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| Fly recipe: Hook: Dai Riki #710 Size 4-6 or Dai Riki #899 4-6 Thread: Olive, Brown, or Tan Flat Waxed Nylon Shell and Tail: Olive, Brown, or Rust Furry Foam Under Body: Olive, Brown, or Rust Sow Scud Dub Pincers: Hungarian Partridge Feathers Feelers: Olive or Pumpkin Barred Sili Legs Legs: Orange Sensations Cello Yarn Eyes: Lead Dumbell or Bead Chain Ribbing: Hard Mono (1X or 2X) or Clear V-Rib Medium Tying instructions: Step 1: Secure your hook in the vise and attach the thread to the hook. Wrap to the back bend of the hook. Step 2: Take a small amount of dubbing and moisten thread and apply dubbing. Make a small ball of dubbing on the end of the hook, this will allow you to fray out the pincers. Step 3: Having formed the small ball of dubbing on the bend of the hook, remove and match two Hungarian partridge feathers. Where the feather begins to fuzz out, peel back and remove these furry feathers. Now being left with the matched pair of feathers, carefully tie in one at a time with the underside of the feather pointing outwards. You should now have two flared out feathers representing the pincers. Step 4: Match a pair of sili legs that should be roughly the length of the hook shank and tie in over top of the hun feathers. Step 5: Take the furry foam, making sure you only have one side (not the two stuck together) and cut out a 3/8" to 1/2" wide by 1 ½" long strip of the foam. Trim one end into a taper as you would with bunny strips. Step 6: Take your strip of furry foam and tie it in upside down with the long end towards the bend of the hook, directly behind the hun feathers. You will pull this over to form your back and tail at the end. Make sure that you tie it in so the furry side will lie upwards when you pull it over. Step 7: After securing in the foam, tie in a set of dumbbell or chain eyes roughly above the hook point. This will provide weight on the fly. After securing eyes, tie thread back to the pincer tie in point. Step 8: Take your thread, make a dubbing loop, and get out your dubbing spinning tool of choice, mine is Dubbit. You are going to form the head now, so use a generous portion of dubbing on this portion, and make it shaggy. Step 9: After adding your dubbing and spinning to flare out the guard hairs you will wrap this forward over the eyes, crisscrossing so as to cover up the eyes on the bottom of the body. This will form your head, I like mine to be roughly ¼ of the length of the entire hook. After wrapping tie off your dubbing loop and trim off the excess. Step 10:. At this point tie in your ribbing and select a strand of the Cello Yarn and tie this in as well. Step 11: Form a second dubbing loop and load enough dubbing in to cover the rest of the bare hook, but don't wrap this all the way forward yet. Instead wrap forward only one or two wraps, then let it rest. Step 12: Take your Cello Yarn and fray out the strands of the yarn with your hands and carefully wrap this over this small portion of dubbing in front of your head. Make sure to fray the strands out so as not to wrap over previous wraps, do this 3 to 4 times, these will form your legs. Pull these all backwards towards the hook shank before tying off and trimming off excess material. Now tie your thread forward to the eye of the hook. Step 13: Take the dubbing loop and dubbing and wrap forward to just in front of the eye of the hook and tie off and trim. Step 14: Grab your piece of furry foam and pull over the dubbed body. Take your ribbing that should still be located in the middle of the body, and make one securing wrap over the loosely held furry foam, this will form the top of the head. Don't pull too tight on the furry foam during the first wrap or you will not form the fat head that you want. Step 15: Continue wrapping forward segmenting the body, stretching out the furry foam a little bit more each time so as to taper it down towards the eye. 5 wraps of ribbing is all you should need. Step 16: After ribbing right up to the eye, wrap once under the piece of furry foam at the hook eye and tie off, firmly securing the ribbing material. Step 17: At this point whip finish the head so as to properly secure the thread, no room for half hitches here. Step 18: Now trim a forked tail into the remaining bit of the furry foam hanging off the back of the hook. For finishing touches you can pick out the dubbing a bit around the head and make sure to pick out the legs around the head so as to represent the legs on the crayfish. Notes: Crayfish are found in many of the local rivers, concentrating in slightly warmer waters and shallow rocky areas. They represent a tasty snack for big and small trout alike. They generally match the color of their surroundings so I typically fish them in rust, dark brown, or olive. When swimming crayfish always move backwards, this is why most patterns are tied reverse style on the hook. Also trout prefer to attack when the animals are defenseless, not with their pincers fully flared and in attack mode. That is why I like to tie these in smaller sizes, and with smaller pincers. This pattern I have found to be effective on the Lower Madison for trout and the Missouri for carp. The fly doesn't incorporate many flashy materials - carp will rarely eat flashy flies, and most often will be spooked. For more info on this and other patterns stop in and ask us. |
