EASY crayfish flies?

[Panfisha]

Well lately I've been tying alotta simple crayfish flies, tho the back is kinda hard to get with the shank facing up. So are there any simpler patterns? Right now I make mine using bead strings for eyes, rooster neck for claws, rubber legs and flash for antennas, tan marabou for body filler, and turkey tail for a back.

[DG]

The D-bugger I have been tying and using for many years works just fine as a crawdad imitation, in either the mottled tan or the mottled green. I kept a 14" brown trout once for a demonstration on fish cleaning, and when we opened it up, it had a dozen little crawdads the same size and color as the bugger I caught it on in its stomach.

So I never bothered with claws, tails, antennae, and all that. The fish don't seem to care.

[Bamboozle]

Pan:

I make a simple craw using Kreel Claws for the claws; Furry Foam for the shell back; I-Balz for the eyes and Etaz or some long fibered chenille like Bill Skilton's Woolly Bugger Hackle for the body. I then use thin D-Rib or some other vinyl tubing for a rib; no antennas, no extra legs.

The Kreel Claws make adding claws a 30 second operation and tying the whole pattern takes no time at all.

Oh yea; they work just fine too!

[DShock]

Burnt Orange Woolybugger.
Hook; size 12 long shank.
Tail; Burnt Orange Marabou & two Copper colored fibers of Krystal Flash.
Body; J. Fair- Burnt Orange Short Shuck (chenile).
Hackle; J. Fair- Burnt Orange Saddle Hackle.
Head; Copper Metal Bead.
This fly has been one of my favorites.
Doug

[chris from canada]

I make a really simple furry foam crayfish that is a producer.

Takes about one minute to tye.

It's a silhoute pattern, and not an exact replica.

It was listed on the board some while back; chris's crayfish

If you like I can send you one or two to try.

take care,
chris

[dudley]

I firmly believe that the more detail you add to a fly, the easier it is for a fish to tell it's a fraud.

For crayfish, I use a woollybugger with leadeyes

[sagefisher]

Dudley,

I like the way you think and I have to agree with you. My flies are not a work of art but they catch fish.

Larry ---sagefisher---

[joe cool]

I can't remember where I read it but someone did a study with bass and their reaction to crayfish imitations missing different characteristics. Some had no claws, no legs, or no tails. As long as the imitation had a tail the fish repsonded. Nothing else seemed to have any effect either way. I still add claws, but its definitly something to consider.

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

I tend to use an olive wooly bugger with grizzle hackle for crayfish (called koura here in NZ). According to Keith Draper's book on NZ flies, Fred Fletcher's Fuzzy Wuzzys were intended to represent a Koura (they are basically a tail of black squirrel tail body length, and the body is cheneil or dubbed wool of colour of your choice, with two black colar hackles, one tied mid body and one at the front in the normal position). A Red Setter is basically a fuzzy wuzzy, but the tail is fox squirrel and the hackles ginger. Apparently the first fuzzy wuzzies were tied with a palmer hackle, making them very close to a wooly bugger (different tail material). You could split the tail to splay outwards to represent two sets of claws.

- Jeff

[Ken Y]

Try brown wooly buggers. I like tying in the smaller sizes since they catch small as well as Large fish.