#8 Jig Hook Cray Tail Craw Dad

The Dead Drift Crayfish is a great size and color to mimic the majority of the crayfish found near Missoula. The Orange Rabbit and Orange Colored Hide acts as a trigger to get trout to strike. Don’t let the name fool you, once in a while the twitch moves the fish!

Fly Tying Material List

Hook: 3XL Size 8
Thread: Brown 6/0 Danville
Tail: 2 Strands Pearl Krystal Flash under Orange Rabbit Fur under Pheasant Tail Fibers
Carapace: Mottled Brown Thin Skin
Eyes: Silver Bead Chain
Dubbing Over Eyes: Olive
Claws: Gold Dyed Variant Rabbit Strips, Hide Side colored Orange
Hackle: Brown
Rib: Brassie Brown Wire, reverse wrapped
Body: Olive Dubbing

Originally designed as a stonefly imitation, the TJ Hooker excels as a Crawdad imitation. The marabou tail acts as the two front claws, while the rubber legs work as shorter legs. We know it doesn’t look exactly like a crawdad to us, but the trout disagree!

Fly Tying Material List

Hook: 3XL Jig Hook 6-10
Bead: Gold Slotted Tungsten
Thread: Tan 6/0 Uni Thread (136D)
Tail: Tan Marabou
Rear Body: Tan/Brown Variegated Chenille
Rubber Legs: Three Sets Tan Spanflex

On a recent fishing trip, my buddy Marty Mononi and I were talking about some of the old-school flies like Woolly Worms and Woolly Buggers and how—like a cool old house—they have good bones but can generally use a remodel. There are so many good, but somewhat outdated, flies out there that this “remodel” idea really struck a chord with me. As you saw in the Feb.-Mar. 2020 issue, I revamped the venerable Chubby Chernobyl with a fresh look and called it the Elevated Chubby Chernobyl. Well, the Nine-Pound Hammer I’m showing here is really nothing but an improved, purpose-built variation of a Woolly Bugger. I have to say I both love it and hate it when the design process runs a wide circle and ends up somewhere back around where it began, along with some noticeable improvements in both design and usability.

Mononi wanted a crayfish pattern designed to be fished under an indicator. He had been fishing Thin Mints with varying degrees of success, but wanted something a bit more imitative and with a wider range of colors. I was already thinking about coming up with something for him, when another couple of guide buddies asked me for basically the same thing. When three different guides/anglers of this caliber independently ask for the same kind of new pattern design, I listen.

Purely by coincidence, while all this correspondence was going on, another good friend, Brian Schmidt, had been showing me some of his hand-tied Ned Rigs he uses and sells for conventional bass fishing. The Ned Rig historically uses small plastic worms or crayfish with a light jig head so you can easily suspend it just off the bottom. It was originally created by outdoor writer Ned Kehde, who popularized it for bass fishing in the Midwest.

Schmidt’s new fly-fishing-inspired version of the Ned Rig has a horizontal, football-shaped lead jig head, and a sparsely tied collar of marabou and schlappen. It was taking the conventional tackle world by storm, and that gave me an idea. Let’s scale that kind of thing down and let’s see what we can do for the trout guys!

#kayakfishing #fishinglifestyle #trout #riverfishing #fishingrod #fishingtrip #anglers #lures #fishingfun #fishing🎣

#奄美 #オジロバラハタ #奄美大島 #ライトジギング #アブガルシア #シマノ #釣り #釣りガール #釣りフォト #釣果

#carpangler #carpangling #fisherman #instacarp #carphunter #karperwereld #bak #monkeyclimber #carpmovementtravel #luxuryhotels