Just played around with these this morning before work. I think they should sink rather fast with the double lead wrapped body and tung head.

Besides walts worm, what do you do to mimic these guys?

I tied them with the chartruese under body thread and wanted to try them with somewhat of a hot spot. I may try some with a half hitch to hold the ribbing down, and tie in some black.

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Too dark. Too much meight. Ditch the 200R (or whatever) hook.


My CFL imitations are much different.

Hook: Any cuved caddis style hook
Tail: Short stub of tan Antron
Body: Light ginger/tan SLF dubbing
Back: Scud back
Rib: Fine mono

Weight with gold bead and maybe a few wraps of lead.

Sorry, I don't have a pic, but the end result is similiar to the pattern found at this link, but a little better IMO.

http://flyandfin.blogspot.com/2012/01/kiss-crane-fly-larva.html

Quote:

Pennkev receives royalties. ..boom

I would like my payment in the form of a large, foam golf tournament check.

I agree that they are pretty dark, but cranefly larva colors do vary, so they are probably at the far end of the range. They also look over-segmented to me. What size hook are you using?
Mike.

Those are size 8 and 10. I helped my uncle sane minnows today. The cranefly larva we had got in the net were dark grey and some were up to 2 or 3 inches long. Some of them would curl up when tossed back into the water. These are immatating this reaction to being dislodged from the bottom or where they were resting.

Well I was out for an hour testing some patterns. A 7" native brookie hit the bigger larva with the rubber leg tail. It was neat to catch a native instead of a hold over on the Little Conemaugh. THings are looking up for that stream.

Aren't you fishing illegal? Our season doesn't start till next Saturday. Or is that part of the Little C private water?

In the Raystown and Wills Creek (Potomac) watersheds they have a slightly green tint to them , i'd call it greyish green , i think the colors of 'em must vary greatly depending on where you are fishing.

The little conemaugh is not an approved trout water. You can fish it year round but must return all trout. I wouldn't keep them from there anyway, it would be like killing your dog, to me LOL I have those fish named.

ON the cranefly, I wonder if their color is dictated by their diet, surroundings, water flow, hmmmmm.

I took a trip up through Casandra yesterday , there was a cement walkbridge3 over a creek right in the middle of town , is that the Little C? it looked like real nice water and that area around the walkbridge looked real fish i kept following up stream till i got to Lilly. Nice lookin water there.

Yep that is the one and only Little C. There will be a trout derby there on the 28th so there will be 500 fresh stockies in there, and a few over 16". The bridge that you can drive over in town has a decent hole right above it. I catch a lot of trout out of it. Park at the bridge and walk up to the pavillion there is another couple holes. If you park at the rail road overlook and walk down over the hill you will find some more holes. There is a rail road trussle with a hole as well. Any day of the year you can catch fish on that section of stream. If we ever do meet up to fish I will take you to the spots I wont spot burn ;)

Interesting.

I do a lot of nymph seining and the craneflies I get also vary a lot in size and color around here (southcentral). I'd guess that - on average - they are probably about 1.5" long and the color tends toward the light gray/tan range.

Next time out I will catch a few for pictures. The stream we were saning was full of large stoneflies as well. I wish I would have had my camera with me for reference pictures. The stream may be 6' wide at its widest point and most of the nymphs were size 14 or larger. many stone clingers, stone flies, and a huge ammount of cranefly larva.

what are stone clingers