Spring time is here, most of our lakes have thawed out and the fish are very hungry. Its always a great time to fish stillwaters since the fish are close to the shoreline edges of the lakes that have had ice on them for months. These fish are now looking to start putting on the feed bags and fatten up as much as they can. Midges, which in most stillwaters are around 85% of a trouts diet in the spring, are the main food source until other food items start to appear later on in the season. This is a great time for anglers now to sharpen up on your chrionomid fishing skills and have some fun in the process.
I have been working on a new presentation called “Chironomids from Top to Bottom” and I hope in the process I can share some of my knowledge of Chironomid fishing with you so you can go out and be more confident and sucessful this spring on any stillwater you may encounter!
The first and most important part of any fly fishing is your leader setup. Leader setups can be very basic but very complex. Here is one of my chrionomid leader systems for shallow water up to about 10 feet from shore or from your water craft. I only use the same diameter floro or mono because this will make sure you have the most sensative leader from the indicator all the way down to the bottom fly.
It is also very important to have a few different colors of each your fly pattenrs to imitate each migration period of the chironomid life cylce. I would suggest at least six diffent blood midge patterns and 12 different pupa and emerger patterns. The reason for this is because once the fish begin feeding on the midges in their different cycles, you can get fish to take diffrent color flies much faster with certain colors. This of course must be worked out from day to day using trial and error but when you find the right color, you are rewarded with takedowns that will sometimes rival the fun of playing a video game. This technique of using an indicator or floater no cator system can be on of the fastest paced ways of fishing for trout.
I will be doing a meet and greet tomorrow at the “Reel Anglers Fly Shop” in grass valley from 2pm to 4:30pm and will be tieing up some of my midge patterns and leader systems. Just after the meeting I will be speaking to “Gold Country Fly Fishers” on my show “Trophy Stillwater of the Eastern Sierra” Please try to stop on by and lets talk some Spring time Chironomid fishing!
I do love me some Stillwater fly fishing!
Ernie