The Importance of Chironomids ( Midge)

My early years of trout fishing began in the late 1950’s. At that time, the streams I fished held numerous wild Brown trout, averaging eight to ten inches. Both wet and dry flies were the ways to catch these wild beauties.

It was not until the late 60’s that I fished a natural lake that also contained wild Browns. Brown trout found in lakes are cruisers. They know were to locate the abundant food sources that are found close to the lake bed. They know how to home in when a hatch takes place, which often will be midge, caddis or mayfly. Most often it will be chironomids, which are a food source available 24/7. For those of you who have never experienced a rise of fish to a midge hatch, there is nothing like it. Fish cruise the surface with a typical head and tail porpoise-type roll as they take the emerging pupa trapped in the surface film, which is where your fly also needs to be. And for the most part they are not easily fooled, unless you get it right.

At this time in my life I had begun to make a living as a professional fly tyer, supplying flies to fly shops in London, the famous river Test Mill and my own customer base. At that time the standard midge pupa known was the innovation of one Dr Bell, who fished a well known lake in the UK called Blagdon.  He realized that in order to catch those surface feeding fish a fly that in some way represented the pupa was required.

Bells buzzer as it was known is a simple fly to tie--a black floss body with a silver rib, a few tufts of white hackle fiber to represent both the caudal fin and thoracic breathing appendages. In many ways, it is very close to a Zebra midge without the bead head.

My experiences fishing still waters and the importance of the midge furthered my interest to produce better looking midge pupa, as it did others including John Goddard, a friend of mine, known also for the Goddard caddis. John developed a number of new concepts, the major one being the suspender buzzer. A midge pattern that had tied to it a poly ball trapped inside section of nylon web cut from a woman’s nylon stockings, hence the name of the fly. The suspender midge would float in the surface film and await a cruising fish.

For my part, I produced fly patterns that represented the emerging pupa, and the parachute midge, which was a pupa with a wound head hackle that enabled the fly to hang down in the surface film. Another concept was to overwind the fly body with stretched plastic taken from a bread bag, since at that time no such thing existed as scud back or any other synthetic material of that nature. If this was wound over different colored thread bodies, it would in some way imitate the sheen that the natural pupa exhibited.

Chironomids are the most widely dispersed aquatic insect of which there are many species.  They are found in both fresh, brackish and saltwater environments. The majority of the larger species are found in lake systems, and can reach sizes of 2 to 3 cm. They vary widely also in color. Species found in moving water systems are generally small, in some cases so small there is not a hook produced to copy the natural. Larva of midge can vary also in color, including red, brown, olive green and tans. The more common used by fly fishers is the bloodworm, which l might add has nothing to do with the San Juan worm.

In our rivers systems here, chironomids are of the utmost importance. For it is when we are fishing low water situations that the midge patterns come into play.  It is also when we see fish surface feeding to the emerging pupa and adults. By and large the largest emergences take place during the hours of dusk and into dark, be it low or high water, 365 days a year.

During high water flows, the situation is a little different. Not often will fish be seen rising to the surface unless they can be found in a slow back water eddy. But they will take a pupa fished at depth. This was one of the reasons why I resurrected some of the midge patterns that has served me well fishing still waters back in the UK. The Whitetail and Prism midges fished at depth in high water may catch a few fish but nothing like the numbers that a pupa tied on size 10/12/14 hooks sizes will.

In some cases I also changed from the original materials I used. Materials we have today are better  Many of them are able to survive 50 fish or more hooked on the same fly.   Bodies tied from feather herl have little long term survival, even with a solid wire ribbing. We also have the options of bead heads; but
I do still prefer at times lead under bodies instead of bead heads.

In many ways we can imitate chironomids as close copy artificials.  Scud hooks closely imitate that natural form that pupa exhibit. We can also closely imitate segmentation and color definitions,  add appendages that imitate the mobile extremities of the pupa, the transitional stages of emergence and the winged adult.
We can add means to enable our pupa to float in the surface film, as well as enabling it to sink. Few other imitations of the same species allow these options.

If I were restricted to a range of nymphs and crustaceans to fish our waters at all levels, without a doubt midge pupa would be at the top of my list, closely followed by sow bugs, GRHE, and Dynamite worms.

My wet fly/ soft hackle/ streamer list would be another matter.

Tight lines all.

Davy.