Crafty tying methods produce realistic crab patterns for all seasons.
Fly fishers have an array of crab fly patterns, from simple puff patterns to epoxy skimmer bodies and a whole mess of flies that attempt at taxonomic correctness.
I enjoy building flies with simple, available, inexpensive stuff. I’ll bet you can go out in your garage and find a hot glue gun, some old heavy mono, a Bic lighter or fat emergency candle and that’s a good start towards making up a batch of mother of glue flies, MOG flies. I found cheap spinnerbait rubber skirt material at Bass Pro that works the same as the fly shop rubber legs for about half the price.
To build up the body, or carapace, I like to use the little felt disks which are sold at hardware stores for the tips on the legs of furniture; they cost a buck for six or eight, come in tan, brown or white. I like the tan.
Dig through your wife and kid’s art supplies for some old acrylic paint; off-white house paint will do in a jam. The squeeze bottles the gals use to decorate tee shirts are great fly-decorating tools, lots of cool colors! The tee shirt paints are heavy bodied and will make for some…
