Midge larvae, pupae, and adults may be tiny, but they are a major part of most fish food chains. Their presence is especially important during periods of cold water, when a number of other food sources are unavailable, and they allow many fish species to survive the lean winter months. The fact that trout can successfully feed on hordes of minuscule midge larvae and emerging pupae, imitated by size 16, 18, 20, and smaller chironomid flies, reminds us that trout are in fact grazing animals. Like the highly successful pig, trout can eat and digest a wide variety of things.
Midges are taxonomically classified as Diptera, which are “true flies” with two wings. It is estimated that there are over two hundred and forty thousand species in the order Diptera with many morphological differences. Common examples of midges include mosquitoes, blood midges, crane flies, gnats, and the minuscule fruit fly that is the bane of vintners.
Aquatic midges have four stages in their life cycle. Mated adult female midges deposit eggs over and on the water, and these sink to mud and silt bottoms. Segmented, wormlike larvae hatch from the eggs and live for varying periods of time in little burrows, where they gradually grow in size. It is said that tens of thousands can be found in a square meter of fertile bottom muck. Optimal light and temperature conditions stimulate the larvae to migrate out of the tunnels, where they form clouds of minuscule biota that can resemble a thin soup.
These larvae hover in the water column for days, even months, rising in darkness and retreating during bright light. Often, when we can’t find patterns that will take fish, the fish are in the depths, grazing on hordes of minute midges in their larval stage. At some point, the larvae ascend higher in the water column and pupate, developing legs, wing cases, and more complex bodies as they move gradually toward the surface. Like mayflies and caddisflies, they use internally generated gas bubbles to aid their rise and to split their exoskeletons at emergence, becoming very vulnerable to cruising trout as they near and enter the surface film as emerging adults. At Davis Lake, very small midges often hatch during calm, glassy mornings. Their imitation can be maddeningly difficult, and the hatch produces challenging fishing.
American and California anglers were much slower than our British and Canadian cousins to realize the importance of midges for successful stillwater fly fishing. Steve Raymond’s classic book, Kamloops, pointed this out. Way back, I had the good fortune to fish with the legendary Gordon Honey in the Kamloops region of British Columbia and with Jeremy Baker at stillwater venues in England. These delightful experiences dialed me in to the relationship between midges and large trout, and I started a journey on an endless learning curve.
My first experience with midges in California came at Davis Lake in the early 1980s. I met a now departed angling friend who had moved to Reno. We set up camp at Grasshopper Campground, not in a great hurry to launch our boat and motor over to the Cow Creek area, because surface-feeding activity does not usually begin until 7:00 p.m. or later. The westerly winds refused to blow that afternoon, untypical for Davis, and the lake was very calm around 5:00. As we popped beers and slowly motored toward Cow Creek, we started seeing trout rise forms that I now know to be fish taking midge pupae. At first, there were a few in midlake, then hundreds and perhaps thousands of swirls in all directions, as far as we could see.
We cut our engine and started casting toward rising fish, but were perplexed by this new phenomenon. Large adults, size 14, that I now identify as blood midges (the species Tendipes), were emerging and flying off, so thick at times that they were in our hair, ears, and even nostrils. The dry flies that we used to imitate the bugs that we saw flying off didn’t take fish, and mayfly nymphs failed as trout in a feeding frenzy swirled within 10 feet of our boat. After an hour of trying fly after fly and a frantic search through boxes that held lots of Woolly Buggers, Callibaetis nymphs, and damselflies, I stumbled on 10-year-old red, brown, and tan size 16 flies that had been tied by Portola hardware store owner Evelyn Gamble. They were called Sandy Mites and were thought to be an East Coast pattern.
My fumble-fingered efforts finally got one of the flies tied on, and I gradually learned that I needed to anticipate the travel direction of swirling fish and cast to where I thought the trout would swirl next. It’s not a guaranteed thing, and there is a process of experimentation. You hope to guess right more often than wrong. I got it down well enough to take five fish among hundreds of hungry trout oblivious to our presence. We felt frustrated, humbled, and awed by a phenomenon that was new to us. Likewise, we were enthralled with what we now know to be classic sight fishing. Three years ago, at Frenchman’s Reservoir, 20 miles east of Davis Lake, a different partner and I stumbled on the same phenomenon. Brown Serendipities tied on size 16 scud hooks for the occasion matched the emerging pupal phase of the blood midge’s life cycle, and we had a superb hour and a half of midmorning fishing.
Lots of conjecture and opinions were thrown out at the campfire that first night at Davis. I never belittle the taking of 5 trout in an evening, yet we should have caught 20. I tied up half a dozen of Evelyn’s flies in lantern light. My low-light vision was better then, and I made up several leaders that had a point fly and two droppers threaded above Blood Knots eight inches apart, expecting to narrow the odds a bit on the next day, because our discussion concluded that part of the problem in interesting fish involved the trout’s inability to find our artificials among thousands of naturals. We motored over the next afternoon under what we believed to be identical conditions and did not see a swirl, a single blood midge, or any trout, birds, or flitting bats. At our campfire discussion on the second evening, we concluded that the trout were gorged beyond belief and were digesting and sulking, a rationale that sounded increasingly plausible after each beer. We named the phenomenon of the previous day “the orgasmic hatch.” When it was over, it was over. I went so far as to draw up some bell-curve graphs that showed gradually increasing numbers of hatched insects for a number of days, then everything bursting forth in one glorious evening. I’ve used those graphs in lectures and since have witnessed blood midge hatches many times, yet nothing like that afternoon.
As with many insect populations, the blood midge of Martis Lake, Sawmill, Webber, Quail, Bridgeport, Crowley, Smith Creek Lake, and others are cyclical. There are big years, average years, and years where the insects seem to be absent. It pays to be prepared and ready to capitalize on orgasmic hatches if you encounter one, but most of the time, you will catch more fish fishing deep and using imitations of the larval stage.
That brown Serendipity imitated an emergent pupa hanging just below the surface. Ralph Cutter’s classic flame-orange Martis Midge pattern was designed to imitate the emergent phase of the blood midge, during which it is struggling to break out of the surface film. It and similar patterns such as the Spotlight Emerger have shucks of Krystal Flash or Antron fibers that hang from the rear of the imitation’s abdomen, down through the surface film. If we had some or had known about this pattern at the Lake Davis emergence, we could have fished an emerger, as well, covering the important areas in and just below the film where fish like to feed.
While traveling along the learning curve of midge fishing on still waters, I’ve picked up some tactics for targeting fish in the upper water column when they are selective about the size and color of small midge larvae and pupae.
I like to use unweighted brown, red, olive, or black Serendipities made with tightly twisted Z-lon, which gives a realistic segmented body, and with a small conical, trimmed deer hair head. They are very effective when targeting cruising trout that are taking emerging midge pupae, perhaps because the flies have a slow sink rate.
One way to hold your fly just in or below the surface film is to grease your tippet. Put some f ly floatant, silicone grease, or even unscented ChapStick on the last 6 to 12 inches of the tippet. It will keep the end of the tippet in the film and the fly in the right area.
If you want to get a bit lower in the water column or work down slowly, use a pupa pattern that is weighted with a glass or small metal bead along with a 9-foot 3X leader that has another 4 feet of 4X or 5X tippet. Cast far out and away from your float tube or boat, and wait. You may or may not see a swirl or bulge, depending on the depth of your fly, but often, your line will start moving in a rapid, exciting way. When striper fishing with shad or bullhead bait, we call this a “runner.” If instead you get no take after waiting a minute or so, start a slow hand-twist retrieve. Bring it in 25 feet and cast out again, working in a fan-shaped pattern.
A favorite tactic evolved from a simple fly that I was shown by a Putah Creek angler. It consists of a short, 4-to-6-millimeter segment of small-diameter red rubber band, tied with a single wrapping point on a light-wire, scud-type hook. I’ve used it effectively at times when you can see cruising trout in clear mountain lakes. Cast it ahead of highly selective cruising fish that have rejected other offerings. Use a long leader with a light tippet, and try to lead the fish and allow the fly to sink to its eye level as the trout nears. A variation of this method uses a small San Juan Worm made from the thinnest-diameter ultra chenille in red or brown.
During the spring, when trout may be egg-bound because there are no tributary streams in which to spawn, sometimes they cruise ledges made by receding water levels and wave action. You may find this situation more often this year, because of the drought. I wade out as far as possible and estimate or measure with my rod tip the depth of the ledge. I back off and set my midge pupa six inches to a foot above that depth under a small pinch-on Palsa red or chartreuse indicator that is the size of a big aspirin. You can also use the rubber-band fly, a small San Juan Worm, or a simple generic pupa imitation made with a wound peacock herl body and a white ostrich or a white glass bead head. Cruising fish find such patterns hard to resist, especially when offered at or just above their eye level. You can extend this tactic out into open water where you think fish will be or if you can see them cruising just below the surface.
One of my favorite stillwater tactics involves the use of an attractor fly — a cicada imitation — and a dropper off of its hook bend with one or two small flies, often a midge pupa. I use a cicada pattern that has a black foam body above a hook shank that is wound with copper wire. It has a white hair wing with a few strands of Krystal Flash above that. This pattern seems to have uncanny fish-attracting powers, perhaps because of the iridescence of the copper. Fish go nuts when they see it and often will dive bomb the fly from above. Jay Fair emphasizes the attractive powers of copper in a fly, as well as iridescence, such as is supplied by green or bronze peacock herl or the iridescent blue body of a Patriot attractor fly and found in water boatman and aquatic beetle patterns. Beetles and many insects and baitfish worldwide have iridescent body colors.
I am comfortable fishing the cicada anytime during the day. I start with a midge dropper tied 3 feet off the cicada hook shank. I put floatant on the cicada to make it ride higher and like to toss this rig on a floating line into wind foam lanes or flat slicks using a 5-weight or 6-weight rod. If there’s no action within 10 minutes, I add another dropper segment off the first midge that is another 8 to 12 inches below the first. If the first dropper is black, such as a Zebra Midge, I often go with something in a different, contrasting color, such as red or olive. In evening fishing, the first takes are usually on the dropper flies, but as the sun lowers in the sky, fish attack the cicada. It’s then time to cut off the droppers. Occasionally, you will get a double.
I rarely allow the cicada to sit in one place for more than a minute. Before picking up for your next cast, try drawing the rig toward you slowly for a foot and, after a pause, another foot. The consequent rise of your dropper fly imitates the natural movement of emerging pupae and may bring a strike. Cast as far as possible. The “drop and plop” arouses the curiosity of the fish. You also can use chironomid patterns as trailers behind Woolly Buggers and other streamers.
Studying midge life cycles and adding patterns and techniques to your repertoire will make you a better stillwater angler. In the next issue, we’ll discuss fishing a deep-water chironomid rig. It’s not as simple and mindless as some would have you think.
