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3. Cranefly Larvae

Below is my large cranefly tie. It was for trout in a NY Finger Lakes stream in which craneflies, among other things, were “food”.

One of my journal entries covering that stream:



Stomach pump results from a 17” brown trout with two cranefly types at the top (the translucent gold-tan and the olive). Also hellgrammites, and a scud (the orange due to digestion):


My tie:


Talk about simple to tie: An inch of poly yarn from a craft store tied on as a "tail", melted and rolled with fingers to a taper while still hot. Anterior end dubbed with slightly darker shade of same yarn. The hook is a Mustad 3906.

If I were to tie these now, I'd experiment tying them "wacky". That's a rigging method used for plastic worms and bass in which the hook is in the center, not distal. This allows the worm to be twitched. It's VERY effective. This fly begs for that.

Lemme know what you come up with. Always fun to hear about good patterns and scenarios.

Good looking fly Paul, that fish that you pumped sure was feeding .

Best
John

Yes, those browns were often very fat. They used the mid reaches of a stream that cranked out large food items. This is true on many if not most brown trout waters. Such stretches are marginal in temperature in summer, and this particular one lost a lot of water too. But spring fishing could be pretty good, Water levels played a big role. Some years I could find those browns into June. But usually it (daytime fishing) was over by mid May.

Thanks for sharing this one, Paul. I'm going to give it a try. I may try your whacky rig too.

Neat, Louis. Curious how it'll work. Wacky rigged worms are usually weighted, sometimes at each end. Something to experiment with.

I've been doing some stream sampling in local streams of late. I have to break some ice to get to the substrate but am finding stuff of course -despite what some angling writers say about winter trout streams. Some are "cranefly" larvae -watersnipe (Athericidae) and cranefly (Tipulid) larvae. The Tipulid was the same gold one I'd found in that NY stream (Hexatoma) and illustrated in the journal entry above. In the still water of my catch container they both swim in the same manner -flipping each end together, up and then down, ... in a writhing effort like a hyper-wacky rig. Not sure if they do this when dislodged in current though.

Paul do they move like a mosquito larve? If so using a combination of rubber legs (from bass poppers)and dubbing could make for a deadly pattern rigged wacky.Hmm...... Great , now I have another project to add to my tying list.

Yes, like mosquito larvae but not side to side, and slower more cumbersome. Regardless, I think the "wacky" twitch is all that would be needed to add deadly 'life' to the fly. Underwater most materials are too well supported and will be stiff. That and proper weighting should go somewhere. Play in the sink and see what you can come up with.