Fly fishing writer Ed Engle remains an Underground favorite, largely because he’s a real predator on the water , and his writing is largely free of the ego and artifice that clogs the efforts of so many fly fishing writers.
His latest column in the Boulder Daily Camera is typically clean and clear, focused as it is on winter midge fishing, a pursuit that – in the style of predators everywhere – Engle’s stripped down to the bare bones:
It may sound strange, but my strategy on these difficult-to-catch fish is dogged simplification. I use a “soft” 9-foot, 5-weight fly rod, a hand-tied 12-foot leader of my own design and a single size 22 or smaller fly pattern that imitates a midge pupa or, less often, some sort of low-riding dry fly or cripple pattern.
I would probably be more successful if I fished a tiny dry fly and trailed the midge pupa imitation behind it because I could use the dry fly as a strike indicator. But I’ve caught enough midging trout using two-fly techniques and it was a good day for me when I finally figured out that what I like most is catching a trout in the most direct way possible.
My most memorable fish have been the ones where there was as little between me and the trout as possible. That means no junk or gizmos attached to the leader other than a single small, unweighted fly that I’ve tied myself and the application of a no-nonsense aesthetically pleasing, but practical, cast.
The icing on the cake is when the trout takes my artificial fly in precisely the same way that it has taken the naturals.
I wish I’d written that.
In truth, this is precisely the kind of fly fishing I thought we’d get when the Upper Sacramento was opened to winter fly fishing.
Oddly – unless I’m completely missing the right time slots – we almost never get fish working midges in the winter, though it’s something we often get in the summer. Go figure.
I’m not complaining about the Upper Sac’s winter BWO hatches: challenging fish, clear water, small “technical” flies, long casts – these are a few of my favorite things (unless I’m doing poorly, when it kinda sucks)
As further proof that Einstein’s theory of relativity applies to fly fishermen, it’s clear that in the Underground Universe, one trout caught on a nearly invisible #22 emerger is more satisfying than one caught blind nymphing.
My infrequent trips to Idaho’s Big Wood River in winter have produced the kind of minimalist, tiny-fly fishing Engle’s talking about, and yes, every time I approach the Upper Sacramento in winter, I wonder if this is the time I’ll find them eating midges.
See you on the river (chasing midges), Tom Chandler.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not quite sure what the upper Sac looks like in the winter, but the Big Wood is “ideal” midge water – a lot of meandering oxbow bends pushing into protected undercut banks, slow moving water, riffle guts that dump into deep buckets, heavy foam along current seams, and a lot of downed and uprooted cottonwoods to provide plenty of cover. Fish seem to “pod up” on the river when all these things come together. I’ve fished the Big Wood a couple times already this spring and haven’t been disappointed. The midges really seem to come on in March – just as day time temps are warming up into the low 40′s (nights in the mid to upper (20′s). I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s either a winter midge river or it’s not. The Big Wood definitely is. If you have water like this on the upper Sac they should be there. Greg(Quote)
The Upper Sac is steeper (and typically deeper) than the Big Wood (it flows down a rocky canyon), but in truth, it looks like a river that would host good winter midge hatches.
It just doesn’t seem to with any regularity, and perhaps that has something to do with the regular winter blowouts. Then again, maybe they come off early in the morning on days when I’m after the BWO hatches, which seem to hold up for most of the winter. Tom Chandler(Quote)
From your description it sounds like the midges should be there. I guess it’s just a matter of trial and error, exploration and figuring out what time frame works. I’m sure the blowouts have something to do with it, but then again midges are about as resilient as cockroaches.
I fish in the winter quite a bit and it seems there’s a really slim window to find them. Some days I get a half an hour of good top water, and other days I may get lucky enough to have them all afternoon. Regardless, they keep bankers hours and are somewhat unpredictable.
From my experience, fish seem to be more active if the weather is consistent (good or bad). When things spike and dip, it seems to put things off. Greg(Quote)
Greg: Another scenario is possible; due to the most-of-the-winter-long BWO hatches, the trout may just never really get on the midges (they won’t need to), though I rarely see enough midges going at any one time to truly matter. Tom Chandler(Quote)
Very true Tom — that would make the most sense. Fish “should” gravitate to the bigger bugs on the water (however, I’ve seen the opposite happen). I’m going off on a tangent here, but one time on Silver Creek, there was an epic PMD hatch mixed in with a few pseudocleons and wouldn’t you know it, the fish literally picked through the mats of size 16 PMD duns to eat the emerging size 26 pseudocleons. Long story short, that was a very frustrating day. Good stuff. Greg(Quote)
Greg: I’ve never seen even a mediocre midge hatch on the river in the winter, and an email from a biologist suggests the rapid elevation loss and substrate of the upper river really aren’t suited to hosting massive midge populations. That seems like the long and short of it. Tom Chandler(Quote)
Freestone streams like the Upper Sac don’t necessarily produce the best habitat for chironomids. The ideal winter midge fishing river is a flat, slow, tailwater river with plenty of muddy bottom pools…a river like the Lower Owens in Bishop CA…which just happens to be going off right now with huge hatches of bwo’s and midges-a-plenty! Dave Neal(Quote)
“My most memorable fish have been the ones where there was as little between me and the trout as possible”
Wow! I just had an epiphany. frogmorton(Quote)
Dave Neal hit it on the head. Most good midge water is mud bottom and weedy (like the HW). I have seen very little of that on the Upper Sac. Sandy sections yes, but that doesn’t seem to work.
David David Roberts(Quote)
Just curious, but if you get midges in the summer, where do they go in the winter? I understand the midge/mud bottom theory, but I’ve fished several higher elevation freestone and tailwater streams loaded with midges (Big Wood included). I’m not trying to play stump the chump or anything like that, but I’m curious to know why fish would be on midges in the summer and not in the winter. I think Tom’s explanation is best. As he described, the BWOs hatch throughout the winter so fish may simply not be that interested. Either way, I should probably get back to work. The cubicle calls… Greg(Quote)
Greg: I don’t think it’s a choice on the part of fish – I simply don’t see much in the way of midges in the winter. Maybe they go to Florida for the cold weather. Tom Chandler(Quote)
That’s a different way to do it! Ice Fishing Man(Quote)