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Sowbug
A nymph, tied #14–18, carried year round. It is tied against 2 named insects in this book — all year.
Flat, grey and unglamorous, this is a nymph tied to sit low and wide the way a crustacean does, and in limestone water that crustacean is the main food item there is. It goes on a scud hook in sizes 14 through 18, grey 8/0 thread, with a body of grey-brown dubbing kept flat and picked out at the sides, a shellback of grey Scud Back or a turkey quill strip, a fine wire rib over it and a few turns of lead underneath. It is tied against the sowbug, Asellus spp., and the scud, Gammarus spp., both of them crustaceans available all year in water anywhere from 33 to 70 degrees, which is why the fly is carried in every season. It is fished on the bottom, in limestone water and tailwaters, all year round for trout — slower and flatter than a scud, and fished the same way.
- #14–18Hook size
- nymphType
- AllSeason
- 2Hatches 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 | Scud hook, sizes 14–18 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Grey 8/0 |
| Body | Grey-brown dubbing, flat and picked out at the sides |
| Shellback | Grey Scud Back or a turkey quill strip |
| Rib | Fine wire |
| Weight | A few turns of lead |
When to fish it
Limestone water and tailwaters, on the bottom, all year. Slower and flatter than a scud, and fished the same way.
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.
- 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.
- Walt's Worm nymph · #12–18 — Dubbing on a hook. Suggests cranefly larvae, sowbugs and everything else pale and wriggling.
- Olive Scud nymph · #12–18 — Live-scud olive. The colour to fish where there is weed; grey and orange are the dead and gravid ones.