Size questions! *

[Traditionalist]

Many aspects of imitation are related to size. Fur and hair suitable for dressing small imitations may not be suitable for dressing large imitations, and vice versa. 

Here is something you may recognise though!

Mount a size 8 hook in the vice as shown. Brush your hare pelt to get the fur even, select two  bunches of hare fur, pull out the underfur, and tie the bunches in as shown;




Throw in a whip finish, and remount the hook in the vice as normal.  Tie in a piece of strong ribbing tinsel. I have used gold here. Using the underfur you just pulled out of the hare bunches, dub a thick dubbing on to the thread as shown. Wind this in, adding more as required to shape the body. Rib the body tightly with the tinsel.






Select another bunch of fur, remove the underfur, and tie it in as shown, and overdub the windings. ( You can tie this in first before you start dubbing if you wish).  Whip finish, and varnish your wraps.




Using an orange marker pen, colour the dubbing as required.  Add  a few black or brown stripes etc as you feel are needed, ( Use the lighter pens first, and let the colour dry before you continue!). The result should look roughly like this;



Now take your brush, and rough up the dubbing, stroking mainly towards the underside of the fly.  This should result in this;






You may faff on quite a bit with this fly making it look more "realistic", but I don?t bother, it works very well as it is!


OK, that was your freshwater crayfish pattern!  You may of course add weight etc to this pattern as desired, a few wraps of lead under the "thorax" but I usually don?t.  I fish it "free-lined" on a floating line, giving it little jerks now and again.  I have also taken a number of seatrout on this fly and two salmon!  Of course it works bets where there are crayfish!  But actually it catches fish just about anywhere!  I have  had quite a few seatrout on the Baltic with it, and it also catches fish where there are no crayfish at all! This particulrr shape and action seems to attract fish generally. This is another fly which fish tend to hit very hard. It is a good mouthful, and may be trying to escape, so they hammer it.

Whatever, all you need to try it is three bunches of hare fur, and a couple of marker pens! So what have you got to lose?

TL
MC