Crawdads

[Mark Knapp 0]

I am working on refining my pattern for the invasive crayfish in Lake Havasu.

 

[Guest]

Hope they don’t flip over w/o the lead eyes.

[niveker 0]

56 minutes ago, Mark Knapp said:

my pattern for the invasive crayfish in Lake Havasu

Looks good Mark, how big?  

[Mark Knapp 0]

1 hour ago, denduke said:

Hope they don’t flip over w/o the lead eyes.

The shanks are all weighted with lead wire. I tied some with lead dumb bell eyes but I am not fond of the look.

[Poopdeck 0]

I don’t like dumbell eyes on my crayfish for no good reason other then I don’t like the looks either. Dumb reason I know but it’s the only reason I got. I use a tungsten bead tied belly scratcher style with a cray tail tied to the under side as well. The cray tail isn’t all that much weight but I’m sure it helps.  You could hide a bead or two real easy in among all that fur on the bottom.

https://www.jsflyfishing.com/products/fish-skull-shrimp-cray-tails?variant=43259242873061&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-eW0x_qg_wIVAUJyCh2Vrw3IEAQYASABEgKED_D_BwE

[Guest]

$.02.     

 

 

[Mark Knapp 0]

The big sunfish at Havasu hold 25 to 30 feet down so they are rather challenging. The crayfish there are orange and green so that's why I have developed a deep swimming, small size, orange and green crawdad. I get a kick out of making up my own patterns and I'd say this one gets me pretty close to what I want.

We shall see, problem is, I won't get a chance to try these on the redears in Havasu for about ten months. Bummer.

[DarrellP 0]

All of these crawdads look great.  Mark, yours is a beauty!  Is it weighted or do you use a sinkinking line, or both?

[Bryon Anderson 0]

Those look great Mark -- if my dad saw them, he'd say, "That looks like good bait!" (meant as a compliment, of course )

 

[Mark Knapp 0]

5 hours ago, DarrellP said:

All of these crawdads look great.  Mark, yours is a beauty!  Is it weighted or do you use a sinkinking line, or both?

They are weighted with 1 1/2 layers of .025 lead wire and I have two reels for each of the rods I'm bringing to Havasu, one with floating line and one with sinking line. I even have reels for a couple of the rods with intermediate line. I'm loaded for bear.

[Mark Knapp 0]

5 hours ago, Bryon Anderson said:

Those look great Mark -- if my dad saw them, he'd say, "That looks like good bait!" (meant as a compliment, of course )

 

Thanks Bry.

[Philly 0]

Nice ties, Mark.  The Rusty Crayfish is invasive here in PA.  I tend to be more impressionistic with mine.   I tie mine on Eagle Claw Aberdeen Crappie hooks, usually 3/0 and I do use the lead dumbbell eyes.   The way I wrap the body pretty much blends them in with the body.  These are large compared to yours about 3 inches long overall.

I like the orange.    Most of the crayfish around here seem to have a bit of orange color, at times.  So I incorporate it into some of my flies.  What size hooks did you use for yours.

denduke what size hook for your trout crawdads?   I'm planning on tying some smaller ones but I thinking size 4 or size 6 at the smallest.

[Mark Knapp 0]

4 minutes ago, Philly said:

Nice ties, Mark.  The Rusty Crayfish is invasive here in PA.  I tend to be more impressionistic with mine.   I tie mine on Eagle Claw Aberdeen Crappie hooks, usually 3/0 and I do use the lead dumbbell eyes.   The way I wrap the body pretty much blends them in with the body.  These are large compared to yours about 3 inches long overall.

I like the orange.    Most of the crayfish around here seem to have a bit of orange color, at times.  So I incorporate it into some of my flies.  What size hooks did you use for yours.

denduke what size hook for your trout crawdads?   I'm planning on tying some smaller ones but I thinking size 4 or size 6 at the smallest.

Your look great too, like all of them on this page. I'm sure they would work good for me too. I'd need to fish them down to about 30 feet. That's one of my challenges. I love them.

[Mark Knapp 0]

18 hours ago, denduke said:

$.02.     Over the years I have tied many Cdads.  There’s the ones that act like’em and those that just look like’em.  The best cachingist ones are deer hair and Drib with pheasant breasts for claws.  Got the idea from a magazine.  They have been TROUT killers!  They are small.  Fished across and down and hook is down and they just roll along and everything attacks them.   
So actually the rolling over doesn’t bother the fish…😏  

 

 

I'm not sure if I could fish these deep enough. I need to get to about 30 feet deep. With deer hair on them (it's buoyant) they won't be as fishable for me. I'm also tying them on jig hooks so I can fish them more horizontally than vertically. Nice flies.

[Mark Knapp 0]

19 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

I don’t like dumbell eyes on my crayfish for no good reason other then I don’t like the looks either. Dumb reason I know but it’s the only reason I got. I use a tungsten bead tied belly scratcher style with a cray tail tied to the under side as well. The cray tail isn’t all that much weight but I’m sure it helps.  You could hide a bead or two real easy in among all that fur on the bottom.

https://www.jsflyfishing.com/products/fish-skull-shrimp-cray-tails?variant=43259242873061&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-eW0x_qg_wIVAUJyCh2Vrw3IEAQYASABEgKED_D_BwE

 

 

Nice looking 'dads. I could make them a little more orange and weight them a little more and they'd be great for Havasu.