Carrie Stevens created three streamer flies in her series of “Devil” patterns. The Blue Devil, White Devil, and Red Devil. All three have the common component of shoulders of “partridge,” meaning ruffed grouse body feathers. Each also has a two-color throat, though the written recipe in the Hilyard Carrie Stevens book for the Red Devil lists only the red hackle fibers, but blue hackle fibers in addition to the red are clearly visible on the sample pattern in the Hilyard Carrie Stevens book, tied by Leslie Hilyard.
Red Devil – size #4 – 8x long Gaelic Supreme Martinek / Stevens Rangeley Style streamer hook. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian.
Red Devil
Tag: Flat silver tinsel
Ribbing: Flat silver tinsel
Body: Red floss
Underbelly: White bucktail
Underwing: Four to six strands of peacock herl
Throat: Red hackle fibers, then blue hackle fibers
Wing: Two blue hackles flanked on each side by one red hackle
Shoulders: Ruffed grouse brown and white barred body feathers
Cheeks: Jungle cock
Head: Black with an orange band
Don, great to see the beautiful flies, and the recipes etc… for Carrie’s flies. I applaud your work here on your blog. What a great thing to do for people. I also love the history behind the flies too.
Thanks Kelly! I appreciate your comments and compliments. Glad you like the flies too! I also want to add additional photos to each post of uncarded streamers too. As my tying and time permits. Thanks again for your comments!
Large and spectacular collection, I wish I could tie some of them …! someday! But I lack the material and those hooks …! Very, very nice.
Hi Armando;
Thank you for your compliments! I appreciate it very much!
The Red Devil is such a strikingly rich color combination that appeals to my eyes! I just have a feeling that a large Brown might agree.
Carrie Stevens did so many patterns, most of them I’ve never fished. But I agree with you,I like this color combination and I think most any large salmonid would go for it! Thanks for your comment!
Last year my buddy and I were fishing the Magalloway at bridge 10, (not far from Carrie Stevens’ old stomping grounds, incidentally) and found a large red and blue bucktail streamer someone had dropped by the tire of my truck. Telling my buddy that it looked like a bucktail variant on a Carrie Stevens fly (the red devil, specifically), I pocketed the fly and continued fishing. Later that day we went downstream and fished the bridge near Bennet Road. On a whim I tied on that lost streamer and on the first cast it hooked into a beast that set to bending my rod in half. Getting that fish to surface, we agreed that it was the biggest trout either of us had seen in the wild. After slapping it’s hand sized tail, it dove hard and with the current, breaking my tippet in the process. I like to think that fish is still in the Mags with that huge fly in it’s bill. At any rate, that was the last day I chose to use 5x tippet on the Magalloway