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Foam Crayfish question
http://montana-riverboats.com/Pages/...nd_shrimp.html
The above is my favorite Crayfish pattern. I caught my biggest brown in long time on this fly, on the lower Madison, late last fall. After you catch the first fish, if you hold the fly underneath your net and squeeze-pump the foam body of the fly a few times, as the scent-laden fish slime runs down off the net.....then the fly suddenly becomes noticably, substantially more effective. Is that "unethical?" Why? Am I trolling this question? Maybe. But it is an interesting question. Ethical/not ethical depends on which and whose rules you play by, it seems to me. Are there any moral absolutes in the fishing business? I've published quite a few fly tying pieces in glossy magazines over the years. But I know I could never get anything about scent-laden foam Crayfish flies published. Even though they're hot as a fish catching pistol. Why not is part of my original question. Why are the concepts of odor and wiggling, lure-like flies so totally off limits in polite fly fishing society? -- /* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
sandy wrote:
snip Why are the concepts of odor and wiggling, lure-like flies so totally off limits in polite fly fishing society? It is harder to fool a fish with fur and feathers than with scent and lures. That's the essence of it. On a continuum with bleach and TNT on one end and fur and feathers on the other we all choose just how badly we want to catch a fish. -- Ken Fortenberry |
RE we all choose just how badly we want to catch a fish. So you're saying it's a matter of simple choice, rather than 'ethics' in any way? Ken likes to fish with anything made out of fur and feathers, as long as it doesn't smell and it doesn't wiggle. What else am I missing? Joe Blow likes to fish with Joe's Hoppers, David likes the a Parachute Adams and Sandy likes the Foam Crayfish. It's all a matter of personal choice, like choosing a shirt in the morning? Or is it 'unethical' to fish with wigglers, and or scented crayfish? -- /* Vinny Marinara Sauce --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
sandy wrote:
RE we all choose just how badly we want to catch a fish. So you're saying it's a matter of simple choice, rather than 'ethics' in any way? Have to agree. Any serious ethical question would be along the lines of "is it OK to harass wildlife for no reason other than 'fun'?", etc. Which type of lure one chooses to do it is a simple personal preference, not a matter of ethics. JR |
"sandy" wrote in message . .. http://montana-riverboats.com/Pages/...nd_shrimp.html The above is my favorite Crayfish pattern. I caught my biggest brown in long time on this fly, on the lower Madison, late last fall. After you catch the first fish, if you hold the fly underneath your net and squeeze-pump the foam body of the fly a few times, as the scent-laden fish slime runs down off the net.....then the fly suddenly becomes noticably, substantially more effective. (snip) /* Sandy Pittendrigh Hi Sandy, I may have seen this pic, or something similar before, but some questions. - Why don't you tie it with the hook gap up? If you use weight, if so, it appears, the critter would be upside down. I watch quite a few and the orientation is always to scurry back with their backs to the top as they seek cover. Orientation would seem to me, for tying, would be to get the hook point away from the bottom stuff. But, I have seen them, when they were maybe kinda kinkie (sp) they would get in some different positions. For mine I always use hook gap up with there being the top of the fly along the shank. So I'm just curious. DaveMohnsen Denver |
"JR" wrote in message ... sandy wrote: RE we all choose just how badly we want to catch a fish. So you're saying it's a matter of simple choice, rather than 'ethics' in any way? Have to agree. Any serious ethical question would be along the lines of "is it OK to harass wildlife for no reason other than 'fun'?", etc. Which type of lure one chooses to do it is a simple personal preference, not a matter of ethics. Given a limited number of options, choosing which type to use CAN be a simple matter of personal preference. Whether or not ethics enter into the equation is another matter. One thing is sure, though. If the correct answer to a question is simple, it is NOT a matter of ethics......and vice versa. Wolfgang |
Dave Wrote: Hi Sandy, I may have seen this pic, or something similar before, but some questions. - Why don't you tie it with the hook gap up? If you use weight, if so, it appears, the critter would be upside down. Hi Dave: Good questions. Actually that fly has no hook at all yet. I tie them on a thin needle, finish the fly, slide it off the needle and then add the hook later, almost as an afterthought. I photographed that one before the hook was attached. You can attach the hook any way you want. To add weight, I add them to the "pincher assembly." I need to find time to finish a complete step-by-step sequence, so it's easier to see what the deal is. It's too hard to explain it in words. -- /* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
Looks like a knockoff of the Clouser crayfish but using foam instead of
feathers for the legs. Yuck! Check out Clousers crayfish if you want to use these killers. They should be outlawed for smallmouth. "sandy" wrote in message ... Dave Wrote: Hi Sandy, I may have seen this pic, or something similar before, but some questions. - Why don't you tie it with the hook gap up? If you use weight, if so, it appears, the critter would be upside down. Hi Dave: Good questions. Actually that fly has no hook at all yet. I tie them on a thin needle, finish the fly, slide it off the needle and then add the hook later, almost as an afterthought. I photographed that one before the hook was attached. You can attach the hook any way you want. To add weight, I add them to the "pincher assembly." I need to find time to finish a complete step-by-step sequence, so it's easier to see what the deal is. It's too hard to explain it in words. -- /* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
sandy wrote:
To add weight, I add them to the "pincher assembly." I need to find time to finish a complete step-by-step sequence, so it's easier to see what the deal is. It's too hard to explain it in words. Hmmm ... it seems counter-intuitive to add weight to the pinchers. Don't crawfish raise their claws/pinchers when in the defensive position? Seems like you'd want the pinchers to float higher than the tail. Chuck Vance |
Conan The Librarian wrote:
sandy wrote: Hmmm ... it seems counter-intuitive to add weight to the pinchers. Don't crawfish raise their claws/pinchers when in the defensive position? Seems like you'd want the pinchers to float higher than the tail. I really do need to make a photo sequence. This is a good fly. It isn't new. I've been fishing this pattern for several years now. I don't add the weight to the pinchers. I add it to the narrow length of foam that connects the two pinchers. The fly is made from two pieces of foam: one tapered, tube-like piece for the body and one roughly "U" shaped piece that makes the pinchers, where the ends of the "U" are fat enough to carve out pinchers on each end. The bottom of the U gets wrapped in a nylon netting (gray-dyed spawn sack) to give it enough strength. Without the spawn sack reinforcement at the bottom of the U, the pinchers often separate and break off, after repeated casting. If I want to add weight (I *always* do) I wrap 2-4 small split shots into the nylon netting at the bottom of the pincher U. Then I add a small dab of clear water-based fabric cement, and then put the fly together. The front end of the thorax gets slit horizontally with a razor blade, in order to receive the U shaped pincher. A few well-placed thread wraps sews it all up. Fish grab onto these flies and they don't let go. Have you ever caught a crab that wouldn't let go of a piece of meat tied to a string? Every kid has done that once or twice. Fish hang onto soft crayfish patterns like a crab to a piece of meat. Sometimes you set the hook and it doesn't work. And then bang, bang, bang, they hit again anyway. -- /* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
What IS ethics, if not a matter of personal preference and choice?
To answer my own question, I'd suggest that ethics is merely the adherence to your own set of values. You may have adopted someone elses values as your own, or you may have come up with them yourself, but if someone wants to fish a foam crawdad full of fish slime, and does not feel like it is 'cheating', then its not unethical in their view. If someone else only fishes self-tied flies, harvested from their own chickens and llamas, then buying an Adams from the shop is unethical. But either of these viewpoints might be considered unethical from someone elses POV. --riverman |
Bill McNulty wrote:
Looks like a knockoff of the Clouser crayfish but using foam instead of feathers for the legs. Yuck! Check out Clousers crayfish if you want to use these killers. They should be outlawed for smallmouth. Actually I could just as easily make the reverse argument. I first published this fly in a magazine back in the late 1980s. Can't remember which one: was it Marty Sherman's Flyfishing, or TU's Trout...something like that. I tied it with chamois then, instead of foam. Then I added foam underneath the chamois, and then I threw out the chamois. Claiming ownership of a pattern seldom turns out well. When I first published the Chamois pattern (same as this one, with chamois swapped out for foam) I immediately got into an acrimonious ownership dispute with a well known fly tier who wanted to claim ownership for some obscure royalty reasons. My photograph appeared in print before his, so I won the ownership dispute.....no royalties though. If the Clouser had foam pinchers, like mine, then it would be good fly. :-) -- /* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0 ** http://montana-riverboats.com */ |
"Bill McNulty" wrote in message news:l2DXe.12788$zG1.12673@trnddc05... Looks like a knockoff of the Clouser crayfish but using foam instead of feathers for the legs. Yuck! Check out Clousers crayfish if you want to use these killers. They should be outlawed for smallmouth. (snip) Hello Bill, The Clouser Crayfish is a good pattern. I've had good success with it when I lived out on the right side of the US. Still carry some in my fly boxes out here in the wilderness. Talked to Bob Clouser yesterday about any changes he has made to the pattern. He said no, since it seems to work well. I have used feather, squirrel, poly, and foam pinchers. Per Bob yesterday, he likes to dead drift the pattern. I mostly like to give a little lifting and dropping action . . .depending on the color. All work, depending on the presentation. Heck I used to tie the Whitlock pattern for a long time, because it looked neat. I still have them too. ( but it is still all presentation) Heck, a woolly bugger can do pretty well in many situations. I think it is fun to play around with patterns, and I think that is what Sandy is doing . . .heh . . .heh . . .but he does seem to like the foam stuff. DaveMohnsen Denver |
Try wrapping the shank with lead wire for weight.
Anyone who flyfishes the Penobscot in Maine better go prepared with dozens of Clouser's crayfish in rust or olive green.Basically the only lure that produces consistently excluding topwater. "Dave Mohnsen" wrote in message k.net... "Bill McNulty" wrote in message news:l2DXe.12788$zG1.12673@trnddc05... Looks like a knockoff of the Clouser crayfish but using foam instead of feathers for the legs. Yuck! Check out Clousers crayfish if you want to use these killers. They should be outlawed for smallmouth. (snip) Hello Bill, The Clouser Crayfish is a good pattern. I've had good success with it when I lived out on the right side of the US. Still carry some in my fly boxes out here in the wilderness. Talked to Bob Clouser yesterday about any changes he has made to the pattern. He said no, since it seems to work well. I have used feather, squirrel, poly, and foam pinchers. Per Bob yesterday, he likes to dead drift the pattern. I mostly like to give a little lifting and dropping action . . .depending on the color. All work, depending on the presentation. Heck I used to tie the Whitlock pattern for a long time, because it looked neat. I still have them too. ( but it is still all presentation) Heck, a woolly bugger can do pretty well in many situations. I think it is fun to play around with patterns, and I think that is what Sandy is doing . . .heh . . .heh . . .but he does seem to like the foam stuff. DaveMohnsen Denver |
Hmmm ... it seems counter-intuitive to add weight to the pinchers. Don't crawfish raise their claws/pinchers when in the defensive position? Seems like you'd want the pinchers to float higher than the tail. ......I don't add weight to the pinchers. The pinchers are made from a U-shaped piece of foam, where the ends of the U form the pinchers. To add weight I put one or two split shots onto the center-bottom of the U, wrap them with spawn sack (see the photo) and then insert the U into a slit in the thorax. That puts the weight dead center in the middle of the thorax. I do this because I like to make modular flies that are independent of the hook. To add a hook...well, I can't remember the hook-style name, I'll have to add photos. I use hooks with a slightly bent shank right behind the eye, that look a little like a plastic worm hook. Then I push the point of the hook through the thorax from below, so only the point of the hook emerges out the top of the thorax. The I wrap a few whips over the body, at the tail at the eye of the hook, to keep the body from sliding back on the hook. You can also add a wrap or two (and/or skip the hidden split shots) to the shank, before threading the hook, so the lead is exposed on the shank, on the underside of the body. Both methods work. This hook arrangement is similar to the way spin fishermen "bait" a soft molded worm or lizzard on a much larger soft-bait hook. The advantage is that a) it works b) the hook is well hidden in the body. I've had some major webmaster work bogging me down, last few evenings, else I would have added more tying sequence photos already. This isn't an experimental fly anymore. I've been fishing it for a long time. Years, in fact. |
On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:59:05 -0700, sandy
wrote: http://montana-riverboats.com/Pages/...nd_shrimp.html The above is my favorite Crayfish pattern. I caught my biggest brown in long time on this fly, on the lower Madison, late last fall. After you catch the first fish, if you hold the fly underneath your net and squeeze-pump the foam body of the fly a few times, as the scent-laden fish slime runs down off the net.....then the fly suddenly becomes noticably, substantially more effective. Is that "unethical?" Why? Sandy, There appear to be only man made materials in your pattern and who knows that the scent given off wouldn't affect trout like limburger does most humans. Fish slime, algae etc.are natural, available products of the stream environment and if rubbing them on a fly masks the objectionable side effects of the materials manufacturing process, assuming there are some, how could it be considered unethical? By not taking steps to overcome it you are handicapping yourself...of course that is a lot of what the game is about isn't it? We've always assumed our flies just don't look/behave right when they are refused. Perhaps a lot of it could be they just don't smell/taste right. It is an interesting question that as far as I know hasn't been properly addressed and determining how to give your flies a neutral stream smell, or at least not an objectionable one, despite the materials used could be a fun experiment. Kiyu |
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This is one way of hands on research fo any Aquatic Life I've done it since I was 5 years old, Now 49. If you'll Notice, when you put certain baby fish in any Healthy Aquarium and start to watch them closely, they will start NIPPING at each other. You will think toyourself that they are mean to each other, This is their way of Pecking orders, but at the same time thier brain has a Memory that lasts throughout their life just as you and I. Trout have an acquired taste for Fins on other fellow trout, they Nip at each other constantly as well as many many other critters on this planet do. My point is, when you squeeze the Flavor of trout etc. onto your Flies and start getting better results youwill see that when you get the Flavor onto the fly you will possibly even catch the same size trout. Remember the have a pecking order and they Stick To It and do this by Taste or Flavor. But this is only My OPinion from My Research. In most States it is Very Illegal to keep some species in an Aquarium, but if you do your home studies on a private level, and RELEASE them at a Healthy time, you won't even feel guilty unless you forget to feed em. and DO be careful what you give em, trust me NO corn,cheese or greasy little munchies like we eat , Only naturals bugs etc. P.S. Keep a Cover on the Aquarium at all times ,no matter what. and By the way, YES, I think this is a VERY GOOD and ETHICAL QUESTION and hope that I'm correct on my Input becuz My 2 daughters think I'm full of B.S. |
sandy says rather eloquently:
"Are there any moral absolutes in the fishing business"? If "moral" and "business" are removed and the question re-asked, "Are there any absolutes in fishing"? The answer to this question is YES!! The International Game Fish Association maintains an absolute list of game fishing rules, and, IGFA intreprets its rules. I have no knowledge how the IGFA determines and intreprets its rules but IGFA rules for fly fishing can be read at: http://www.igfa.org/BookRule2004.pdf On page 5 of 9 it states: "No scent, either natural or artificial is allowed on flies. The use of scented material in a fly is prohibited". When sandy seys: ...... if you hold the fly underneath your net and squeeze-pump the foam body of the fly a few times, as the scent-laden fish slime runs down off the net (into the fly's foam body)......... I have absolutely no clue whether or not any fly prepared as sandy so described above being used to apply for a world record is or is not compliant with IGFA's scent rule. I am convinced however that Doug Blodgett at IGFA would know, or could refer anybody to the person or persons within IGFA who DO know if scent-laden slime squeeze-pumped into a foam fly is, or is NOT IGFA rule compliant. I do have precise prior knowledge that the IGFA will take any actions it deems necessary and sufficient to validate compliance with its rules. For example the IGFA did send my popping bug, tippet, leader and two foot length of fly line to an independent testing laboratory. The only information IGFA chose to reveal to me was that the lab reported that my tippet broke when stressed at 4.19 pounds pressure. The IGFA might choose to send any fly accompanying a world record application to an independant testing laboratory to ascertain if the fly contained any "scent" in violation of IGFA rules. sandy further said: I've published quite a few fly tying pieces in glossy magazines over the years. But I know I could never get anything about scent-laden foam Crayfish flies published. Even though they're hot as a fish catching pistol. Why not is part of my original question. Why are the concepts of odor and wiggling, lure-like flies so totally off limits in polite fly fishing society? I don't know why magazines would not publish articles about scent-laden crawfish nor why odor is so totally off limits in fly fishing society. I too have wondered why scents are unacceptable in high gloss popping bug topcoats. Perhaps, just perhaps, scents are unacceptable when fly fishing is because when some people read IGFA's rules, they choose to believe scents are illegal. Good luckj! John |
Thats a Very Interesting Theory about trout Nipping Each Other,
jbthwart77. I've had a Theory of My Own for awhile. I wonder if you put a Plane Of Glass in the Aquarium, and put a Baitfish on The Other Side, so that the Trout will Bump His Nose when he LUNGES for It, will he then Remember That Fish when the Pane Of Glass is REMOVED? If you TRY it, Let Us Know the RESULT. TIA --rivermn |
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Rainbows are a Vicious Breed and I do believe that They have a Stronger or just as Strong since of Smell and Taste for "Meat" as any Flathead Catfish I've ever seen. Both, or All species have some things in common as far as Taste ,Smell, and even Curiosity; Yes they are Highly Intellegent, I have Proved it. At 2" long,The Flathead Catfish is Trainable at feeding time, where the Trout will sometimes Starve himself to avoid being seen or Noticed,Touched,etc. Rainbows and others as well, Like to think they are Invisable which is self satisfaction. This I've tested with several different kinds of Aquatic Critters in aquariums rite down to Crawdads; Most people have No Clue How Smart "All Wild Critters" are; The fish in the Arkansas Southwest Rivers are Being Cross Bred,Yes and they are some of the Scrappiest fish I ever delt with My Theory is, and I don't care what the School books say,"Anything that consumes Food" has to Use his Brain to Smell,Taste,Touch; and only Lives to Eat, Reproduce,and Stay in a Survival Mode. I miss the River. It's been 3 1/2 years. |
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