Sometime back in the late 80’s I came across a saltwater fly in an American magazine. It might have been American Angler and Flytier or Fly Fishing. Anyway… the fly was a pretty simple crab imitation, made with bead chain eyes and glo bug yarn in rather subdued colors. I didn’t have any glo bug yarn in olive and tan, so I tied my own version using peach, pink and orange glo bug yarn instead. The result was a little ugly bug that didn’t look like anything anybody would wanna eat. Crazy thing is: Sea trout wanted it. They wanted it real bad. It was like pouring water on gremlins – weird things started happing, when this fly got wet.

Back in those days I made a living running the first fly only shop in Denmark (might have been the first in Scandinavia), doing a bit of guiding, tying and casting classes and writing. All the things you will do, to get the chance to be on the water every day.

That meant a lot of days in saltwater too. And most days that little ugly crab pattern was my first choice for sea trout. I haven’t fished this fly since then, but the other day I found an old product catalog from Mic’s Fluebiks (Mic’s Flyshop), and there on one of the pages, this little bastard was looking back at me with its shiny bead chain eyes.

Seems I will have to make a batch of Olson’s Crab variant, if not for anything else then just to show I don’t forget an old friend (which I actually did).

Here is the first one. I’ll let you know if anything weird happens – when it gets wet.