March Midge Madness

As the weather warms and winter looses it's grip look around... there may actually be some bugs. Most trout streams have some sort of midge population, and when the big bugs are not around the trout focus on these little nuggets of protein. Trout must eat a lot of these little beauties to gain any sort of energy, so this spring increase your fish catching odds and buy some small hooks and tie a few midge flies.

My last trip to the stream I was happy to see the banks covered in something besides snow. Black is a popular early season midge color.

Many times if there are a lot of adults around you can catch fish in numbers on pupa and emerger patterns. Take out a fly and hold it up to a real bug... is it close? Many early spring midge flies are relatively big, so try hooks from #18-#24.

If you are lucky you can witness trout rising to these little bugs. Try this adult midge pattern, it is thread and two wraps of hackle... that's it!

My first dry fly fish of 2010 came to the net connected to #22 black midge emerger. Many times when you see small early season rises (sips) they are taking midge emergers in the film.


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