Agreed! For the real tiny say 1/2 to 3/4 in. cray’s I just use in the round hares ears as I like the same hen back feathers for the legs on them as well n I’ve moved carp 4 n 5 feet to get at these little morsels! can be heart pounding as they tend to hit hard when provoked in this manner n charge off just as fast as they came for it…coupled with light tippets it can result in varrying outcomes! But it’s never boring!
I dunno…Wooley Buggers and Pangora Crawfish catch an awful lot of bass…with just feathers to represent claws. I don’t think most fish are that picky. They have only a second or two to look at something, and decide to eat, or not, before another fish grabs it, or it moves away. I personally think that all most fish look at is the basic silhouette, color and movement. They don’t have time for much more than that.
Just a thought…
I dunno…Wooley Buggers and Pangora Crawfish catch an awful lot of bass…with just feathers to represent claws. I don’t think most fish are that picky. They have only a second or two to look at something, and decide to eat, or not, before another fish grabs it, or it moves away. I personally think that all most fish look at is the basic silhouette, color and movement. They don’t have time for much more than that.
Just a thought…
Gig your right, buggers and the action of marabou is a proven fish-catcher. With WB, you never quite know what the fish is thinking? A swimming leech? A crayfish? But in the end, they just simply catch fish:^)
Bill…that would be something to enjoy…have yet to target carp. I’ve only caught one small one, and that was incidental while fishing for largemouth. Almost all of my crayfish patterns are used in streams for Smallies. One of these days I’m gonna have to go looking for carp:^)
I tie some very realistic patterns, like the Swiss Straw Crawfish, but to be perfectly honest, the Wooley Bugger, and Pangora Crawfish patterns out fish it significantly. My iBlack Cricket pattern doesn’t really look much like a real cricket (it’s basically just an Elk-Hair Caddis tied in black), but it catches panfish like crazy, because it has a basic cricket shape, color and movement. Tied in browns, yellows and green, it works great as a Hopper. Clousers don’t really look like minnows, but they have the basic profile, and perfect movement.
I do one extra thing to my crawfish patterns. When I fish them, I spray them with Smelly Jelly Crawfish scent. Fish rely on scent a lot of the time, as well. But the scent just gets their attention. It won’t make them bite, by itself. I tested it myself, by spraying a minnow pattern with crawfish scent, and the fish avoided it like the plague. I also tried a crawfish pattern with minnow scent with the same results. But when I used the correct scent, consistent with the pattern, the fish cooperated with gusto.
I probably should’ve published it as a paper, but I’d be surprised if someone hadn’t already done it.