The crayfish or crawdad is a favorite food for many different species of fish. Every species--from trout and panfish to bass, salmon and steelhead--love them. The crayfish is also an easy fly to tie for the fly fisherman who ties his own. The crayfish is unique in that it travels backward in the water. So you should tie the crayfish fly backward on the hook, which enhances the realism as you strip the line in.
Choosing Your Materials
You can choose to tie a crayfish from many different materials depending on the water you intend to fish, the materials you have on hand and the fish species you are going after.
Most crayfish patterns are built on a 3x hook anywhere from a size 2 to a size 10. It's usually best to carry a selection of these flies in different sizes and colors. The most popular colors are red, orange and yellow mimicking those found among crayfish in nature. Many fly tiers use feathers, such as brown saddle hackle, for the claws of the crayfish. Hungarian partridge feathers work well too. You can also use pheasant feathers or rabbit fur to imitate the claws. Krystal flash works well for the carapace between the crayfish's claws. Most tiers also use bead chain or dumbbells for the crayfish eyes. You can use any type of chenille to wrap the body of the fly. Some people also use different types of foam and create a segmented body by wrapping the thread around the foam leaving gaps or spaces.
Tying the Crayfish Fly
A crayfish fly is an anomaly in that you tie it so that the hook rides upside down in the water--the hook point sticks up rather than down. Just as in tying any fly, there is an order to dressing the crayfish fly. You usually wrap the hook shank with thread, then tie in the tail, wrap the material for the body, tie in a wing and then finish off with a collar or head. When tying a crayfish, the order is the same but the names of the individual parts change. Orange or tan thread works well as the thread base. You could use Krystal Flash or pheasant feathers for the antennae that would be equivalent to a tail. You can make the claws out of feathers, which is typical, and once again you tie in as part of the tail assembly. Ideally, the claw material should curve outward just like real crawdad claws. Barbells or bead chain function as the eyes of the crayfish and, technically, are part of the fly body. You can build the crayfish body out of dubbing or closed cell foam. You might want to prepare a piece of bright flashy material like prismatic tape for the shellback. You can also use mylar tubing split in two or even a piece of aluminum foil. Some tiers form a wing with squirrel tail, which usually tops off the shellback of the crayfish. Make sure it extends back over the eyes and the bend of the hook. Back at the eye, you can tie a head with thread wraps and cement it with Zap-a-Gap or another appropriate fly-tying cement, let it dry and go fishing.
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