duaneredford.com   "Fear No Water"

Hidy ho good fly fishers!

I was with 2 clients last week when we ran into a fella that guides the river a bunch every season.  He’s a really nice guy, and by all accounts a dang good guide.  We came upon him in an upper part of one of my favorite runs, which means, he had already fished the entire run.

Knowing that someone, especially a good stick like him, had pre-fished a stretch, I would be very hesitant to fish it right behind him.  However, after some chit-chat, he asked what fly we’d been hooking the majority of our fish on.  I told him, “We’ve been throwing a size 14 tan scud”, and I watched his jaw drop.  “A what?”, he said.  “14 tan scuddy”, I replied.  After a bit more stunned silence, and encouraging nods from my clients, he finally said in a long drawn out tone, “Really?”

I asked what he was using and he replied with the usual winter tablefare, midge, egg, midge larva.  Nothing wrong with that rig,  and I know he was catching fish, but our scud had been absloutely deadly, and I wanted to put it to the test.  We dropped in and fished behind him.  We still caught a bunch of fish.

Most people don’t equate low water, skinny conditions with big bugs, especially scuds.  I employed this tactic before when the river drops substantially, and it works.  Here’s my theory as to why.  Scuds like to hang in slower, softer water, usually along the edges and usually in, on or around some sort of cover.  The river was running a healthy 175 cubic feet per second (cfs) and was unceremoniously dropped to about 40 cfs in less than a week.  Scuds gotta do what scuds gotta do. 

Scuds don’t swim gracefully and they have to relocate, so many of them fall prey to whatever main current is remaining, and yup, they become a mid winter, high protein slab to hungry fish.  We caught at least 8 out of every 10 fish on that scud.  It’s not unthinkable if you think about it.

Winter is for fishing alone, sight fishing, and trying new tactics.  Think outside the box, think like a bug, do the unthinkable.

 Couple of scud eaters…….the fish too.

Fear No Water,

Duane