2
Tie in a bunch of buck tail for the beard. This should be a mixture of natural brown and white

3
Take some E-Z body small and medium tubing and cut to length for the legs and claws

4
Holding the medium tubing and tying thread end in your left hand, make the first joint. Once this is done finish with a half hitch and remove the thread for the next joint. You can coat each joint with Bug Bond or varnish as you go

5
Bug Bond is perfect for coating the whippings on each joint

6
Once you have coated the claw with Bug Bond you can cut it to shape

7
Now move onto the next joint

8
Once you have made all the joints for the left claw you can now move onto the right one

9
I have made one claw a little larger than the other just to give it a more realistic feel

10
Make sure that when you tie in the first claw that the positioning and scale are correct. once its tied in coat the whippings with varnish

11
When tying in the claws the ends of the E-Z body tubing can be flattened with flat nosed pliers first

12
Now you can tie up all the walking legs. Before you do this seal the ends by burning them with a lighter, taking care they dont catch fire

13
Tie in the joints of all eight walking legs

14
When you start tying in the legs make sure that you position them correctly as realistic as possible

15
All eight legs in place, remember that the two rear legs should be facing backwards

16
Select two large brown cock hackles and strip off the fibers to make the antennas

17
Tie these in as shown. If they are too long they can be trimmed down later

18
Spin some dubbing onto the tying thread and start at the front and dubb in between the legs, making sure you get the right thickness and taper

19
Cut a piece of foam sheet for the exoskeleton. This can be measured against the hook for the correct size

20
Place the foam in the correct position and tie in the first segment between the third and fourth pairs of legs

21
From the underside this first segment should now be dubbed and the tying thread moved behind the rear legs

22
Now make the next segment over the foam

23
Dubb the next underbody segment while lifting the foam

24
Continue dubbing and tying the segments as in stage 23 until you are finished

25
The underbody should now look like this

26
From the neck of a pheasant skin select three church window hackles for the tail

27
Strip of the fibers at the base of the hackles

28
Tie in the first tail plate as shown

29
The second tail plate

30
And the third central and on top of the first two

31
You can now colour the crayfish with a waterproof felt pen

32
Take two crab eyes and trim the ends to a point. This will help attach them to the foam

33
First make two small holes for the eyes with a dubbing needle in the foam. Then dip the ends of the eyes in super glue and attach

34
Your crayfish should now look like this

35
You can now coat the whole crayfish with Bug Bond

36
The finished beast