Playin' With Crawfish....

[Darian]

Been trying to nail down some colors of natural Crayfish in CA. I was amazed to discover that the most prolific of all Crayfish here in CA are the Signal Crayfsh and the Louisiana Swamp Red Crayfish, both of which are invasive transplants. They were probably introduced as escapees from aquaculture facilities. Where ever they appear, they out compete native species for survival. These guys are tough and will eat almost anything they can capture (including each other ).

Since the Signal Crayfish has established itself in the Delta, it'll be the main model for the next version of the Crawfish pattern. The colors range from bluish/brown, bluish/olive to reddish/brown. It has a whitish area on just above the pincer area of both claws. I'm most familiar the bluish/olive version. The Louisiana Swamp Red Crayfish is reddish/brown/black in color.

So, look for a smaller (shorter ), bluish/olive version of the Crawdad, shortly....

[Darian]

OK,.... I gave the first 2 prototypes of the Crawfish to Jay M., for testing and possibly a video to see if the action I wanted to create happens. Stay tuned. I'm off to make some more....

[Darian]

Well,.... The first test results are in. I gave a couple of the originals to Jay M., for testing. He reports that the larger of the two I gave him (same as the one in the photo) was too bouyant and either wouldn't sink or would sink very slowly. Gotta add some weight in the form of heavier wire or metal beads. Jay's going to make some footage of the pattern at work and forward it to me.

I gave a couple of 'em to a friend and member of this BB in Virginia for testing, as well. Lotsa Smallmouth fishin' back there.

Stay tuned....

[Charlie Bisharat]

Darian,

Great looking fly. Very cool idea and I am sure it will work. I wanted to share a couple of things that I have found out from working on my own crawdad pattern.

The use of foam is awesome but it presents problems with buoyancy. I have used bright orange foam for claws and lots of lead and the damn thing would not sink. If I were you, I might consider hollowing much of the foam body out and using T-17 wrapped around the foam body to segment the torso.

I have also used T- 11, 14 and 17 as legs under the crawdads body and feel like it offers a lot of realism, some much needed weight and I feel like the fish will hold the fly longer with some spinney legs that might feel much like the real McCoy.

I have also use all those same tungsten lines as antenna.

Hope this offers a little different perspective that might just help you. You are a smart guy that likes to tinker with stuff so a solution to the problems of your pattern are close by.

Enjoy the ride, that is the fun stuff.

Cheers Chas

[Darian]

Hi Charlie.... Thanks for the suggestions. I gave the smaller of the two prototypes to a friend in VA, who fishes Smallies a lot, for testing. He says the smaller version sinks quite well and the carapace rises, as intended. Looks like a crawfish on the defense. He's still testing (while Shad fishing).

So, the proportions on the smaller version are better. Now, I've gotta scale up the materials in the larger version to sink that size carapace. I'll be checking out your suggestions for that job....

I'm hoping that you're going to be at the Expo so I can show you the pattern.

[Jay Murakoshi]

Darian

I came up with a crawdad pattern using three different color wig hair but I couldn't get it to sink right. I used some tungsten eyes and completely covered the eyes with the new UV resin. Sinks great but something is out of balance. For the claws, I used hen saddle hackles on one pattern and on the other pattern I use some suede leather. Before I show photo's, I'm going to make the crawdad perfect or near perfect.
This was done in between 6 doz sea habits, just today. Still gotta tie up some wig hair bait fish patterns then I'll continue with the crawdads

Jay

[Darian]

WOW!!! With this much attention to Crawfish patterns we should have some great fishing bugs for Smallies and Big Mouth Bass (Stripers, even ). Can't wait to compare patterns and notes.

I've decided to try to change one of the components in mine. The abdomen on the original has Estaz, Grande for the material. Since synthetics add a bit to the bouyancy of the pattern, I decided to change that to Squirrel Zonker(?) strip, palmered. Should absorb more water and sink more readily. Might make it more difficult to cast, tho. If it works well, I'll post a photo of it tomorrow....

BTW, Jay, I found some packages of white pom-poms I had from some other project but forgot about until now....

[Darian]

Made a change in the material used for the abdomen of this pattern to olive colored Squirrel Zonker strips. Everything else remains unchanged. This, along with wire added underneath, should make the large version of this pattern sink correctly. Check it out: