Crayfish patterns

PennKev said:
The more realistic and the more materials you put on a crayfish pattern, the worse they fish.

A wooley bugger-ish fly with a lead dumbell and rubber legs will smoke almost any other crayfish pattern.
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Movement and “pushing water” in fly designs is key! Which one of these satisfies that criteria?
 

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5footfenwick said:
Smallmouth prefer crayfish without claws. By quite a large margin. When I was a kid, I used to catch 50 or so crayfish and then feed them to smallmouth while snorkeling one at a time. I did this 5-10 days a summer for most of middle school and high school. The ones with claws were usually ignored. The ones without any claws almost never made it to the bottom. It was very enlightening as a young angler.
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Agree.

There have been studies of bass in tanks (Largemouths I believe) that reveal this very clearly - definitely prefer crays with no or small claws.
 
Dave_W said:
Agree.

There have been studies of bass in tanks (Largemouths I believe) that reveal this very clearly - definitely prefer crays with no or small claws.
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Cool! You inspired me. Clawless crayfish with mobile chain tail #14, mohair body, and some kind of thin skin stuff. Copper bead is also loose and free to rotate.

The skin is on the wrong side though, lol.
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JG63 said:
Did you ever swish your hands back and forth over the rocks and silt? Smallmouth respond to that sound and hang out just beyond the silt cloud for crayfish to dart out - you can see this well from a bridge when carp are mucking about
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Absolutely! Had a nice spot where one of the local creeks dropped from about 3-5feet in the run right after the riffle down to about 22 feet right after the riffle. We would stand about 10 feet upstream from this drop off and kick up mud and silt from the bottom. This usually brought about a dozen or so smallmouths up to feed on the lip of that drop off. We would only throw the crawfish about 5 feet away and when they hit the water just downstream of us they would make a dash for the bottom. The smallmouth would just come up and chase them. If they didn’t have claws they would just crush them before they hit bottom. If they had both claws they were often ignored. It was very interesting that they could see the difference of a crayfish zooming full speed to the bottom in 5 feet of water.

I learned a lot from snorkeling many holes over the years and was also humbled. I learned that I wasn’t nearly as good at catching big browns as I thought I was. But I got pretty good at finding them 😉

~5footfenwick
 
Dave_W said:
Agree.

There have been studies of bass in tanks (Largemouths I believe) that reveal this very clearly - definitely prefer crays with no or small claws.
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Hey Dave,
I think this falls into the same category as an injured baitfish. The instinct is strong to take advantage of prey when the prey has a disadvantage.
~5footfenwick
 
5footfenwick said:
Smallmouth prefer crayfish without claws. By quite a large margin. When I was a kid, I used to catch 50 or so crayfish and then feed them to smallmouth while snorkeling one at a time. I did this 5-10 days a summer for most of middle school and high school. The ones with claws were usually ignored. The ones without any claws almost never made it to the bottom. It was very enlightening as a young angler.
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That's a very interesting and astute observation. It would make sense as who would want those "jabby" claws going into the stomach?

Perhaps a pattern with no claws would work better than one that tries to imitate the claws.
 
There's a theory that tube lures as so effective for SMBs because they mimic the body shape and movement of crayfish and without much in the way of noticeable claws.
 
5footfenwick said:
Hey Dave,
I think this falls into the same category as an injured baitfish. The instinct is strong to take advantage of prey when the prey has a disadvantage.
~5footfenwick
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Makes sense.

I think it also has something to do with the bass's approach.
SMBs eat a lot of crayfish so they're a prey species that SMB's are very familiar with. Normally, bass inhale larger prey species, like fish, headfirst. With large crayfish, they attack from the rear and inhale the crayfish tail first. Anyone who has fished river SMBs has seen bass with a crayfish in their gullet and it is always the claws that are visible in the gullet, indicating that it was swallowed tail first. With a fast moving prey species like crayfish, I think the presence of large claws makes the approach more difficult and requires the bass to be more careful to get around the crayfish (difficult when the cray is scooting away in bursts). A smaller crayfish, or one without large claws, can be attacked and inhaled from any angle - just an easier target.

Watch some underwater video of bass eating crayfish and you can see this careful approach if the cray is large or has large claws.
 
TimMurphy said:
Dear Kms,

Here is a video example of a furry foam crayfish. It can be tied as easy or as complicated as you want. All you really need is furry foam, chenille, and squirrel tail. You can palmer a wet fly hackle over the chenille before you cover it with the furry foam if you think you want legs.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

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Get rid of those stiff hair claws. Use a tuft of feathers, marabou, some Silli-Legs.
But every time I try to make a 'simple' crayfish fly, I don't! They all take me time. Or just thread a tiny rubber crayfish on a long shank hook. I mean, if those Lively-Legs are ok for flies..
If I knew how to post a picture on here, or , more accurately, when I did do it, it didn't work, I'd show you my craw pattern that I use for trout in the Kinzua tailwaters. But it's not much different than the one shown above, but I wrap the body to give it segmentation.
For smallmouth, I use the Stahlcup Crazy Craw. It's darn-near perfect and more of a streamer-ISH fly and super simple. And if you played in a 'crick' as much as I did when young, you'll notice that it moves and glides just like the real thing. The other more accuate style that takes 3X longer is for dead drifting and tight lining.
 
PennKev said:
The more realistic and the more materials you put on a crayfish pattern, the worse they fish.

A wooley bugger-ish fly with a lead dumbell and rubber legs will smoke almost any other crayfish pattern.
Click to expand...
The furry foam is good for adding the bulk that a crayfish body has, but it's something of a pain to tie-in and then wrap up through and tie-off.
 
I caught a smallmouth on a big white beaded bugger a couple years ago and in its throat i could see 2 large crayfish claws the rest was further down makes sense
 
Smallmouth completely crush crayfish, claws or not. I’ve never fished flies or plastic crawfish without giant fluttering claws. Susquehanna SMB don’t care one bit. In fact I will fish a lead head jig with nothing but giant flat rubber claws meant as a trailer for big rubber jigs. The SMB destroy them without a care in the world and they are all claw and no body, tail or legs. I believe their tactic with crayfish is to hit them hard and kill them instantly.
 
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