Never heard of this one!

As regular readers know, I have a habit of buying up joblots of old fishing tackle and then spending hours of my free time sifting through the detritus looking for bits I can use or salvage. This harmless idiosyncrasy keeps my amused and on the odd occasion turns up little gems of old gear. As I have a few days off work I am shifting through a box of bits which had been waiting for my attention since last year. This particular container was filled with some fly tying materials which I had gone through once previously and rescued some nice capes, but today I was literally scraping the bottom when I cam across a small fly in a clear packet. With it was a handwritten note.

I have never come across a Stooger fly before, in scarlet or any other shade for that matter. I suspect this is a pattern dreamt up by an angler for his or her own use rather than a copy of a recognised dressing (but I could be wrong). This formulating new dressings is an everyday event and we anglers who make their own flies have row upon row of such self designed patterns in their boxes, most of which rarely ever even get wet. That this particular fly warranted the hand written note suggests it was tied up for someone else, perhaps after a good day with the Stoodger. Did someone fill a basket with trout and then pass one of the successful flies on to a fellow fisher? Was it posted on or slipped across the breakfast table in the hotel before the boats went out the next day? I will never know but I admit that finding the note is even more intriguing than the actual fly itself.

So what is this fly? It’s dressed on a round bend size 10 hook with an impressively large barb. That hook looks like a very old Mustad or similar. Tying silk looks like it is black but the black varnish on the head makes that hard to be sure. Tail fibres came from some unidentifiable game bird which was marled and possibly had been dyed red, but it was hard to be more precise than that. Under the body there were wraps of wire, presumably to weight the fly. The body itself consisted of a bright blue hackle which had be wound in touching turns and cut short to give an unusual spiky sort of look to the fly. Two hackles, the first one of ginger cock and the front one of reddish claret completed the fly. Was that front hackle supposed to be scarlet? In my experience, dyed feathers grow paler with age or exposure to the sun so I have my doubts that scarlet feathers were used.

The style of the fly and its inclusion with a box of stuff for making similar patters suggested to me it has been tied for lough fishing, most likely in Scotland. A fly box retrieved earlier from the same haul contained Scottish lough flies such as Malloch’s Favourite, Cinnamon and Gold, Blue Zulu and others I would have used myself back in the land of my birth.

Where the name ‘Stoodger’ comes form is a mystery. I can’t find any reference to fly or indeed, in English dictionaries. Is it just a corruption of ‘Stooge’? Regardless, I have stuck the Scarlet Hackled Stoodger in my fly box and plan to give it a swim next season. Who knows, I might have a killer on my hands!

For the day that is in it, I want to wish everyone reading this post a healthy, happy and safe 2024. While ’23 was a very good year for me personally I know many people had a tough 12 months and I sincerely hope next year is a better one for you.