I rose stiffly, bones creaking as I stepped away from my tying bench and stretched. I removed my glasses and rubbed eyes fatigued from staring at a tiny midge pattern clamped in my worn-out vise. The fly represents an emerging insect trapped in the water’s surface, a cripple, a stillborn never to see adulthood. I suppose it was not much of a stretch that my thoughts turned back to my youth and my own emergence and transition to adulthood and the uncertainties of survival. Unlike a crippled midge, though, I was lucky.
It is a wonder that I ever survived childhood. God, the crazy stuff that I did, such as playing chicken with my brother, Paul. We would take turns jumping back and forth across a frozen creek until one of us broke through. Or we hitched bumpers, a suicidal game of sneakily running up behind moving cars on slick, snow-covered streets. We grabbed a bumper and, squatting, tried to hold on longer than the other person as we surfed down the road in our Sunday shoes. Or we played a kind of automotive dodgeball by dashing across the five-lane superhighways leading in and out of Detroit; we crossed one lane at a time, with the traffic zooming and honking all around us. In blind faith, we threaded our way through the incredulous commuters until safely reaching the other side, where we hunted snakes in a favorite field.
Somehow I even survived three bicycle accidents involving cars. In another life and with less luck, the bugs that this midge cripple in my vise imitates could be me.
It’s an effective pattern and easy to tie. Begin by inserting a size 18 hook in the vise. Attach a fine black thread behind the eye and wrap back short of the bend. Cut a small, 1/16-inch strip of white 1-millimeter foam. Tie it in three-quarters of the way down past the eye and leave about an eighth of an inch extending behind the bend. Next, choose a size 16 grizzly hackle and tie it in near the bend. Now forward wrap five or six turns of hackle, tie it off, and snip away the excess feather, Take one strand of Flashabou and attach it in front of the hackle. Leave it hanging. Now dub a ball of hare’s ear dubbing in front of the hackle to represent the midge body and advance the thread up to the eye. Forward-wrap the Flashabou like a candy cane up to the eye, tie it off, and snip away the excess. Whip finish, add some cement, and you are finished.
Cast this fly to rising fish. Your deception will be accepted or rejected depending on your presentation, but don’t fret about the result. It is just one of many lessons to be learned during one’s life. Cast again and take the leap of faith that the fish earlier thumbing its nose at you will rise to the occasion. Luck matters.
— Andy Guibord
