I never liked using dumbbell eyes on an EP crab. The eyes just get in the way of the crab body build. I mean its OK and all, the crabs with dumbbell eyes are fine but I also just don’t like using up my dumbbell eyes, of which I never have enough of, on a crab. Crabs don’t have eyes like dumbbell eyes anyway.
So I decided to use up some brass beads of which I have too many. I put the beads on a piece of mono and ran it through the hook eye and then made a weed guard out of the tag end. I like it. The beads on the very bottom should turn the crab over better anyway. See below. What do you think?
Oh, and it really seems to help when stacking EP to put a little glue on the hook/thread before pushing back the EP fibers. EP fibers don’t want to play like deer hair does, it wants to jump back in place so the glue captures it. I’ve been using Aleene’s Fabric Fusion which is a fabric glue that is not hard or sticky. You get it on your fingers and just wipe it off and if it dries on your skin it’ll roll off your fingers when you rub them together. It’s not a head finish type glue but its great for stacking the EP fibers. You can push the fibers back and the glue will hold them and you can position them like you want. Doesn’t build up as a hard layer. It’s non-toxic and cheap and the bottle doesn’t clog up. I’ve had the same big bottle for a couple of years, still have plenty and if the spout clogs you can just wipe it off. I don’t know if its great for fabric repairs but for my purposes in putting some glue in fly bodies it works great.
"Samurai" Fly Shop 