Tying Your Own Amphipoda; or, I Remember When Scuds Were Soviet Produced Missiles Fired From Iraq Into Israel

Scuds always remind me of GWAR and the first Gulf War.  I didn't know that there were tiny shrimp-like creatures called scuds until I started fly fishing.  If you click here, you'll see that there are many meanings for the word scud.  Anyway, I filmed an instructional video on how to tie a simple, highly effective scud that will work for trout, bass, and panfish.

You can visit an earlier post for a little more instruction if you're new to fly tying.  Sorry if it's a little shaky, this is what I'm working with.

In the video, I tied a tan scud.  Scuds tend to take on the color of their environment though, so if you're fishing in a silty stream, grey may be a better representation of what the fish are eating.  If you're fishing along a weedline, cast an olive colored scud.  Those are the three colors I tie, but I've seen pink scuds for sale in shops.

The scud from the video, smaller than
the words "atomic field-circuits."

When fishing in streams with a scud, I let it dead drift through pools, riffles or along cover, sometimes I give little twitches.

I was fishing in Lake Michigan along the rocks near Discovery World early one late spring morning and I caught so many little trout I couldn't believe it!  They must have been hatchery trout that were just stocked, but it sure was fun!  I would cast almost parallel to the rocks, and strip the scud back.

I fish the same way in the urban ponds that are stocked, cast and strip back. 

Here are a few fish I've caught on scuds,  they're nothing too exciting though.

Although they are very abundant, widespread and diverse,^[2] amphipods do not feature strongly in the public imagination. Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing wrote in 1899:^[3]

No panegyrist of the Amphipoda has yet been able to evoke anything like popular enthusiasm in their favour. To the generality of observers they are only not repelled because the glance which falls upon them is unarrested, ignores them, is unconscious of their presence. (Source:Wikipedia)

I think Tom needs to hang out with some anglers.