Saturday, March 21, 2015

Sand Fleas?

My family is taking a vacation in Florida this summer. I've been researching quite a bit about fishing there and there's one bait you see commonly referenced. Sand fleas, also called mole crabs or sand crabs. Apparently this is the preferred bait for most fish. In my research there doesn't seem to be a standard all around mole crab fly. This is what the actual crab looks like from the bottom.
(pic taken from http://www.flickriver.com/photos/shesnuckinfuts/885965272/)

The orange under the body is eggs. I'm guessing this is a trigger for the fish so I tried to add that in all of the versions I tied.

 This is what the crab looks like from the top.
(pic taken from http://grauhall.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=734&osCsid=0c8974cd8cd41c6349558c473d14f832)

I wasn't sure how important getting a shell like back would be. I decided to try making it with bucktail and Clear Cure Goo Flex.
I'm happy with how it turned out but in my experience sometimes you spend unnecessary time trying to make a fly too life like.
My favorite part is the dubbing. It is made by Darkwater Dubbing and already has a nice blend of flash mixed in. I used it in all of the flies then I tied some orange rabbit strip for the egg sack.
It's probably going to take a little time to get the fly to sink until the materials are waterlogged. The dumbbell eyes will help. These are pretty fun patterns to tie and I can't wait to see how they work out. 

4 comments:

  1. I don't know anything about sand fleas or crabs but I tip my hat to you for coming up with a fly to match. I'll bet a beer they work.

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  2. Looks pretty darn good. I'm headed to FL in a couple of weeks, and plan to try my hand at some Redfish... maybe I'll give something like this a try. Not sure if I have the exact materials you used... but I could probably concoct something similar.

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  3. That is a great looking pattern. I love the epoxied deer hair. Brilliant thinking!!! You definitely have a winner with that pattern, and I'm sure it's going to bring something to hand!

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