by Scott Blackhurst

The red zebra midge is a term to describe many different small winged insects. There are thousands of individual species of midges. The midge represents the pupal stage of a midge which is a small aquatic insect that is a primary food source for Trout and shoreline birds. They are prevalent in Tail Waters and are a Rockstar to trout anglers. Midges are classified as Diptera, Greek for “two wings,” which is a family of flies known as True Flies. They have one pair of wings with balancing organs called halteres located just behind the base of the wing. There are biting and non-biting midges with most midges being aquatic being highly beneficial and desirable organisms in the ecosystem. They consume and recycle organic debris. They have 4 complete life stages: egg, larvae, pupa and adult. The complete life cycle can occur in as short a time as 2-7 weeks during fall and winter, depending on water temperatures. This combined abundance and frequency makes them a primary food. General colors are green, red and black.

1 – Use whatever hook you have as long as it’s not over…never mind. I usually don’t tie my patterns under s20 as I just can’t see to tie them on! Use sizes 18-24. The sizes above are a s18 scud hook

2 – The color of the midge you’re making. The small the fly, the smaller the thread should be to make the fly easier. The 2 above, I used 70 denier.

3 – Head – use an appropriate bead size for the hook you are using. Usually silver for red, gold for black, and usually, I use black for green midges.

4 – Start your thread just behind the bead and build a slight dam to keep the head at the hook eye. At around ¼ of the way down, tie in the rib you are going to use. Use touching turns of thread going down to the bend of the hook and remember to unwind your thread so the body is nice and flat. I usually go into the bend of the hook.

5 – Now you’ll want to make a nice, tapered body, keeping the thread unwound to make it nice and flat. Some people make the thorax area, just behind the bead, the same thickness as the bead. I don’t as it seems to me, makes the body a little fatter than it should be.

6 – Once you have the body you want, wind the ribbing material up to just behind the bead. Tie the rib in completely…this is one of the reasons I don’t initially build the area behind the bead up, as you usually add in enough thread tying in the rib, that it can get a little, out of control.

7 – Depending if you are going to use UV resin or not, make sure to finish off the fly just behind the bead. The picture I have of the 2 flies. The right side I used a flat, flash tinsel, that I marked with a black marker (on the side that sits against the body) and I used a UV resin. The left side I used a BR size black wire for the rib with no UV resin. I usually use resin to help protect the threaded body so the fly lasts longer.

When I first started fly fishing I used a lot of attractor flies, and one of my favorites was the Royal Wulff. It was easy to see and fish loved it! Over the years as I got into entomology and matching the hatch I moved away from attractor style flies and focused on flies that more closely resembled the bugs in the water and the Royal Wulff gave way to Comparaduns. As a result of matching natural insects, very few of the flies in my box incorporated red, except for the butt of a Dave’s Hopper and a cinnamon ant.

One day while talking with the shopkeeper and fly tier at the old Riverkeeper Fly Shop in preparation for a winter midging trip to the Big Wood River he talked me into buying some emergers that had a mylar red rib—he said they were magic! I took them to the river and they sat in my box while I fished all of my regular flies. I still remember the pool I was fishing because nothing was working that day. Fish were rising and ignoring my fly. Finally, I tied on the new “magic” midge emerger and on the first cast a trout grabbed it and for the next half hour that fly caught fish after fish until it was torn to shreds and the hatch was over. I’ve kept that fly as a memory of that day, and a reminder of the magic of a little red can do.

Over the last 10 years, more of my flies have incorporated red on them, and by far the most effective time to fish red seems to be mid-winter into early spring. And while red on a dry fly can sometimes be magic (I love Dry Fly Innovations Blood Midge fly pattern), I have had the most success with red on my midge nymphs. Three of my most successful patterns have been a simple red zebra midge, a red/black “Deadpool” midge, and a flash-back Spanish Bullet. All are easy to tie and worth adding to your winter fly box--I find smaller sizes from #18, #20 and even #22 flies do the best. Try tying some with a glass bead and use them as a dropper underneath a dry fly early in the hatch.

I’ve often asked myself why red? Some midges have hemoglobin in their blood, and you will often hear them referred to as “bloodworms”. The book Midge Magic by Don Holbrook and Ed Koch is an excellent book, and a must read if you are a midge fishermen. Don spent 25 years studying midge specimens, often from trout stomachs. Their book has some great midge photographs and fly patterns, many which are red.

Another possible explanation for red flies working on rainbow trout in late winter and early spring is fish biology. Red is a key spawning color, used to attract a mate. Studies have shown that stickleback minnows become attenuated to the color red during spawning (which is also a spawning color for them). The rods and cones in the eyes of trout and other salmonids can shift to see different wavelengths, so it is reasonable to assume that a red fly might get their attention as their bodies get ready to spawn (or it all could just be another of Troy’s crazy theories ;-). But whatever the case, red nymphs can catch some BIG FISH! Here is a beautiful rainbow trout from the Boise River that fell for a Deadpool Midge in early Spring—one of the largest rainbow’s I’ve caught on the Boise. And take note: a red zebra midge took first, second and third place in the virtual whitefish derby last year, so make sure to tie some up for this year’s derby!

The moral of this story is: When it comes to sealing the deal, size matters. But when it comes to attracting the fish’s attention, attractor colors can be a game changer. Try some red this winter and see for yourself!

Matching the hatch is one of the hallmarks of fly fishing: Identify what food is available to the trout and fish a suitable imitation. Usually, we think about aquatic insects like caddis and mayflies, and if the adult insect isn’t available to fish on the surface we switch to fishing the nymphal form underneath the water. But there are some food sources that never hatch into bugs, yet fish love to eat them whenever they can. One of their favorite is caviar—that’s right, we are talking about fish eggs!

Some fly fishermen turn up their nose at fishing an egg pattern, likening it to fishing bait (cue Hank Patterson’s rant to Eric Moncada). But really, what’s the difference between imitating a caddis larva rolling along the bottom of the river and an egg? Both are natural food items, and if you know when eggs are in the water you can catch a lot of trout on an egg fly. Of course, while out fishing in the Fall you want to avoid fishing to brown trout that are actively spawning, and it is important to know how to recognize a trout redd and avoid wading through it which could crush eggs. Here is a short ReddUCation Video that BVFF put together that shows what a brown trout redd looks like.

On the Boise River, egg patterns are one of my most productive patterns in late Fall and Winter. Over the years I have fished many different egg patterns but my favorite is the Eggstacy. It is simple to tie and simply out-fishes the others. Eggstacy yarn is available in a variety of colors with my favorite colors being Sockeye and Fl Peach as shown in the photo. Here are instructions for tying the pattern and a video from TightLineVideos on Tying The Eggstacy. Note that when tying a whitefish egg imitation I size down the hook, skip the bead and trim the Eggstacy yarn to make a smaller egg pattern to better match the natural.

Eggstasy Egg Fly Pattern

• Hook: #16 TMC 2457, heavy scud hook

• Bead: Gold, orange or pink 2.5mm bead

• Thread: Fluorescent orange, 70-denier or 8/0

• Body: 3-4 turns of Eggstasy yarn

The Western Green Drake is one of the largest mayflys and a favorite summer hatch on the Big Wood and Henry’s Fork. On the Big Wood River they typically hatch in early July, but on low water years the hatch window moves up to late June and on high water years (like this one) the hatch gets pushed out until mid-July.

Green Drakes belong to the “clinger family” and like faster water than most mayflies—check out the robust legs on the Green Drake nymph shown in the photo! Green Drakes are unusual for mayflys in that instead of emerging from their nymphal shuck at the surface they crawl out of their shucks on the bottom of the river then swim “naked” to the surface. Although the nymphs live in fast water, they migrate to slower edges to emerge, so make sure to drift your dry fly down the slower secondary seams next to the fast water runs.

It takes Green Drakes time to dry their big wings and fly away and I find emergers fish well. My favorite fly pattern for the Green Drake hatch is Scott Sanchez’s Parachute Midge Emerger. I also have good luck with a dropper of an unweighted peacock soft hackle pattern, which imitates the “naked” Green Drake adult swimming to the surface. Before the hatch, a Prince Nymph is a good bet--I think the white goose biot wings are a good imitation of the nymphal case splitting open.

PME Green Drake

• Hook: #10 TMC 100

• Thread: Olive 8/0 Uni-thread

• Body: Peacock Ice Dub

• Rib: Krystal Flash

• Wing: Dark Grey Parapost

• Hackle: Brown (or Grizzly) Hackle

For more information on the Green Drake Hatch on Henry's Fork, see this Fly Fisherman article and listen to this Podcast with Mike Lawson.

Congratulations to BVFF member Bob Harder who recently passed the Fly Fishers International Fly Tying Group Silver Level Award certification. This certification requires a juried examination of six different fly patterns tied by the applicant.

The FFI Fly Tying Skills Awards Program provides FFI members with the opportunity to develop or reinforce their fly tying skills and test their progress against a consistent, standard at three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

At Silver level, tyers must be able to tie a wider range of flies, using more complicated materials and techniques to produce more intricate patterns and closer representations of specific prey species being imitated. The degree of consistency and the standard of the techniques applied must be a clear step higher than at Bronze level.

And yes, that is a lot of thread!!