I’ve been fly fishing most of my life, and it’s scary to realize how many years that actually is. So who would have thought I could suddenly feel like a rank beginner again? I decided to focus on deep-water chironomid fishing in lakes (these insects are also known as midges, buzzers, diptera), and I quickly discovered that I might be in, ahem, over my head. Thanks to the goodwill of strangers and some really top-notch friends who are experts, I’m no longer dead in the water.
I’m not saying you have to throw everything you know out the window when fishing deep water with chironomid imitations, but fishing for fish you can’t see or reach with a normal cast requires a different approach. At first, I viewed it as merely a shell game. I’ve come to discover not only is it that, but that you might as well also be blindfolded immediately following a three-martini lunch. If you hang in there, though, the rewards can be great. It’s a graduate course in humility.
Don’t you just love generous anglers willing to pass on secrets? I had one such encounter on a lucky day a few years ago. I was fishing a popular lake from my boat and doing a terrific job at not catching fish. Then, there he was, an “old-timer” whose rod was bent almost every time I glanced in his direction. “So what’s the secret,” I called, half expecting a snarky comeback, like “Clean living.”
“I’ll come over and show you,” he answered, and rowed on over.
“ They’re taking bloodworms in about 22 feet of water,” he said. My reply went something like, “Huuuh? What’s a bloodworm?” Then he pulled out a small bottle containing water with several red worms in it from a recent throat sample he’d taken, each about three-quarters of an inch long. Since I had nothing in my box like them, he even gave me a few of his patterns to try.
What deep-water chironomid fishing makes abundantly clear is that trout not only feed in the top 10 feet or so of the water column easily accessed with fly-fishing gear, they also feed below that zone, at least as deep as sunlight penetrates, which in most lakes is 20 feet or more. The insects we often imitate in lakes run the gamut from various stages of Callibaetis mayflies, damselflies, dragonflies, and caddisflies to scuds, leeches, and water boatmen. However, all of these thrive in relatively shallow water. So what are the trout feeding on in the deeper water? Suddenly, those tiny, but numerous chironomids dominate the menu. It’s natural to assume fish always focus on the biggest meal possible, but this is not necessarily true. What chironomids lack in calories per bite they more than make up for in numbers.
Chironomids Two Ways
There are two principal methods to fish the deep zone with fly-fishing gear. The first employs a floating fly line with a very long homemade leader and slip-strike indicator designed to disengage when you’re reeling in the fish. The second uses a superfast-sinking fly line that hangs straight down, with a short leader and no strike indicator at all.
When fishing a floating line and slip-strike indicator, traditional tapered leaders don’t work well. They don’t sink quickly, and the stiffness of the heavy end prevents the leader from hanging straight down, even if you think it is. It’s often best to hang your flies just above the bottom, so untapered, homemade leaders are the way to go, and they’re easy to make.
There doesn’t seem to be one perfect leader for this fishing, but the ones constructed by the masters tend to be similar. Let’s say you want a 20-foot leader to fish water about that deep. A guided tour of the leader from top to bottom would go something like this: fasten a 16-foot section of 3X nylon or fluorocarbon monofilament to your line with a Perfection Loop. Moving down from the loop-to-loop connection, add a “bobber stopper.” (I’d never heard of bobber stoppers before; you can get a lifetime supply on Amazon for only a few bucks.) From there, add a slip-strike indicator, also found online or in most fly shops. On the end of the 3X section, I fasten my top fly with a Nonslip Mono Loop Knot. Next, I tie on a 4-foot section of 4X fluorocarbon to the bend of the fly and then add my bottom fly, also with a Nonslip Mono Loop Knot. Most chironomid leaders roughly follow that model, though everyone has a version of what works best for them. Some anglers like to incorporate small swivels to keep things from getting twisted. Others have different ways of connecting droppers. I personally like to add one or two split shot to the leader to get the flies into the strike zone that much more quickly.
Determine how deep the water is by clipping a pair of forceps to your fly and dumping it overboard. When you reach the bottom, mark the place on your leader and position a bobber stopper so the slipstrike indicator is directly below it. (The bobber stopper “remembers” the correct depth, so your flies are always hanging in the feeding zone, just above the bottom.) As I said, I usually fish two flies, one just above the bottom and another about four feet above.
Besides tying a fly to another fly’s bend, another effective way to attach droppers is to tie a Perfection Loop in a 6-inch piece of 3X or 4X fluorocarbon. Before you tie the fly on, pass the end of the fluorocarbon through the loop, encircling your leader just above a split shot. Then tie on your fly. This sort of dropper slides, and the split shot keeps it in place, hanging the fly just off to the side. The stiffness of the 3X or 4X keeps it surprisingly tangle free. Casting this mess can be pretty challenging, though, like trying to toss 20 feet of limp spaghetti. Longer rods help (9-footers or 10-footers), and so does keeping your casts slow and deliberate. Flip your rod to the side, pause while things straighten out, then f lip everything forward. It’s perfectly fine if your leader hits the water behind you. If you time it right, a little friction from the water actually helps load the rod better. One nice thing is there is little need to cast very far. Dropping your flies straight down from the boat (or float tube or pontoon boat) is really all that’s necessary.
Another way to accomplish the same thing is with a fast-sinking line. With this method, you will feel the grab, so strike indicators are not needed, and the leader is much simpler and easier to cast. Although this technique is every bit as effective as the floating-line method, fishing this way is a little like watching paint dry. (I suppose you could say the same thing about watching a strike indicator.)
Just as with the floating-line method, you first need to locate the bottom and hang your flies in the zone just above it. You can get away with a much shorter leader with this method, so I use 2 feet of 3X nylon (or fluorocarbon) from my line to the top fly. Then I tie 4X fluorocarbon to the bend of the top hook and hang my bottom fly 4 feet below it. Again, it’s not a bad idea to use a split shot or two to get the setup down to the bottom faster.
If focusing your attention all day on a strike indicator is not your idea of a good time, this is the method for you. Once you get your flies close to the bottom, you can daydream all you want. But when a trout grabs your fly, it is heart-attack time. One minute, you’re fantasizing about that frosty brew you’ll pour as soon as you get home, the next, some creature is trying to wrench the fly rod out of your grip. The grabs are very often violent.
This fishing isn’t for the faint of heart. One time, I was sitting in a boat, chatting with my buddy, when suddenly the rod was nearly wrenched out of my hand. I managed not to soil myself, but my reel all but exploded, and the fish cleared the water 50 feet out. It was a big fish.
The tussle went back and forth, and I honestly didn’t know if I could keep the fish buttoned on. Finally, gradually, the runs slowed. Twice, the fish almost wrapped around my anchor ropes, but I somehow kept it free. When the fish fi- nally came to the net, I realized I’d taken many steelhead far less grand. (Trout in lakes can be genuine slabs.) I was able to get a small throat sample before releasing it, and the fish was packed with tiny (maybe size 18) olive chironomids. This article is the product of the light bulb that came on for me in that moment.
Western Chironomid Experts
There are a few chironomid rock stars out there illuminating the way to fish chironomid imitations in deep water. Up in British Columbia, there are Phil Rowley, Brian Chan, and Jordan Oelrich. In Sisters, Oregon, there’s Jeff Perin. California superstars include Ernie Gulley (known for his Lake Crowley expertise) and Lance Gray (Manzanita Lake, among others). You can find really good instructional videos by these and other chironomid masters on YouTube. You might also treat yourself to a guide trip and spend an entire day under the tutelage of professionals who fish chironomids every day. “You’re going to find chironomid larvae, which are typically red with hemoglobin (bloodworms) living down in the mud,” said Jeff Perin. “They have a very cool attribute in that they’re not always down in their little mud burrows. They sometimes come out of the mud and suspend above the bottom of the lake six inches or a foot or so. They become very available to the fish. During those times, I hang a red chironomid right above the bottom to imitate that food source.” Perin continued, “Eggs from an adult chironomid can actually hatch just a few weeks after those eggs were laid. You get multiple broods of chironomids in a year. That’s why they’re so prolific and so important as trout food in lakes.”
“I use chironomids a lot at Manzanita Lake,” commented Lance Gray, “especially when I have clients who can’t cast well. I have them drop the f lies in the water, and I just move away with the drift boat. A person can do that out of a pontoon boat or float tube, too. It’s almost like bait fishing with a chironomid. It works! The big fish are all down on the bottom right along the weed beds. All they’re eating is midges. If you take a fish finder out there, you’ll see fish lined up one after another right on the bottom. I’m talking anywhere between 13 to 19 feet.”
Chironomid Strategies
What’s all this mean when you’re on the water? Well, first, you want to fish over a mud bottom. If that mud is in a transition zone, such as the edge of weed beds or over a drop-off, so much the better. One maddening aspect of chironomid fishing is that hatches can be very localized. Bugs may hatch in one small area of the lake for an hour and then stop. The next thing you know, they are hatching somewhere else. Chironomid cases on the surface are a good sign. Another is adult midges buzzing around on the surface. Hatching midges also often attract feeding birds. Ernie Gulley keeps binoculars in his boat just to watch where the birds are feeding as an indication of where the bugs are hatching. Sometimes the wind can make it seem like the bugs are coming from one area, but actually they may be coming from someplace else. Expect to do a bit of detective work. You can also find topographic maps of a lot of lakes online, offering clues to good chironomid habitat.
Like persnickety fish everywhere, trout are fully capable of finding a random comfortable depth to cruise looking for emerging bugs, so the depth at which you are fishing is very important. They are more likely to be closer to the bottom, so that’s a great place to start. Trout can also be very selective as to color, so when you’re not getting grabs, start switching colors. It’s amazing that trout can differentiate between subtle color changes in the darkness of a deep lake, but they do. I frequently switch back and forth between flies with black tungsten beads and white tungsten beads. I also switch between fishing olive, gray, black, and red chironomid patterns. As with other aquatic insects, chironomids exude carbon dioxide gas, which gives the ascending bugs a shimmering, shiny look, and your imitations should mimic that. If you’d like, use a very slow retrieve (say, one inch a second) if chironomids are rising to the surface to hatch, or even if they’re still at the bottom.
Switching colors often until you find what the fish want is all part of the game. “That happens a lot with guides,” said Ernie Gulley. “We get out there and start with a color that just crushed ’em, like 50 fish to the boat. We start with that color and can’t get a grab the next day. You’re like ‘Wow, well, OK, so let’s move on to another color.’ If they’re not going to grab it, it goes into the penalty box, just like a hockey player.”
You also can try fishing higher in the water column. Emerging chironomids in the pupal stage pause in the surface film while their wings unfold and dry, so this is another time they are vulnerable to the fish, but wary fish have learned they are easy targets for fish-eating birds, so it’s more common to eat them deeper. Fish will also sometimes rise to adult midges or midge clusters. More often than not, though, these will be smaller fish. The big fish are usually deeper.
Tying your own chironomid patterns is both fairly simple and fun. The chironomids I fish range from size 12 down to size 18. First, I match up the size fly I want to tie with an appropriate size tungsten bead. Slap down a base of tying thread in a color that suits you. You can add segmentation with different colors of wire, thread, floss, or Flashabou. After the whip finish, lay down a coating of clear finish. I use Loon UV Clear Fly Finish, and then cure it with a blast from a UV flashlight. This will give your fly the shiny, yet durable finish like the carbon dioxide bubble propelling the naturals to the surface.
“When you first start tying, pretty much the easiest thing to tie is a chironomid,” Gulley pointed out. “It shows you good thread control, it’s not too technical — you put the bead on there and tighten it up with thread, run the wire and try to keep it spaced correctly. Before you learn how to tie a Woolly Bugger, you learn to tie a chironomid. I remember the very first one I tied. I went out on the lake, set my depth, plopped it down there, and thought there’s just no way that I’m going to be able to catch a fish. They’re not going to be able to find this tiny, size 18 chironomid. Are you kidding me? Then three minutes later I had a four-pound fish. It came flying out of the water. I said ‘Wow, yeah, they do find them!’”
Some anglers frown on using throat pumps for fear of harming fish. I believe if you’re gentle and flip the fish over on its back, a pump can be a valuable tool. You are not trying to force the tube deeply into the fish, and you want only a small sample. (Some fish are so stuffed full of chironomids you end up with more in your sample than you imagined.) What better way to know for sure what the fish are feeding on? The “catch,” of course, is that you have to catch a fish first.
Be Prepared
A well-equipped lake angler employs a variety of different fly lines to cover top to bottom, and it’s also wise to be prepared to imitate other lake hatches, if the situation calls for it. While I mainly go with a floating line or a fast-sinking Type VII line for fishing chironomids, you never know what else might be hatching, and I also carry a slow-sinking intermediate line and a Type III full sinker. My lake fly boxes also contain far more than just chironomid patterns, although as I get more experienced, I’m carrying a lot more colors of chironomids than I used to.
Some cunning individual hypothesized that big trout in lakes gorge on tiny insects down there in the almost dark and figured out a couple of good ways to go after them. Bravo! Trying to cast 20 feet of leader and tippet might not look all that elegant, but most of us aren’t trying out for the “shadow casting” scene from A River Runs Through It. We just want to bring a few fish to hand, right? The results of chironomid fishing speak for themselves.
