It eventually turned into the double hackle construction (one collar hackle mid body, and a 2nd at the head). Red Fuzzy Wuzzy uses red wool or cheneil for the body, Green Fuzzy Wuzzy uses green, and so forth. Red Setter's are sometimes tied with black tails, and sometimes fox squirrel tails.

These would be tied large for crawfish in lakes, say size 6 or 4, but I've tied small versions in size 10 or 12, and use them in rivers with some success as well.
- Jeff

[bugman]

Looks like that fly would work here really well to... gonna tie 2 and try out next weekend...

[Steven]

Always on the lookout for a nice looking crayfish.

What's the YouTube addy?

And what's "OD?"

[aquabone]

i like it!
,
aquabone.

[tlerm]

Always on the lookout for a nice looking crayfish.

What's the YouTube addy?

And what's "OD?"

I think this might be it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oln_e...rom=PL&index=1

And I have to ask too... what's OD Green?

[tlerm]

Oh, and I have to say, that's a rockin' good fly.

[Uncle Jesse]

Gigmaster, if you don't mind telling where are you catching smalljaw bass. That's on my bucket list and according the the health survey I took I only have about 35 years left.

[WarrenP]

"And I have to ask too... what's OD Green?"

Being an Army Veteran, I would say "Olive Drab Green". Just a guess though...