The food item I’m thinking of is the crawfish.  This prolific crustacean has long been recognized as a favorite food of bass, catfish, and other fish, but how many fly fishers regularly utilize a crawfish pattern?  The crawfish is known to be an excellent fly for large browns, but I would wager relatively few trout fisherman regularly fish crawfish patterns.  Have you considered a crawfish for rainbows, cutthroat, brookies, or lake trout?  What about warm or cool water species such as walleye, carp, bluegill, crappie, northern pike, perch, and bullhead?  With slight adaptations in size and color a crawfish convincingly morphs into a shrimp.  Now it becomes reasonable to add atlantic salmon, pacific salmon, steelhead, rockfish, halibut, redfish, sea trout, permit, bonefish, and others.  That list covers a lot of water and a lot of fish species.  A fly that effectively imitated this food source would certainly be very versatile!  One such fly is Ritt’s Fighting Crawfish.

While there are good crawfish imitations available, most have certain shortfalls.  For starters, a great crawfish pattern needs to be snag resistant.  Crawfish live on the bottom, burrowing in sand or mud, hiding in weedy areas or in rocks or gravel.  Many patterns don’t address the need to be snag resistant and crawfish flies need to be fished in these areas to be most effective.  Some popular crawfish flies have legs and claws made of soft materials that don’t retain the proper silhouette in the water.  Others call for stiff materials that cause the fly to plane and twist when cast or retrieved.  Ritt’s fighting crawfish is unique in addressing these shortfalls.  To achieve a snag resistant fly without affecting it’s fish hooking capabilities, Ritt’s Fighting Crawfish incorporates a “hook up” design as opposed to a weed guard.  By attaching lead eyes on top of the shank, the fly will turn over and ride point up, like a Clouser.  In addition the weight puts the fly at the bottom, where a real crawfish lives.  To protect the hook point further, I tie the fly on a Montana Fly Company 7073 bent shank hook.  The bent shank angles the hook point up away from the bottom.  What further sets this fly apart are the foam claws and rubber arms.  The rubber arms allow the claws to come together during a swimming retrieve, and flair back out when the retrieve is slowed or stopped.  The buoyant foam claws at the back of the fly, coupled with the lead eyes at the front, palmered hackle, and the bent hook shank result in a head-up/tail-down posture of the finished fly.  With the claws riding up and apart in this attitude while paused or crawled along the bottom, the fly is not only snag resistant, but it maintains a very natural position in the water.  When alarmed, crawfish don’t lie flat on the bottom as many patterns intended to imitate them do.  They swim, tail first, with claws folded together for a more streamlined profile, or they take a defensive posture with the tail down and claws up and spread apart ready for action.  This is exactly how the Ritt’s Fighting Crawfish behaves when fished.

I fish this fly in both still and moving water, anywhere crayfish are found (which is almost everywhere).  I fish the fly more slowly early and late in the season, when the water is cooler.  When water temperatures fall, the metabolism of both the natural crawfish and the fish that eat them slow down.  If the fish aren’t reacting to this slow crawling retrieve, I mix in short swimming bursts and/or pauses.  When the water is warmer, I swim the fly more actively, usually with 4 to 8 inch strips.  I still mix in pauses and crawling retrieves.  Crawfish are excellent swimmers I’ve accidentally confirmed it’s almost impossible to fish this fly too fast.  Often when sight fishing with this fly, I spot fish that require repositioning my fly.  While retrieving the fly as quickly as I can to re-cast, I frequently have had an unseen fish chase down the fly.  These violent, unexpected takes often result in a “donated” fly, but are exciting nonetheless.  So let the reaction of the fish be your guide, and keep mixing things up until you find out what draws a response.  Likewise, in moving water I use a variety of retrieves until I find what the fish want.  It can be dead drifted through riffles, runs, and chutes.  I fish it upstream, downstream, and across stream in slower pools and runs.  I have success casting the fly against the bank from mid-stream and stripping it back.  I also fish the fly on a downstream swing through runs and tailouts of pools.  Another technique that has yielded results is using the crawfish as the bottom fly in a Polish or Czech nymphing rig.  The one constant I maintain while fishing this fly is keeping it near or on the bottom.  By varying the size of the lead eyes, I can customize the fly for various water types.  Except in the deepest water, I use a floating line because it is easier to mend and control and easier to pick up off the water to recast.

By varying the size and color of the components of this fly, you can imitate the multitude of crawfish species found around the world, as well as prawns or shrimp.  By varying the size of the weighted eyes, the fly can be tied effectively for a multitude of water depths and current speeds.  How many flies can cover this variety of fishing situations and be effective on so many species of fish?  Below are the basic recipe and some of my favorite color combinations, but in any color this fly definitely makes my MOST VERSITLE FLY list!

Originally Published in Hatches Magazine, Fall of 2009 www.hatchesmagazine.com
(CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE)

Ritt’s Fighting Crawfish – Basic Material List

Hook–Montana Fly Company 7073 (adjust to fit your local food item size)

Thread–Match color scheme of fly

Weight–Plain lead dumbbell eyes

Antennae–Krystal Flash

Eyes–Black round rubber

Claws/Arms–Foam claws mounted on round rubber arms

Carapace–Thin Skin

Underbody–Yarn in color to match scheme of fly

Body–Dubbing

Legs–Hackle palmered through body and dubbing brushed out

Rib–Wire

                Brown (TOP PHOTO)                                                    Orange (BOTTOM PHOTO)

Antennae–Root beer Krystal Flash                                 Antennae – UV orange Krystal Flash

Claws/Arms–Brown foam/brown barred rubber               Claws/Arms – Orange foam/orange barred rubber

Carapace–Mottled brown Thin Skin                                Carapace – Mottled orange Thin Skin

Body–Mud brown Crawdub SLF                                      Body – Burnt orange Crawdub SLF

Legs–Brown dyed grizzly hackle                                     Legs – Orange dyed grizzly hackle

Rib–Brown Ultra Wire                                                    Rib – Hot orange Ultra Wire

          Olive (TOP PHOTO)                                                           Softshell (BOTTOM PHOTO)

Antennae–UV gray Krystal Flash                                     Antennae–UV orange Krystal Flash

Claws/Arms–Olive foam/olive barred rubber                    Claws/Arms–Tan foam/cream rubber

Carapace–Mottled olive Thin Skin                                    Carapace–Tan Thin Skin

Body–Gray-olive Crawdub SLF                                         Body–Softshell Crawdub SLF

Legs– Blue dyed grizzly hackle                                         Legs–Barred medium ginger hackle

Rib– Blue Ultra Wire                                                        Rib–Gold Ultra Wire

  Salmon/Steelhead Hot Orange                         Olive Mantis Shrimp
          (BOTTOM PHOTO)                                             (TOP PHOTO)

Antennae–UV orange Krystal Flash                                 Antennae–Olive pearl Krystal Flash

Claws/Arms–Orange foam/hot orange barred rubber       Claws/Arms–Olive foam/olive barred rubber

Carapace–Opal Mirage sheet                                           Carapace–Mottled olive Thin Skin

Body–Fiery Blood Red Salmon/Steelhead SLF                  Body–Fall Green Olive Salmon/Steelhead SLF

Legs– Hot orange dyed grizzly hackle                              Legs– Olive dyed grizzly hackle

Rib– Hot orange Ultra Wire                                             Rib–Hot chartreuse Ultra Wire

Ritt’s Fighting Crawfish – Yellow Snapping Shrimp

Antennae–Olive pearl Krystal Flash

Claws/Arms–Red foam/yellow barred rubber

Carapace–Mottled yellow Thin Skin

Body–Highlander Salmon/Steelhead SLF

Legs–Chartreuse dyed grizzly hackle

Rib–Hot chartreuse Ultra Wire

Tying Instructions

1. Pinch the barb and mount the hook in your vise with the forward portion of hook shank horizontal.  Start the thread behind the eye of the fly mount the lead barbells on top of the hook shank, leave enough room to tie off the carapace, the rib, and form a head.  Re-mount the hook with the rear portion of the hook shank horizontal, wrap the thread to a point approximately 1/3 around the bend of the hook and attach the antennae.

2. If you have a rotating vise, the following steps may be easier with the fly turned hook point up.  Tie in the carapace along the bottom of the hook, make sure the carapace is tied in exactly even with the antennae tie in point.  Add a small ball of dubbing over the tie in point and tie in the eyes on either side of the dubbing ball.

3. Prepare the claws (I do this in batches ahead of time) by cutting appropriate size squares of foam.  Thread a section of round rubber through a needle and using the needle pull the doubled length of rubber arm through the foam from edge to edge.  Cut the round rubber loop to release the needle.  Add a small drop of super glue to the short ends of the rubber right at the base of the foam, gently pull the rubber back toward the foam to draw the glue inside.  Don’t pull the rubber ends all the way into the foam.  After the glue has dried trim the glued ends of the rubber short and trim the sides of the foam to form a rough triangle.  If a two-tone claw is desired, color it at this time with a permanent marker.

4. Tie in one claw on each side of the fly.  Tie in the yarn and form the underbody from the lead dumbbells to the round rubber eyes.  Figure 8 the yarn around each arm to help keep them spread.  The figure 8’s, along with a tie in point behind the hook point, help keep the claws from fouling on the hook point.  Dub a figure 8 around the base of the arms.

5. Tie in the rib in front of the arms with the long end extended over the front of the hook.  Bend the wire back so it extends past the back of the hook and wrap back over the wire toward the arms.  Doubling the wire over will help lock it in when tied over the soft underbody.  Tie in the hackle and dub the body.  Figure 8 the dumbbells to cover up that tie in point.

6. Palmer the hackle forward and tie it off between the hook eye and the dumbbells.  Pull the carapace over the bottom of the hook (back of the fly) and tie off between the hook eye and the dumbbells.   Reverse wrap the wire and tie off.  Form a neat head and whip finish.  Trim the hackle off the end of the bottom of the fly.

7. Using a nylon dubbing brush to avoid cutting the thread and hackle stem, brush out the dubbing to form a shaggy, flowing fly body that mixes with the palmered hackle.

I Guide in Rocky Mountain National Park and on private waters in Colorado and Wyoming  for multiple shops along Colorado’s northern front range.  I serve as a pro-team tier for Whiting Farms and PEAK Fishing and have been tying  flies since 1983.  I also present fly tying demonstrations, design flies for Montana Fly Company, and teach fly tying and “entomology for fly tiers and fishermen”.

(c) Copyright by Al Ritt. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with Permission. For more information about his fly, please visit www.alrittflies.com