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Tiderunner

Crawfish Color

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Had someone ask me to make them some crayfish baits. I'm at a loss as to what colors to use in a laminated bait to make as natural looking bait as possible. Looking for suggestions for colors, glitter etc. I can make the usual stuff the big makers sell, but I'm trying to make "au naturel". I'm thinking natural craw on the top, and some lighter brown under? Dark green pumpkin up top. orange brownish under? These will be used in northern New England rivers.

If not natural, what colors would you make your crayfish baits? Or if not a laminate, what single color? I have Blue Craw colorant, but I've never seen a blue crayfish.

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A “natural” crayfish can vary in color from region to region. They also take on different hues throughout the year as they molt and spawn. Try a google search for crayfish in your region to get an idea. The standard crayfish if you will, I’d go with a laminate of pumpkin seed over a tan (I use DeadOn grit color and tweak it with other colors as needed). I’d also look at MF motor oil, MF chartreuse pumpkin or MF green pumpkin brown. You could further drive yourself insane by incorporating some brown highlight to the above. 
As for glitter, black for sure along with red and/or orange. 

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We think alike, These are some of the colors I was thinking of using. I never thought of the DOP Grit for the underneath, but that's pretty much the color I was thinking. I just got a big order from DOP, now I'll have to send a new one. I was wondering how I could use the MF Motor Oil in. I have a good amount of the "old" color. Has just enoug sheen to maybe be used on the top part. I also have MF Crawfish. Which really is pretty much the same as Caramel.

I do understand the regional differences, even the differences in species here in New England alone. I'm just trying to make maybe what you could call an "average" color, if one exists.

My molds duplicate the Yamamoto Baby Psycho Daddy. And a question. Where do I find brown highlight?

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I made some “craw” colored neds last summer using root beer dye with black and red flake. Thought it turned out pretty good. Add a little red highlight powder for grins and it made it look more like that very orange craw color with some shimmer to it. The highlight baits are on the right in this pic.

IMG_1173.jpeg

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I may use blue craw with  blue highlight for the top. And Lurecraft crawfish for the bottom. If that doesn’t work,then dark pumpkin with blue highlight. And the burnt orange underneath. 
RootBeer. One of the most popular colors and I don’t have that one. Never did yet I don’t know why.  

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2 hours ago, Munkin said:

MDCrayfish-2048x1541.jpg

 

This is the chart I use as a reference guide when someone asks for a "crayfish" colored bait.

 

Allen

This is very cool.  THANK YOU!!

Now I can imagine trying to match some of those colors.  No thanks!  :lol:

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I made two different colors.

One was blue craw with Pumpkin Brown added, and blue and a tiny bit of green highlight, with the bottom color a burnt orange. The second one was MF Crawfish with brown pumpkin added to deepen the color, and again the burnt ornage under color. The burnt orange was made with Lurecraft orange darkened with brown pumpkin and MF brown.

Both types came out kind of nondescript. Took them out of the molds, tossed them into a water bath. and when I went to take them out I could see them in the water. how the colors both seemed kind of natural. One was a deep brownish, yet seemed greenish with the blue craw. The crawfish colored one seemed to be almost a deep olive. Very natural looking.

In the water both colors looked so completely different. I'm pleased with my results, but feel I could improve the colors.

Maybe a drop or two of straight green? I didn't use any glitter because I wasn't sure what color to use. Maybe brown? Copper? Orange? Maybe I'll do a motor oil craw, and add sparkle blue flake? I got time to play around. Yet.  It's not like I've never had experiments fail before.

I'd take photos but doubt if they'd come out showing what I can see, especially in the water.

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Craws for me are the most enjoyable bait I've ever made which stems from my days of tournament fishing.  At each event I fished I would walk the bank and turn over rocks in search of getting a craw or two to use in deciding which color trailers I would use for my jigs.  

As mentioned above there are so many sub species and color variations making them is never boring.  I found the greatest challenge is imitating the molting version which involves semi milky opaque and translucent elements.  

I only hand pour so I have options as to how many colors I can integrate in the laminating process needed to create the illusion ranging from 2 to 4 with 3 being the most common.  If I'm really energetic I'll pick up a few lake rocks and bring them to the shop for color matching since they molt to their surroundings.  I put them in a glass bowl of water then start to match in plastic, I do dibble in making my own skirt material so this is beneficial for that as well. 

How I've always viewed making a craw in how I'm going to fish it first and what the fish is going to see while I fish it.  99% of the craws I make have a an opaque white/pink or peach belly/bottom.  

The colors I mix and match the most often are Amber, GP, Red, MF Blue Craw and Scuppernong.   Flake colors most commonly used .015 black, orange, red, blue, copper, .035 gold, red, copper

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This is the most awesome colored craw I have ever seen. I doubt you could get any more realistic if you were using live crawfish!

I cannot make out what colorants you used. Any chance you'd care to share the recipe?

craw.jpg

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On 4/6/2024 at 9:14 AM, Tiderunner said:

This is the most awesome colored craw I have ever seen. I doubt you could get any more realistic if you were using live crawfish!

I cannot make out what colorants you used. Any chance you'd care to share the recipe?

craw.jpg

I'd share a recipe if there was one, I made these from sprew mixes of various amounts.  

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On 5/12/2024 at 11:37 AM, JBuff said:

I'd share a recipe if there was one, I made these from sprew mixes of various amounts.  

I do something like that I get black or a color that reminds me of clay

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13 hours ago, Tiderunner said:

I do something like that I get black or a color that reminds me of clay

Every bait maker has come up with "the big waste of time mix".  What gets me is when I make the same mistake a year later.  The moments that you hit it spot is the driver, they remind you why it is that you do what you do.  It can be integrating snake skin, an 8 layer laminate or color.  During my time at the box store I had 3 customers that went in together and ordered 750 bags of Zoom Dirt brush hogs.  Clay might be a great color it's funny really it's the ugly baits that work better than our perceived perfect match.

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Edited by JBuff
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