All About Crayfish and How to Fish Their Imitations, with Jake Villwock

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Bass, Fishing, Bonefish, Wilderness, Flyfishing, Trout, How To, Steelhead, Bluegill, Fly, Orvis, Sports, Salmon, Panfish, Education, Rosenbauer

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Crayfish are prey that most gamefish can't resist. They're high in calories, abundant, and relatively easy for bass, trout, and many other gamefish to capture. Yet most of us don't know much about their life cycle and behavior (myself included). Guide Jake Villwock [47:02] has spent his life studying these critters, which gives him important insight on the right fly patterns, but even more important how and when to fish them. You'll learn a lot on this podcast.

In the Fly Box this week, there are lots of good questions and I hope my answers will help you in your fly-fishing journey. They include:

I can't seem to get my fly deep enough in bass lakes with my floating line. Should I get a sinking line for my 8-weight and fish surface flies with my 5-weight?
A listener asks for help from listeners in ways to lessen the pain of losing his beloved fishing dog
I fished a river that has always been full of trout and didn't see a thing. What happened to the fish?
Should I apply my dubbing with clockwise or counterclockwise twists?
Can I tie my dropper onto the tag end of my improved clinch knot?
What are your thoughts and comments on how long a trout stays spooked?
Why do you prefer a sling pack and where do you put your net?
Do resident brook trout in a river get pushed around by migrating steelhead? Do they still feed?
I didn't catch any fish in high, cold water. What should I have done?
What do you think about tying a loop in the end of my tippet and attaching flies with a girth hitch?
Why don't people use landing nets for striped bass?
I saw an anti-reverse fly reel on EBay. What do you think of them?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing podcast.
0:13.2	This is your host, Tom Rosenpower.
0:15.1	And this week, my guest is fishing guide Jake Vilwock.
0:21.9	Jake is an expert, especially in smallmouth bass, but also on trout and steelhead.
0:28.4	And the topic this week is crayfish.
0:31.4	And I think a lot of people realize how important crayfish are to the diet of many of the species that we chase
0:39.0	with a fly rod, and they're quite well imitated by flies.
0:43.6	But I don't think we know a lot about their behavior and their life cycle.
0:48.5	And so Jake's going to talk about crayfish in general and how they behave and what their life cycle is and also what the best
0:58.5	ways for fishing a crayfish imitation is. So if you're a trout or a bass angler, I think this is
1:06.2	going to be an important and very interesting podcast for you.
1:15.6	I know that I learned a lot about crayfish in this podcast.
1:17.9	I've known for a long time how important they were,
1:22.6	but I didn't really know much about where they live and how they go about their life.
1:26.2	So I learned a lot and I know you will too.
1:32.1	Before we start the flybox, a couple announcements on trips.
1:41.2	I am hosting a number of trips next year or this coming year and just wanted to let you know about a couple of them.
1:48.5	One is, or three of them, one is I have a trip to Iceland in July, July 15th through 20th.
1:54.1	And we're going to be fishing the Blanda and two other rivers that I can't pronounce.
1:57.8	So maybe once I've been there, I'll be able to pronounce them.
2:08.9	But we're going to be fishing for Atlantic salmon, sea run browns, non-sea-run browns, and Arctic char, both landlocked and sea-run char. So, you know, what we catch there will depend on what's in the river at the time, but it's going to be an exciting trip.
2:16.6	And, of course, I understand that
	...

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