# Crayfish Patterns?



## fishmonster11 (Jul 5, 2009)

I've been meaning to make a design for a crayfish pattern to hit the rivers with and here's what I came up with last night...
Anyone else have patterns that do well?

Claws-Mallard Flank
Eyes-Silver Dumbbells
Rubber for the tentacles
Body-Squirrel hair dubbing/Dark green ice dubbing
Legs-Brown Saddle Hackle
Tail-Mallard Flank


----------



## dugworm (May 23, 2008)

Wow! Reel nice patttern.


----------



## Wormser (Dec 16, 2009)

Fantastic. Let us know how it works. Good luck.


----------



## sbreech (Jun 6, 2010)

That is a really nice looking pattern. When I'm fishing crawfish, I fish a "crawfish colored wooly bugger" and just fish it like it's a craw. Seems to work pretty well, and takes about 2 minutes to tie one.


----------



## Flymaker (Jan 24, 2013)

+1 ^^ wooly bugger with some rubber legs and dumbell eyes.....


----------



## rickerd (Jul 16, 2008)

Clauser's crayfish fly works best for me. I know it takes almost 15mins to tie, but, fish love the way they dance in the water.


----------



## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

This is one of those things where I think we as fly tyers overthink things. It's a good craw pattern, for sure, but in my humble opinion the detail is not necessary. I try to take a page out of the playbook of the conventional fisherman and think about what works for them as craw patterns. Tube jigs, rubber skirted bass jigs, soft plastics, etc... Do they all have the right number of legs and shellbacks and pincers and eyes...no. Do they need all that? Obviously not. In no way am I saying your pattern won't catch fish because it will, but I think it will also not be terribly durable. For me, if I can tie 3 durable simple craw patterns in the time it takes you to tie one that's more detailed, I'm going to choose the route that lets me tie more patterns, be more efficient, and not leave me in tears if I snag one up or break it off. 

That's all I got to say about that.


----------



## fishinnick (Feb 19, 2011)

Very nice tie, and I'm SURE it'll catch a bunch of fish, but I agree with the above posts. I've tried many different types of crayfish patterns and am still tinkering around with them trying to find one I'm confident with, but from my experiences just a bead or conehead brown woolly bugger is the best "crayfish" fly I've found. Another simple fly I have a lot of luck with is just a piece of brown rabbit strip tied onto the hook(make sure you have some hanging off the hook for the tail) and just wrap it up the shank to the eye with a conehead. I know there's a name for the fly but I can't remember it. Simple and effective.


----------



## Jimijaz (Oct 15, 2007)

I had to fish these things to prove it to myself but a soft craw imitation/impression works far better than something with claws sticking up in the air. Smallies will key on soft craws that are between shells rather than have to fight their meal down. That's why I use a Foxy Red Clouser. We have the how-to-tie video on the FFO site and the big brother is the Mixed Media, speaking of silly legs. They're both stupid easy ties and you can knock out a ton in no time at all.
-J


----------



## Riverbum (Jan 27, 2013)

Nice lookin fly !
Here is one that I have done pretty good on







It is a variation of the " stalcup" crayfish 


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------

