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Olive Scud
A nymph, tied #12–18, carried year round. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — all year.
- #12–18Hook size
- nymphType
- AllSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Curved scud hook, sizes 12–18 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Olive 8/0 |
| Body | Olive scud dubbing, picked out underneath |
| Shellback | Clear scud back or plastic strip |
| Rib | Fine clear mono |
| Weight | Lead-free wire or a small bead |
When to fish it
Where there is weed, and dead-drift on the bottom. Live scuds are olive; grey and orange are dead and gravid ones, and all three are worth carrying.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active all year, in water from 33°F to 70°F.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
- Abb Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Abes Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 71.1°F
- Abram Creek the Virginia mountains · July mean 57.7°F
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Grey Scud nymph · #12–18 — The living colour. Weedy, watercress-lined spring creeks, every month.
- Hare's Ear Nymph nymph · #10–18 — Looks like everything and nothing. The other half of a two-nymph rig.
- Orange Scud nymph · #12–18 — Dead scuds go orange. On spring creeks the orange one often outfishes the natural grey.
- Ray Charles nymph · #14–18 — A grey shellback sowbug with no legs and no tail. Named because it is tied blind-simple, and it outfishes elaborate sowbugs everywhere they both swim.
- Sowbug nymph · #14–18 — Flat, grey, unglamorous, and the main food item in limestone water.