Introducing my latest version of the Black River Crayfish streamer that I’ve been progressively honing since earlier this year. If you missed the backstory to this fly, I’ve been designing it over the course of a couple experimental ties with the goal of creating a new, relatively simple crayfish pattern. Inspiration for this fly, not surprisingly, came when cleaning hefty rainbows and browns from Vermont’s Black River last June. The stomachs were absolutely brimming with crayfish and I’ve been itching to use that knowledge to my advantage ever since.
The Black River Crayfish III is the third (and probably final) version of this streamer pattern, which I’ve progressively refined over several weeks. As far as the composition goes, I think I’ve kept true to my goal of keeping everything quite simple. The underlying frame is basically that of a heavy woolly bugger, in this case, with a #8 long-shank streamer hook wrapped with lead wire to add extra weight and bulk. When you’d normally tie in a sprig of marabou, I instead create the “arms” by tying in two marabou sprigs and wrapping them in such a way as to protrude at opposite angles. A “joint” is then added to each arm by tying a knot with black thread and strengthening it with a careful application of head cement. Besides simply adding a bit of realism to the streamer, this also helps to reinforce some measure of separation between the marabou sprigs once the fly is wet. Otherwise, they would tend to just clump together in one bunch. Long, black-dyed turkey biots are then tied in to replicate antennae. The body is then wrapped with variegated brown chenille. Finally, I tie in a piece of swiss straw which suggests the fan-like tail of the crayfish.
Now I’ll concede that this pattern diverges more than a bit from how real crayfish look. But the goal here wasn’t to create a perfect facsimile. My real goal was essentially to leverage the tying simplicity and fishing versatility of the woolly bugger pattern, adding a number of customizations to more readily trigger a predatory response in trout that are accustomed to devouring crayfish. I think I’ve succeeded at that goal with Black River Crayfish III. Now it’s just a matter of time before I bring my new invention up the Black River this June for field testing.