It works extremely well. I have an old warmwater video that shows this fly in action.

A crayfish pattern, if properly presented, spends so much time near the bottom it makes no sense to put a lot of effort into the tie. I lose a lot of these to snags and also to very big carp, so it has to be a quick and easy pattern. That was my criteria when I set out to design this pattern. Like you said, a lot of patterns are just too complex and time consuming. I'm sure I'm not the only one who fishes time consuming, complex flies very gingerly. We're less effective as anglers if we're not willing to risk our flies on the river bottom where the fish are and I don't risk flies that took me a lot of time to tie.

@@hooked4lifeca 100% agree.

My most reliable source is Bear's Den in Taunton, MA. I usually go in there on my striper trips to the Cape.

A half hitch tool is simply a small bar of metal with a different sized hole at each end. They usually come in a set of three. We use them to put a half hitch knot over the hook.

Great, good luck with them. A rust colour probably would work best with a pale orange. That colour has the added benefit of looking like a crayfish that has just moulted and bass absolutely love those soft morsels.

@@hooked4lifeca Great, I just so happen to have some rabbit dubbing that color. I fixen to tie up a few. I cannot wait until late Feburary when the Bass go on the Bed here, to try them out. I have a good feeling I'm gonna catch a Lunker with your Crawdad. Thanks Again!!..

​@@mikewalters4994 Let me know how you do with it. Cheers

@@hooked4lifeca I sure will. The rust colored ones I tied last night turned our great. I'm really getting the hang of that pattern. The last one I tied, I tied in two moose main for antennas, LOL , they look pretty good.

That would be a bit tricky as the tail will get in the way as we try to secure the end of a heavy mono weed guard. With a simple fly, we just tie heavy mono to the bend of the hook, tie the fly, then secure the other end of the mono to the eye of the hook. We would need to leave space at the eye of the hook and finish the body shorter. We would also have to look at using a hook with a large enough eye as we normally pass the mono through the eye and wrap it down. It's doable, but it would take some planning. Weed guard sounds like a good topic for a video though - how to make a wooly bugger weedless.

@@hooked4lifeca thank you sir for the feed back