December FOTM - The Alphlexo crab

[Stephen Bradbury]

Decembers Fly of the Month is the Alphlexo Crab – This crab imitation was originally developed by the fly fishing guides in the Seychelles and has become one of the more popular tropical flats crab flies around the world. It is responsible for the capture of numerous Permit around the globe, but is also a great fly for other species such as Blue Bastards, Triggerfish, Tuskfish, Emperor species, Golden trevally, big Bonefish and many others. There are many online tying videos on this pattern out there, all with very small variations to the original tie.
This versions recipe – in order of tying (full tying instructions are on our website).
Hook – size 1# Mustad Big Game (the Mustad big game hook has a slightly longer shank than some other hooks like the Gama SL12S and assists with tying the body flat). It can be tied in other hook sizes depending on the target species.
Thread – Danville’s 210 denier flat waxed nylon in Tan or colour of choice to match the body of the crab you are imitating.
Dumbbell eyes – Medium size tungsten dumbbells, lead dumbbells or large I-Balz, tied midway under the hook shank.
Optional hot spot – 1 x pair of orange bead chain eyes tied in next to or across the weighted dumbbells.
Body fill – Some tan Rayon or Salt Chenille wrapped around the dumbbell eyes and either side on the hook shank.
Body – A short length of Flexo braided mono body tubing tan, clear, orange, black etc (brush the tubing ends over a lighter flame to curl the cut fiber ends to help tie in without the thread slipping off the end). Tie in at each end and seal/glue tie in points with UV flex resin.
Legs – 3 x lengths of Suede or Ultra Chenille threaded through the braid body (use leg threader or wire pull through) just above the line of the hook shank. Cut to length, adjust and burn/seal the ends before gluing in with UV flex resin.
Claws – 1 x length of doubled over Suede or Ultra Chenille. Tie an overhand knot in one side before threading through the body and knotting the other side, cut the loops formed in each side & burn/seal ends to form claws and glue in with UV flex resin.
Eyes – 2 x Epoxy mono crab eyes (colour of your choice) threaded through the body at the base of the claws and glued in.
Leg/Claw markings & colour – use coloured markers to segment the legs & claws and add colours to match your intended crab imitation (yellow for ghost crabs, blue & purple for swimmer crabs etc).
Fish this fly on a full floating line or intermediate tip floating line with a 9 – 12’ leader and a 16lb fluorocarbon tippet. Best results usually come from a very tiny/short strip (bumping the fly) along the bottom to get the fishes attention then a long pause/stop retrieve while still staying in touch (straight line) and watching the fishes body language to see if it’s eaten the fly before strip striking.