Halloween is a bad influence, add an aged Blueberry Poptart and a couple fingers of the mud I call coffee, and you’ve unleashed the expressionist beast. Now I understand why Van Gogh trimmed an ear off – he was in the throes of creativity and tired of painting rich people.
I can sympathize, tying little tiny insects in muted earth tones can grate on a fellow over time, especially with gray skies and constant rain showers for companionship.
The shipment of red and black boa arrived and provided the luxury of big, bright and colorful; big hooks, bigger ideas and only physics to hold me in check.
This “natural” was nearly 6 inches long, normal sized for the red crayfish I’ve seen on the creek. The Olive variant imitates the smaller crayfish which are more plentiful, I’m not sure if there’s a relationship, implying Olive crayfish are immature and molt into red armor after a certain age, but there’s plenty of both present in the creek at all times.
This is using the “Cardinal” color of Boa yarn which is a mixture of crimson, ruby, and black. I tossed in four strands of orange rubber legs, and 4 strands of ultra chenille to simulate some of the pronounced legs visible in the original above.
It’s tied to flip over and ride hook point up, so legs and other items are mounted on the top of the fly. I figure if it doesn’t work I can whack off everything but the rubber legs and have a decent mouse.
Despite its size the fly is pretty lightweight, I added 30 turns of 2 Amp fuse wire to get it down in a hurry, but the yarn and other items weigh next to nothing.
This is the first prototype, I may add a tail under the hook eye as a beard – a loop of the red yarn would make a nice “paddle” tail and may even assist in getting it to ride properly.
Short strikes haven’t been a problem on the Little Stinking Olive, both bass and pikeminnow completely inhale the fly, we’ll add a trailer hook if needs be.
The boa yarn slims down when wet making a watery lump of fly that looks completely solid. The gossamer fibers mat like marabou removing all lumps and strands, I taper cut the legs to make them thin as they join the fly and thick out by them monstrous claws.
I spent most of the weekend trying the boa yarn on a variety of applications, most successful were the Matuka Muddler streamers and the black stoneflies.
The tough weave that holds the fibers together makes a splendid synthetic hackle – something I’ll exploit on Shad and Steelhead flies – where the chicken hackle is prone to breaking as the flies take so much more abuse than trout flies.
Plenty of bright colors available to tinker with and although they’re available in stores I’ve been able to buy the skeins of material much cheaper on eBay.
From a streamer addict: you are truly a gentleman and a scholar tying those big nasty uglies. Damn…if I wasn’t viewing it here, I might be inclined to cook up that crawdad pattern and eat it myself!
OK -I was wrong-great minds must think alike. Over the weekend I tied up something just like your crawdad pattern, but using mallard and leaving it unweighted to try as a frog pattern surface fly.
I like that black stone fly also-what did you use for the body on the muddler?
Frog pattern – sweet idea.
The body on the muddler is soft crimp Angelina fiber in the Aurora color (Mother of Pearl).
I still can’t find a retail source save going direct to the manufacturer – but if you want a handful, I can send you some. I bought a pound of it.
I’ve seen the size of fish you catch and anything larger than a 22 is a waste. That fly is bigger than your record trout and we both know it.
I’m working on a prototype bass using elastic yarn from Boxer shorts. That way if I go fishless I can always stretch the fly into a “grip and grin” pose.
Thanks-I think that is what you sent me when you sent me that sample LSO, but how about the info on the manufacturer and I can order some myself in other colors.
I have a number of posts here that outlines all the details – just search for “Angelina” at the top of this page.
The vendor will only sell one pound lots of the colors it has on hand – their normal minimum is 10 lbs per color. Price is ~$45.00 per pound.
http://singlebarbed.com/2008/02/14/will-the-real-mccoy-simply-show-hisself/
That’s a beautiful crayfish but I can’t help wonder if it’ll sound like an artillery shell going over. Might we be lookin at your response to the “belt fed 22”? I believe the stonefly is inspired. Nice work.
That’s why the fish don’t short strike – the concussion of it landing kills everything for about 8 meters – now all you need is a dip net.
that’s some nasty shit you got there. Deadly. like syphilis.
Bernat, the company that makes this yarn, offers free patterns for it use.
Just for shits and giggles, I dare you to submit this pattern for them. 😉