Kreelex and Chuck Kraft

This past weekend I was tying at the Heartland Fly Fishing Festival in Lebanon, Indiana. See my earlier post on the details of the show. Anyway, it was a great show and I really enjoyed it! An Indiana fly fishing guide friend of mine, Jeff Conrad, came over at one point and told me I should take some time to go talk to Chuck Kraft. Chuck started guiding back in the 80’s and before that designed some nice flies to get him started. He guided in South America and spent a lot of time guiding the James, New, Shenandoah and Jackson Rivers in Virginia. Chuck has even fished with Lefty Kreh and Bob Clouser.

So I of course took the advice of my friend, Jeff, and I’m glad I did. Chuck was such a nice guy to talk with about fly fishing, tying and guiding. He even came over to my table before his fly tying demo and we had a nice chat about a flash product he uses on his Kreelex fly called Kreinik and his Clawdad fly.

He definitely made an impression on me as I watched his fly tying demo and I went back over to Chuck’s table after his demo and wanted to buy one of his Clawdad’s and he insisted I just take it and not pay him, even though I tried several times, until he said, “I’m not going to take your damn money!” Haha, that cracked me up!

So, below is a video of Chuck tying his Kreelex fly that uses the Kreinik Flash I mentioned above. You can find the Kreinik Flash at the Eastern Trophies Fly Fishing which is ran by a friend of Chuck’s, William Heresniak.

Chuck was telling me he literally designed the Kreelex in his sleep before heading to Chile to guide for a few months. This fly is a very popular streamer even now, out west. So check it out!

To read even more about Chuck Kraft, head to this website which briefly explains Chuck’s history: https://easterntrophies.com/who-is-chuck-kraft

From Eastern Trophies Fly Fishing:
“This is one of Chuck’s best flies he ever developed and is deadly on Freshwater and Saltwater species. Since 1996 this fly has literally caught almost every fish you could think of from Smallmouth to Dorado, to Trout to Musky. It has won fishing tournaments and was outlawed in certain fly fishing tournaments for being too effective. Simple to tie and if we had only one fly to fish for anything it would be the Kreelex.”