# Clouser Crayfish?



## Janus (Jul 26, 2006)

Anyone fish them.? I have some and am going to tie these mccabe's crawfish up. But I have had these clousers in my box for some time now and wanted to find out if anyone had any tips on how to present them.. Mine are unweighted and about size 8. Fish them like a nymph dead drift? or splitshot?
Janus


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## Fishaholic69 (Apr 6, 2007)

they look good to me! I have the clouser fly fishing for smallmouth book and I seen them in there. never tried them cause i don't have all the materials. I use a brown over orange clouser minnow sometimes and that seems to catch lots too. not sure if they think its a crayfish or just a minnow or what but they like it. u can tie up soem brown wooley buggers as they make nice crayfish patterns. whats what i usually use.


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## Janus (Jul 26, 2006)

Yes but how do you fish them?


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## riverKing (Jan 26, 2007)

you can sight fish in shallow water with them, unwieghted flies are great on carp and smallies on stream flats. another option is deep dragging through pools behind a splitshot, or indecator fishing with them?.
what may be my favorite way to fish clousers. dead drift into a swing, or skip the dead drift part and just swing, but swinging is the way to go. especially if you can tie some in larger sizes.


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## Janus (Jul 26, 2006)

Thanks I will try that dead drift to swing. Rocky river has alot of swing to dead drifts if that makes any sense..but the amallies are hiding in that riffle after the pools(is that a tailout) alot of times or at least seem most comfortable ambushing there..Going out thursday morning..I'll give it a whirl.


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## Wild One (Jul 3, 2008)

riverKing said:


> you can sight fish in shallow water with them, unwieghted flies are great on carp and smallies on stream flats. another option is deep dragging through pools behind a splitshot, or indecator fishing with them?.
> what may be my favorite way to fish clousers. dead drift into a swing, or skip the dead drift part and just swing, but swinging is the way to go. especially if you can tie some in larger sizes.


This is absolutely the way I fish them in rivers. Seems to work out the best for me. I try to also swing them into spots that have a lot of big boulders and rocks and swim the fly right along the bottom of those rocks. Seems that a lot of fish hang out in those spots to ambush. 
So...swing into a dead drift and then I use a small stripping retrieve in the slack water.


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## Janus (Jul 26, 2006)

Thanks Ryan. I'm gonna throw them out early tomorrow morning..I'll report back.


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## Ajax (May 16, 2008)

quick question: when swinging a streamer through the current do you strip back at all. Do you mend? Or do you just let the current take the line downstream, belly and all? I haven't had any hookups with this method but I imagine that you just pull on the line with your left hand to set the hook when fishing this way. Can someone clarify?


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

Fishaholic69 said:


> they look good to me! I have the clouser fly fishing for smallmouth book and I seen them in there. never tried them cause i don't have all the materials. *I use a brown over orange clouser minnow sometimes and that seems to catch lots too*. not sure if they think its a crayfish or just a minnow or what but they like it. u can tie up soem brown wooley buggers as they make nice crayfish patterns. whats what i usually use.


I need to get some more bucktail so I can tie that color combo. The last time I was in a fly shop I looked for orange bucktail and they were out. Stream smallies in SE Ohio love black/blue jigs, so I have black over blue Clouser's tied and ready to go.


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## riverKing (Jan 26, 2007)

ajax, when swinging it is good to experiment with the swing. the three ways that I find the most effective on warmwater species. throw straight across the current and throw several stack mends (feeding line) to get the fly down in a short dead drift if you will, and then go right into a swing. your line should be well upstream of the fly at this point causing a slower swing as opposed to the line dragging the fly in a loop under the water, wich is what happens if you allow a big belly in the line, in short, bellies are bad here. you can also throw down at an angle and go straight into the swing with one upstream mend, the old greased line steelhead tech. for these on our rivers near cincy, black/white, brown/tan clousers, white zonkers, and black bunny leaches, this was often how I had clients fish the lmr, great on sauger and smallies. the other that works well for agressive fish (aka hybrids) take a sink tip and you fly of choice, throw down and across and while swinging (no mend) strip like hell, big browns like the same retrieve with darker flies and not so rediculous strips. 
hope that clarifies


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## Ajax (May 16, 2008)

Gotcha Riverking Thanks. So it's mend to get the fly down and then tight line and vary my retrieve between stripping loads of line to dead drifting the swing. I've tied some McCabe's Crawfish so I will give those a try. There is another great crawfish fly that A&E outfitters has. I need to pick up a few. It's a tiny craw with flash for the claws. It has produced well.


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## Fishaholic69 (Apr 6, 2007)

I cast to wear I think the fish are and give it a strip-pause retreive. sometimes I vary the time between strips to let it sink more. also can swing it if the waters faster.


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## Janus (Jul 26, 2006)

Water was so low yesterday I could hardly find any current..mostly dead moving pools. It hasn't rained in quite some time the water is way down. It made it kinda difficult to drift anything...what is usually above knee level water wise was around my ankles. Nice to see the structure that's there and make mental notes for when the water rises a bit. But came up empty yesterday. Nice to get out though..got a new 6wt so at least I got to test it out alot more..
Thanks again for the tips. I throw a mend upstream at rocky usually one sometimes more. If I am beadchaning on the fly I will throw a few...
Janus


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## Fishaholic69 (Apr 6, 2007)

when there is no currents I just cast it across the river and let strip pause retrieve um or let um sink soem and bounce the bottom. it works still you can catch bass and stuff that way all day. I fish even when the flow is like 10 cfs haha!


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