Coach Bob speaks the truth! That video is the gospel! As soon as I saw the title, I started searching through my bookmarks for this very link.

I use that very same fly for most of my crayfish fishing. I watched that very video a couple of years ago and have learned the pattern. I even tied it for a swap recently. Great on smallmouth bass, gills, even perch and walleye sometimes! (Yes, we do fly fish for walleye up here!) I tie it from about an 8 or 10 all the way up to a 2.

In slightly smaller sizes (6-12) it can be tied with light tan chenille (Or wool dubbing in the 8-12 range) and tan or ginger hackle. Pick up some lighter squirrel tail, or even use gray squirrel, and bingo. You have a molting crayfish. When the real crays are molting, the fish can get a bit picky for color so carry a few different shades with you.

A wooly bugger also works well. Before I started tying the crayfish from the video, I would tie a wooly bugger with a large bushy tail. I would also split the tail a bit, or tie in two feathers to imitate claws. One neat variation was the wooly bugger wound with 2 hackles, and the tips of the hackles tied in for tails. I have also made hair tailed wooly buggers with split tails of squirrel tail. They were sort of an evolutionary step on my way to learning ofthe simple crayfish pattern.

Good Luck,
Dave