Quill Gordon Pink Scud

When I first came to the Big Horn in March, 1982, 4 months after the Supreme Court opened the river to public fishing, I found scuds and lots of them. They were basically a tan shade, but I wondered if my orange scud from my days fishing the South Platte with John Barr in the ’70’s would work on the ‘Horn as well.

In 1977, John showed me his favorite orange scud for the Platte, I modified the dubbing a bit to add flash and translucency, along with a pearlescent flashback, and introduced it to the Big Horn in 1982. It’s been the go-to killer scud pattern ever since. Now all the importers have a factory in some country producing a “Bighorn Scud”, but none of them can match my original twinkle dubbing for effectiveness.

My pattern has proven consistently effective from Colorado’s South Platte, to the ‘Horn, to the Green River, to the Yellowstone Valley spring creeks; anywhere there’s crustaceans this pattern will take fish! Use the Orange flavor from spring into early summer & fall into winter; use the Pink flavor in mid summer.

Hook Sizing: Tied on a Tiemco (#2457) 1x short curved nymph/scud hook.