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| Soft-Hackle Midges tied by Steven Bird |
For
those of us fishing winter water, midges are often the only game in town. Peacock
herl has long been known as a good material for imitating adult midges, & there’s
no denying the effectiveness of the Griffith’s
Gnat. And I’m certainly far from the first to experiment with wet versions of
that old standby, seeking imitations for the chironomid’s emergent stage. That
is water already covered, & with some good patterns. Yet it is nice to
discover things for yourself, as I did one late afternoon years ago when I
encountered a blood midge hatch at a Washington
lake right after ice-out. Cutthroat were ringing the surface everywhere, I had
no clue what they were eating & nothing I was trying would bring a strike. So
of course I started throwing everything I had in the box, which in those days
wasn’t much of a variety. Included in the meager collection was a couple of #16
Gray Hackle Peacocks, the old-timey kind with tails of red hackle. I tied one
on, casted it & was immediately onto a fish. Then another one, & so
on. Not being one to leave well enough
alone (damn near a fish a cast) I decided the fly might work even better minus
the ridiculous red tail. Wrong. The catch rate immediately dropped off. I
clipped it off & tied on the one remaining unaltered version & was back
into fish again. I couldn’t figure it out. The trout were acting very
selective, yet were willing to eat an imitation with a red tail, that looked like
no insect I knew of. I kept a couple fish for the table, & when I cleaned
them at home I checked the stomachs & found them chokablock full of
blood-red, wormlike larvae of varying lengths, from a quarter to over an inch
long. I later learned that these were blood midge larvae, & that the old
Gray Hackle Peacock is a fine imitation of the emerger. Since then, I’ve had
good success with variations suitable to different species of midges simply by
altering the tailing material to simulate the various nymphal shucks. The tail-less version pictured is a Sylvester Nemes creation, which he describes as a sort of soft-hackle version of the Griffith Gnat.
Soft-Hackle
Midge Emerger/Stillborn
Hook: #16-#20 (I tie a lot of my
midge imitations on caddis-style hooks, the shorter shank allowing for a larger
hook.)
Thread: Black
Tailing (Shuck): Red hackle fibers for blood
midge, or natural mallard flank fibers or pearl midge flash for the rest
Ribbing: Fine wire
Body: Peacock herl
Hackle: One turn of gray partridge
or grizzly hen hackle, stripped on one side (For smaller sizes, I’ll often clip
some fibers from a feather & arrange them around the hook shank as a collar),
& finish
Flyfish the Upper Columbia/NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com
