The Orange Scud
By Gary Lewis
It was April and the Crooked River was high but dropping. I had a #12 Orange Scud knotted to a dropper, fishing in tandem with a bead-head peacock nymph. Casting up and across, I let the flies bounce and tumble with the current.
At the end of the drift, I fed line to work another pocket downstream. Watching the line where it entered the water, I saw it waver and halt its downstream drift. Lifting the rod tip, I felt the pull of a good fish and saw it come out of the water.
The Scud patterns imitate freshwater shrimp and the Orange Scud represents a shrimp that has died. It is a good pattern anywhere freshwater shrimp share the water with rainbow trout.
Tie the scud with a crystal flash tail and an orange, olive or tan body. Pull a latex case or yellow yarn on top of the body and tie it down with evenly spaced wraps of gold wire. The pattern can be fished un-weighted or with a bead head.
