When I am tying my crayfish or crawdad patterns I really don't like to use the hide of the rabbit strips for the body which leaves us with two options, dubbing loop or dubbing brush.
Here we make the dubbing brush using a dubbing brush table from Fly Fish Food. This allows the ability to add multiple materials much easier and more consistent. Removing the rabbit from the hide is not the easiest and quickest and can get very messy so make sure you have a vacuum ready or tie in an area your wife wont get mad with floating rabbit fibers everywhere.
The key is to forget all you have learned in fly tying "less is more" and here "more is more". I struggled with these brushes because I was going to sparse. A dense chuck of rabbit all along the wire line is key. When I make the dubbing brushes I have the ability to add my favorite material to make more legs for the crayfish imitation using mallard or gadwall feathers. I havent figured out an easy way to do this when doing a dubbing loop so I usually leave them out.
Comment below if you have tried this and have any tips and tricks.
Svend
22 янв 2020
