# Gangster crab



## bryson (Jun 22, 2015)

It's basically a gussied up kwan, so it should work well. Pretty crabby/shrimpy, but could probably look a little fishy too.

It will also still fish well with about half the materials he uses, but sometimes that's half the fun in tying.


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## AZ_squid (Mar 14, 2018)

Bryson,
You're right about more material hanging off the fly making it more fun. I found especially in fresh water fly tying there are a ton of flies that catch more fishermen than fish. Was wondering if this was one of those, and looking for some other opinions. Thanks for dropping in and have a good one.

Tight lines.


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## Chopsflyfishes (Aug 26, 2018)

Great shallow water sight fishing pattern, especially with mono or bead chain eyes, the 239 flies kit makes them super easy to tie.


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## texasag07 (Nov 11, 2014)

I haven’t tied that pattern, but I would be very doubtful it will actually land and ride hook point up with normal(medium) beachchain let alone mono eyes simply to many materials and bulk to it. Very few crab patterns tied with ep or other synthetic fibers will ride hook up with beadchain. Probably why it has a weedguard in the picture.

I feel a lot of people are naive to what will actually ride hook up with beadchain.

Not saying it’s not a cool pattern which it’s a cool looking fly but just pointing out something I see a lot.


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## bonehead (Dec 9, 2016)

Yeah lol I’ll bet that will definitely not ride hook point up. I would use lead eyes, but that’s just me.


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## AZ_squid (Mar 14, 2018)

Thanks for the advice guys. I almost always tie a couple different weights for flies to compensate for tide/depth/wind on any given day. I'll let y'all know how the fly rides once I test a few out. Thanks again for the help everyone.


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## mightyrime (Jul 18, 2016)

generally its not totally about the weight that make a hook ride point up. It the material. Tie a clouser that is not to sparse without any weight and it will ride hook up. Vice versa put lead eyes on a deciever and it will ride hook down.

In my experience that crab will have a 50% chance of riding hook up. That weed guard might help flip it over as well.


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## sidelock (Jan 31, 2011)

Always a good idea to swim a questionable new pattern you are not familiar with to see how it behaves before you proceed with multiple ties to avoid any unpleasant surprises after its too late however, with some patterns its evidently quite obvious how they will behave just by looking at them and therefore swimming them is not necessary.


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## tigerfly (Apr 4, 2019)

I've tied something similar. Like said before its basically a prettied up Kwan. The reds here around Charleston couldn't get enough of the orange and blue on it. Especially tailing fish on the floods. I've since been fishing something new I've been playing around with but I have plenty of similar flies tied up for when they just won't bite anything else.


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