I recently came across James Hughes' Fleein' Cray and it has some serious design and development that went into it up there with the Schultz Outfitter crew over the past few years. As a head guide, he has his hands full making sure the entire team and himself are putting clients onto fish regularly. After I saw his discussion with Mike Schultz in the "Talkin' Tying" video about this pattern, I had to watch the tying video to see how it's put together.
Up until this point, I think the two best crayfish patterns at least for me has to be Dave Whitlock's Near Nuff' Crawfish and Blane Chocklett's Gamechanger Craw.
Both are consistent producers all over the US and are buggy and still pretty simple to tie. They both have great jigging movement which can definitely act as a trigger for fish. But, as we've learned throughout the development of the streamer game over the past 20 years, is that jigging isn't the only game in town. Enter the Fleein' Cray from James. His fly is NOT designed to jig, but rather swim and swim erratically at that. Below is a list of tying materials for those that don't want to pause the video to jot them down, along with his fly tying tutorial.
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