Mole Crabs

[dudley]

I've been looking for a good mole crab pattern for years without finding one that I liked

One Cape Cod beach that I (and some of you ;) )fish regularly is about 3/4 of a mile long.
In the dead center is a stretch of about 75-100' that seems to loaded with mole crabs. It's also the most consistent stretch to fish.
I'm certainly not the only one who knows to fish this short area, but I doubt too many other fly fishermen realize why.
Because of the large concentration of crabs in this isolated spot, I tend to notice mole crab that I see in the surf other places I fish too.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Female-sand-crab-back.jpg/260px-Female-sand-crab-back.jpg
These lovely creatures (mole crabs, sand crabs, sand fleas) live in the surf zone and often tumble in the waves then quickly burrow into the sand with the retreating water. Game fish will often cruise the trough inches from dry land searching for these tasty morsels
They're a popular bait in Florida, and there's quite a few fly patters for them on the west coast.
Here in the northeast they're pretty much ignored
I finely found a patten that I liked that's (surprise :D )very similar to my own, much larger, surf crab.http://www.sefly.com/images/beach%20bug.jpg
along with a couple of other patterns for reference

http://www.mr-tea.com/flibox/Pictures/mmc10.pnghttp://www.mr-tea.com/flibox/Pictures/wmolecrab2.jpg
http://www.mr-tea.com/flibox/Pictures/thm_softie.jpghttp://www.mr-tea.com/flibox/Pictures/thm_SC-Mole-Crab-small-file.jpg

[Andrew]

Dudley,

You may have already found this site (www.fliflicker.com), but if not, go to the "flibox" section. There should be a bunch of mole crab patterns (including the one by Rich Lewis that you posted). This was my local web forum when I lived in southern California (you can find pictures of me, and of some mole crabs I photographed, in the gallery!). Mole crabs were the primary diet of many of the fish we fished for. However, I never found that a good imitation fished any better than many more general patters. I favored a fly that looked a lot like a mini-puff. The one thing a lot of us felt was that some orange was good, since it looked like the roe of the crab. But some guys liked other colors, so go figure.

Andrew

[dudley]

Just like with nearly any other fly, I think it's the presentation that's most important
The mole crab fly needs to be able to roll in the surf, near the bottom, and then appear to burrow in the sand with the retreating wave.
Size, shape, and having weight right up against the hook-eye are probably the most important characteristics
I tend to think that colors that are most noticeable might be better than a more exact imitation.

Andrew
I'm also working on some Borski Slider variations... any experience with that sort of thing ?....
So far my favorite looks a lot like the old Ted Williams bonefish fly, the ***** with a craft fur tail :cool:

Edit.... the censored word rhymes with "itch" and begins with a B

[Andrew]

No, I never fished any slider flies in the California surf. The surf there is pretty rough, so we tended to fish heavy flies on fast sink lines. Although we would sometimes sight cast to feeding corbina in 6 inches of water, that was a really low percentage game, so most of the time we were fishing deeper holes and rips with the hopes of catching whatever was in there.

[dudley]

These aren't the type of sliders we fish around here.
They're large bonefish/redfish flies for flats fishing
The Borski Slider imitates some local Florida bait fish, but it's fairly similar in style to a Chernobyl Crab or a Kwan,

I've been working on a bunch of the larger flats flies lately
I got flats on the brain :eek:

[MuddlerMinnow]

Dudley, to me this seems like an imitation that would be easier to tie than it would be to fish. I'll be curious to hear your experience with it when you get a chance to fish it.

[TetonTrout]

http://www.flyfishinsalt.com/article.jsp?ID=39671