Fly Tier's Bench: How to Tie Craven's Mr. Jones Cranefly

Adult craneflies have haunted me for a long time. I recall an early morning on Colorado’s South Platte in Cheesman Canyon decades ago, when I saw my first confirmed adult cranefly skating across the surface of the water, doing its best to make it from one bank to the other. It wasn’t the cranefly itself that held my attention, it was the multiple trout that chased and slashed at it trying to end its trip prematurely. The speed and violence of the attacks set me off on a search for a fly that would mimic this colossal midge and its almost dainty way of hopping, skipping, and skating across the water.

Being a young guy at the time, I of course went digging through books (that’s what we old guys used before the Internet) to see what other tiers had come up with. I was disappointed. The patterns of the day consisted mainly of heavily hackled, dubbed-body flies with a few knotted pheasant tail legs dangling off the sides and back, or patterns like the Neversink Skater, that just never seem realistic enough—when they are paused, so the fish can actually catch them—to get the job done.

Over the years, I’ve gone through more failed attempts at improving my adult cranefly selection than I care to admit, and for the longest time I just got by with a big Stimulator or even a Parachute pattern when the opportunity arose, albeit with equally dismal results.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, while working on my Lucky B and Jeffrey Dauber patterns, that it came to me that the extended foam body I was using would lend itself well to a larger cranefly body as well. Digging a bit deeper, I reasoned that perhaps combining the extended foam abdomen of the Lucky B with an adapted thorax and wing configuration stolen from my Screaming Banshee caddis pattern might be incredibly imitative and also mimic the skipping and skating action of the naturals.

It didn’t take long to upsize the extended foam abdomen to a more suitable form, matching the colors, length, and diameter of the real thing. I build this abdomen on a needle and later attach it to the hook with a semi-stiff piece of monofilament, creating the perfect narrow waist of a natural cranefly. It also allows the abdomen to fold up and collapse when a fish inhales it, assuring better purchase with the hook point. This one adaptation solves two major problems, and that always makes me a happy tier and angler.

Next, I moved on to designing a thorax and wing structure that would allow the fly to skate and skip, but without being too bulky, as that can twist the tippet or make the fly sit too low in the water. The Screaming Banshee is the best skating pattern I have ever used, so it became an obvious donor for the overall design of what was to become the Mr. Jones.

I opted for bleached moose body hair for both the forward and side wings, as its length and color are ideal for a larger pattern like this. A simple foam shellback pulled over a dubbed ball-shaped thorax between the side wings results in a fly with a ridiculous amount of surface area that is sparse enough to appear realistic without requiring constant movement to fool the fish.

Almost as an afterthought, I added a couple of fine, barred Flex-Floss legs to dangle off the bend because I felt like I kinda had to. Every other pattern out there makes a really big deal out of the legs.

When I first got the chance to put Mr. Jones to the test I tied it on with 3X tippet and a nonslip mono loop knot. I launched Jonesy into a tailout on the South Platte, angling down and across. It took a minute to figure out the exact angle to hold the rod at to get the perfect skating action and to pop the rod tip a bit to get the fly to bounce realistically, but it quickly became second nature once I caught on.

The fly skated and hopped perfectly, leaving a small “V” in its wake, just like the real thing. Raising and lowering the rod tip to alternately skate the fly then dead-drift produced the most crushing strikes, and as with the Screaming Banshee, I had to remind myself to stop the fly so the unseen fish that were chasing after it could actually catch it. Sure, every now and then one attacked right away and absolutely blasted the fly, but I found much more success in slowing down the skate speed  a bit and intermixing occasional short periods of dead drift. Often the strikes come as soon as you start to skate the fly after these little breaks, and fishing the Mr. Jones very much reminds me of good, visual streamer fishing, but even better because it floats on top, and the strikes can be spectacular.

The Mr. Jones has proved effective all summer long, and especially during the hot afternoons and early mornings when these bugs are most active. I find myself often tying it on when things are slow just because it’s so fun to fish, and more often than not, I end up smiling and laughing at the antics of aggressive fish making fools of themselves.

Craven's Mr. Jones Fly-Tying Recipe

• HOOK: #10-14 Tiemco 2487.
• THREAD: 6/0 Tan UNI-Thread and 18/0 Semperfli Nano Silk.
• UNDERBODY: McFlylon or other yarn-type material.
• ABDOMEN: 2mm x 3mm Fly Foam strip, cinnamon.
• ARTICULATION: 0-1X (0.012") tippet material.
• LEGS: Tan Fulling Mill Flex-Floss Micro.
• WINGS: Bleached moose body hair.
• WINGCASE: Cinnamon 3mm Fly Foam.
• THORAX: Cinnamon caddis Superfine Dubbing.

Step-by-Step Tutorial for Craven's Mr. Jones Cranefly Pattern

1. Mount a fine wire sewing needle in your vise and coat it with dubbing wax on all sides. Start the UNI-Thread near the sharp end of the needle and form a tight thread base covering roughly 20mm of the shaft. Return the thread to the starting point. Leave a long tag of thread off the back of the needle. Tie in a piece of McFlylon on the top of the needle at the start of the thread base. Wrap rearward to the stopping point of the thread with firm and tight wraps.

2. Cut a sliver of foam about 2mm wide from a 3mm sheet. Tie the strip in about a third of the way from the starting point on top of the needle and wrap it tightly back to the stopping point. Return the thread to the front end of the foam.

3. Tie in another strip of foam on top of the first and wrap over it to form a slight lump in the underbody. Clip the excess. Cross-hatch the underbody with firm thread wraps. Tie in a 3-inch length of 0X mono in a loop with both tag ends bound down all the way to the front of the extended abdomen. Apply a thin coat of medium-viscosity Super Glue over the entire underbody. Leave the thread hanging at the front.

4. Wrap the foam strip forward in overlapping turns to the front of the needle. Wipe off any excess glue that pushes forward. Tighten the tension on the foam wraps as you near the front of the body to create a descending taper. Tie off the foam at the starting point. Clip the excess foam and build a smooth thread head to cover the tie-off area. Whip-finish and clip the thread.

5. Firmly grasp the foam body and give it a back-and-forth twist on the needle to loosen it up, then pull it off the front of the needle.

6. Hold the fat end of the body and pull firmly on the tag end of the thread hanging out of the back. You should draw out several inches of thread before it gets tight and cinches down the underbody from the inside. Clip the excess tag end and yarn flush against the end of the body. Coat the thread head on the front end of the body with a light coat of Super Glue to secure the wraps in place, and clip one of the monofilament strands off flush. Set the body aside.

7. Mount a Tiemco 2487 in the vise and dress the front half of the shank with a smooth thread base. Cut, clean, and stack a generous clump of bleached moose body hair. Measure the tips against the foam abdomen and match its length. Tie the hair onto the hook just behind the eye with a couple of tight wraps to flare the hair, then form a tight thread band traveling rearward to anchor it in place. Lift the butt ends and trim them off at an angle, then wrap over the butt ends to smooth them off.

8. Tie in the extended body by the monofilament  stub with several tight turns, then fold the front end back, forming a loop, and bind it down as well. Clip the excess monofilament. Dub a tiny ball of Superfine Dubbing at the bend of the hook. Tie in a 4-inch length of tan Flex-Floss Micro at its center, fold the far side back along the hook, and bind it in place right up against the ball of dubbing, then fold the near side back and do the same.

9. Cut a slightly thicker piece of foam from the edge of the sheet and bind it to the top of the shank from about two eye lengths back from the wing to the dubbing ball. Add a drop of Super Glue and spread it all around the tie-down area. Dub a thick ball-shaped thorax, reserving space behind the base of the forward wing.

10. Cut, clean, and stack another large clump of bleached moose hair and measure it against the forward wing so their lengths match. Clip off the butt ends of the hair at the pre-measured point, then flare this clump of hair in on top of the fly between the thorax and forward wing.

11. Divide the tips of the hair into two even clumps. Draw the strip of foam between the two wings and tie it down gently right through the butt ends of the wings. Be careful not to apply too much thread pressure as it can cut through the foam if you are too aggressive. Clip the excess foam flush with the butt ends of the moose hair wings.

12. Lift up the forward wing and build a small thread head to help prop the wing up and whip-finish and clip the thread. Now you can be a little artistic and color the body with permanent markers. I use several colors and make a fine, woodgrain pattern to match the naturals. Use markers to bar the legs and thorax as well. Clip the legs to about the same length as the abdomen. Spread out all the wings to form a circle for greater surface area.

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Charlie Craven co-owns Charlie’s Fly Box in Arvada, Colorado. He is the author of four books, most recently Tying Streamers: Essential Flies and Techniques for the Top Patterns (Stackpole Books, 2020).