Crabs again!

[Traditionalist]

Connor´s Cork Crab




Have had a lot of cod on these, and I assume they will also work well for bass. But once again they should work on any fish which eats crabs.

You need a couple of wine corks. Slice or saw the cork into rounds as shown. If you cut through the cork at an angle, you will get a piece with a thick end and a thin end, more or less a round wedge shape, similar to the shape of a real crab.



Now slice a small piece off either side of the "round" at the thin end. You can shape it a little more with fine sandpaper if you like. You get at least half a dozen "blanks" from a standard wine cork. The rounds should be a 1/4 to 3/8" at the thick end.

Make up some legs. Here I have used 1mm soft nylon braid, knotted it, cut it to length, and tapered the ends with a lighter and my fingers.



The "swimming" legs are the same but frayed at the ends, given a spot of UHU and flattened. The claws are thicker braid, in this case soft 2mm polypropylene braid. Fray one end with a needle, knot it, cut to length, and shape the cord ends using waterproof glue. ( I have used UHU here).

These cords and twines are available very cheaply at most builders merchants. They must be thermoplastics, as otherwise you can not melt and shape them. You may also use coloured cords of course, but we will come to that.

Using a dab of UHU, or super glue, glue the legs to the cork blank as shown. They will stick and stay in position much better if you fray the ends first with a needle, and this gives a flatter underside to the finished crab. This is the underside after mounting legs etc;



Now you need your hook, wound roughly but tightly with thread. This is a size 1 Gamakatsu LS-5213N ( Nickel plated) . Affix the hook with a dab of UHU or superglue, and when all is dry. Use either five minute epoxy or a hot glue gun to put a glob of epoxy/glue over the whole underside. ( Epoxy used here; and I prefer epoxy as it sticks better, and is more robust). This is the result seen from above;



You may of course use rubber legs and stuff like that, but the nylon and polypropylene twine are more or less indestructible, and the rubber legs get torn off easily. Vernille is also good for the "normal" legs, and for smaller imitations, but you should try to get the polypropylene for the claws because it is buoyant and gives them some "action". You may also use foam instead of cork for the body of course, but I have found the cork works well. Both will work.

That was basically it! You can add feelers, eyes, etc if you want to impress your friends, but the fish don´t care! You may also fill the holes in the cork and colour and varnish the top of the crab if you wish. In this way one may obtain extremely lifelike imitations, but it is the behaviour and the triggers mentioned which cause the fish to take this fly, and other embellishments are largely superfluous.

This crab "carapace" is 2cm long, and about 1,7 cm wide at its widest point. It has a "leg span" of 7.5 cm, so is a fairly large imitation, but it is the size I mostly use. It can be a bit of a pain to cast, but a #9 or #10 Hi-D head will take it a fair way. On my hand for a size comparison, Although I have relatively small hands.



As I wrote, you may also colour the crabs if you wish, but I have found this also to be largely superfluous! Look at small crabs. THEY NEARLY ALL HAVE A PALE / tan /yellow/ WHITE UNDERSIDE TO THE BODY AND ALSO TO LEGS AND CLAWS!!! Check out the images here;

http://images.google.co.uk/search?q=crab+underside&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_en___DE230&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1362&bih=805&tbm=isch

the cork is a good colour, and so are the white legs etc.

This is important! Fish normally take these crabs FROM BELOW!!! I believe the pale underside, legs etc are important triggers, and if you colour them, or use coloured legs etc, then you partially lose these important triggers! I have caught a lot more fish on the imitations as shown.

Take note of the silhouette, ( shadow) in the photo below as well. This is also a trigger for feeding fish which see the crabs from below;




You may varnish the crab if you wish, or coat it with epoxy, but I don´t usually bother with that either nowadays. If you set your materials up correctly, you can easily make a dozen of these in an hour. No vice is required. They cost virtually nothing, merely the price of a good hook.

They catch plenty of fish, and are not too hard to cast, although this is a fairly large fly. The polypropylene braid claws are buoyant, and actively hydrophobic, so they don´t soak up water, and also help the crab to float well. Fish the crab on a sinking line, and a shortish leader. Use longish slow pulls, and then a pause. Expect to get most takes on the pause! These can be very violent takes as well! I have had a few fish by just allowing this pattern to float in the surf on an intermediate line, but have not used this technique much.

As ever, if you catch some decent fish on this pattern, or have any ideas for improvements etc then please let me know.

With regard to the "embellishments". I could spend more time on these things, and produce much better and "lifelike" imitations, with accurate colour schemes, eyes, and what have you. But the aim here is to show you how to do it, so that it works, preferably quickly and cheaply! To be honest, the "very lifelike" imitations catch no better than these comparatively "rough and ready" versions, and often not as well! I only make these things to catch fish, not to catch anglers!

One last point here, if you add dumbbells to the rear of the hook, in the right weight, ( better to use foam on such an imitation though), then you have a crab that "sits up and begs", waving its claws and legs on the bottom. This can be absolutely deadly! Lead wound around the rear of the shank will also work, and you can "tune" the crab to some extent then as well.

The crabs should work for any fish feeding on them. Depending on where you fish them, it might be advantageous to colour the upper bodies. This depends largely on how you expect the fish to view them, and of course on the crabs in your area.If you are using them in fairly open water, then a more comprehensive colour scheme might be a little better.

Originally I made some with red bodies, and green bodies, thinking this would be just as good as the sinking crabs I use, but it wasn´t, and since I have been using the pale under-bodies and legs, I have had a lot more fish. This can only be due to the trigger effect of the pale bodies and legs etc, as the movement is the same regardless of colour!

The crab in the first photo is a red one. The legs only need a touch of red! Leave them mostly white;

One may use more or less complex colour schemes, right up to copying the natural colours, but this takes time, and I don´t think it´s worth the trouble.

The legs and claws on many crab pictures and when the crabs are at rest, are "folded" together, but crabs in mid water invariably have their legs splayed! This is why I splay the legs on the artificial. Also, these legs and claws move well when the crab is pulled or allowed to float upwards, and I imagine this is a fairly major trigger as well.

One may of course colour the "blanks" before making up the crabs, and then coat them with epoxy, varnish etc, . This is easier than trying to do it once the crab is completed. The legs should be coloured ( magic marker) AFTER the crab is completed, as the exact angle of the finished legs is not known beforehand.

I had some success using legs like this barred with dark brown marker. Something else to consider! It may be a useful trigger. many fish react to bars and stripes. Have not experimented much with that. I tend to stick to KISS principles when I can! ( Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

Practically all the fish I have caught on these have contained crabs, which means they were targeting crabs, and most likely took the imitation for a crab! Some were stuffed with them, and all the crabs had white or pale yellow to light orange brown under-bodies. Some were red or green or even blue ( Velvet swimming crab, under the "velvet"), on the backs etc. So I don´t think the shell back colour is of as much importance as the action/movement, and the pale underside.

My most successful sinking crabs are red! ( For cod). One should however bear in mind that red is often a trigger colour for cod. This may not be the same with other fish.  These pale ones worked the best as floaters.

One way to find out is to try it!

Regards and tight lines! ~ Mike Connor