St. Vrain Angler

Fly Of The Month

November!

November: Our fly of the month is Dale's Midge Adult. This is a pattern that I started tying close to 20 years ago to fish the Frying Pan during late summer evenings, after dusk. There was always a bit of light on the upper river, just below the dam, and large trout rose to emerging midges. We always enjoyed fishing the last rising fish of the day.

As time has gone on, the pattern has become one of our favorites for local tail water streams, as well as for lakes and free-stone streams. It just works. Treat the fly with a few shakes of a desiccant powder, such as Loon Dry Shake, which we find works very well to keep the fly on the surface and visible.

The fly should be tied in several sizes, from #18-24 or smaller. It depends on your tying ability, and your ability to tie such a small fly on with cold fingers! The majority of the time, hungry trout will eat it when they are eating midges.

Here's the finished fly: Dale's Midge Adult.

This copy uses a TMC 101 hook, with the barb removed! The body is black tying thread, and we like to use either 6/0 Danville, or UTC 70. I also like tying the body with a stripped peacock or hackle quill (grizzly, dun, black, olive dyed grizzly). The wing is white antron, but you can also use a CDC feather, or a combination of CDC and antron. There is peacock tied in under the thorax, and that is palmered with grizzly hackle. The tier may also use dubbing in black, olive, tan or gray, and use dyed olive grizzly, blue dun, dun grizzly, ginger or brown hackle. Be creative. Here's how you tie Dale's Midge Adult.

1. remove the barb, which is very important on small flies; mount the hook securely in your vise. Start thread at the 2/3 point of the hook shank and wrap thread back to the bend of the hook, then forward to the 2/3 point. Cut off tag end of thread. (A nice way to tie a thread body such as this is to use a light thread and leave the tag off the back. Color the tag with a permanent black or olive marker, then rib the light thread body with the darkened tag: lovely!)

2. Select a small amount of white, dun or yellow antron (for visibility) or a white or dun CDC feather. Tie down the wing material on top of the hook shank, moving the thread to the very back of the eye of the hook. No need for much thread. Watch for bulk!

3. Select one or two pieces of thin peacock herl, and measure a dry hackle feather, which may be from either a saddle or a cape. Measure the hackle so it is equal to about the gap of the hook. Tie in the peacock, then the hackle. You can see from the picture that the thread is now at the back of the thorax! Wrap the hackle to the eye, then back to the wing, tie off with one wrap of thread, then palmer the hackle through the peacock. Make two turns going to the eye and two going back to the back of the thorax.

4.Tie off hackle - see the next picture - and trim away excess peacock and hackle. Make two adjacent wraps of thread back toward the bend of the hook.

5. Pull the excess wing material that is over the eye, back over the thorax and tie down with two adjacent wraps moving forward, and two adjacent wraps moving toward the bend of the hook. Now, whip finish where the thread is, behind the thorax. Use about 5 wraps of thread. You may apply a small drop of head cement to the thread if you'd like.

Trim the wing to length, and clip the hackle off on the bottom of the fly so it will float in the film.

Now, tie more!

Fishing Tips:

Small flies with barbs are hard to remove from trout, which often get the fly hooked in their mandibles. If you've seen fish with missing mandibles and ripped up mouths, you know it is a sad site. Just take the barbs off, then when you hook fish, keep even pressure on them so they don't get off. Use a Ketchum Release tool to remove hooks, and don't handle the fish with your warm, dry hands.

When you fish with small flies, it is often difficult to spot the fly on the water. Fair enough. During the cooler, shorter days of late Fall, Winter and early Spring the sun is low on the horizon and its rays reflect from the water, giving it an oily, dark sheen and lots of glare. Get on the side of the stream you are fishing on which you can best see onto and into the water. Get as close to feeding fish as you can so short casts will work. If necessary, use a small dot of orange or yellow Bio Strike from Loon, attaching it several feet above the fly. You'll see the spot and it should lead your eyes to the fly.

Accurate casting is required when fishing small flies. Generally, trout will not move very far to intercept such a small morsel of food. Since midges usually emerge in abundance fish express distinct patience as they await the next bite on their food conveyor - the current. When you spot a feeding trout try to determine which lane it is feeding in and make the fly land above the fish in that lane so the current will float the fly into the fish's cone of vision. Anticipate the rise to your fly, and wait to set the hook until the fish has taken the fly, then turned down.

As a rule of thumb, determine how deep the trout is holding. Then, note where it rises and how far that is from its holding lie. You'll need to cast about 2 times the depth that the water is above that spot. Make sense? If the fish is holding in one foot of water, about one foot upstream of where it actually intercepts the fly, you'll want to cast two feet above the holding position, or three feet above the rise. And so on. This works pretty well for all dry fly fishing scenarios - again, as a rule of thumb. Often, trout that are rising to midges will be holding a few inches below the surface and the fly may light very close to the fish.

When you are out there, observe how the fish respond to natural insects, your fake, the way your bug floats on the water, and to you in the water. Use stealth: scared fish do not eat! Fish that feel secure will eat, and eating fish can be fooled with flies.

Be of good cheer, and have a fine time. Midge fishing is fun.

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