Posts tagged Midges

With snow in the forecast I didn’t think much about fly fishing this weekend, in fact I was thinking bird hunting or some late season deer rut.  Saturday found me chasing birds in the morning and after that I had the whole afternoon to hit the river. As I drove up the canyon I though what a beautiful day to be out, it had snowed earlier masking the trees in a blanket of pure white. I couldn’t help thinking back to last seasons amazing winter midge fishing that I missed so much. As I stepped out of the truck I was instantly greeted by the canyon’s bitter cold breeze. Wow, I thought it is going to be pretty tuff fishing on the hands today. (Cause anyone who knows me, knows I hate to wear gloves and only do on the coldest of days) I got to my spot, tied on my outfit and my hands were already done…I could barley move them and they had that uncomfortably hot feeling. I made a couple casts with my nymphs at the end of a run, when I looked behind me and noticed the water boiling with rising fish. By this time it had started to snow again and I though no way am I changing my whole outfit again!!! But as I watched 50 or more rising browns the excitement of small flies, light tippet, and sippers overcame my frozen hands. I took my sweet time re-tying my set up to make sure it was right. I decided to go with an #16 orange asher and a WD-40 as my emerger. I thought that the asher would help break up the hatch and the WD would be a perfect match for the smarter-picker fish. These flies did the trick and after a few missed hook sets (Ok, way too many) a small brown fail to the asher. Just as I thought things were starting to heat up, I caught a tree behind me and had to once again re-rig again. This time I sized down the asher to a #18 and used a brighter orange and I dropped a #22 para adams behind.  This set up was deadly, I hooked more hungry browns than I could count.  In fact I got to the point where I had to put on my mitts, but nothing mother nature could throw at me would push me off  the river.  Days like this where you’re the only one on the river and the fish are rising like it is their last super only happen so often. So as I sat on the banks half-frozen waving my 9ft stick to happy fish, I couldn’t feel any of the cold…I was living a fly fisherman’s dream.