Simon’s Midge

Isn’t fly fishing a wonderful pursuit. There are so many side angles (pardon the pun) to our sport. Everything from beautiful fly rods and reels to all those other things we seem to love using and collecting.

Personally, apart from the fishing itself, I love to collect old fly boxes, full of course. I have a stack of those. The older flies therein are tied on thick and heavy hooks. Some of these have hook-eyes made from gut. I have dry flies and wet flies, but nothing in these old boxes that resembles the ever-popular ‘emergers’ of today.

In the past few years some good and practical emerger patterns have been described in these pages, all designed to take advantage of that vulnerable stage when the aquatic nymph or pupa hatches into the flying adult insect. They offer all the pleasures of dry-fly fishing but with the body of the fly hanging down just below the surface to tempt the trout. Some of the more enduring emergers have included Hans van Klinken’s ‘Klinkhamer Special’ (FL#6), David Dodd’s ‘Shaving Brush’ (FL#22), and Bob Wyatt’s ‘Deer Hair Emerger’ (FL#26). Others include my own ‘Head and Shoulders’ emergers (FL#31/#32). Now we have Simon Taylor’s deadly little midge to add to the collection.

Simon Taylor and his young family live in northern Tasmania, so he doesn’t have to go far to hone his fishing skills and try out his fly patterns. Hatching midges can be the most difficult of all ‘emergers’ to imitate. By all accounts Simon does extremely well on these little no-hackle flies. The pattern is a good one and deserves to be tried and used.

Simon first started using it 15 years ago when trying to develop a pattern for midge feeding trout on Tasmania’s lakes. He based his flies on the English midge pupa patterns that he had seen and read about when researching loch-style fishing. As Simon prefers to catch midge feeders on dries, he tried different wing posts to make his pupa float. Possum (he likes possum) ended up being the best and cheapest.

Simon originally tied his midge emergers using tinsel, but with the development of new and better materials he started experimenting with different colours. He prefers the green bodied version on weedy lakes such as Arthurs, Little Pine and Penstock. The orange body is reserved for rocky lakes such as Great Lake and Lake Augusta, which both have rainbows as well as brown trout.

Simon says he doesn’t think the trout care much about colour, it’s just the way he likes to use them. He suggests fishing the midge as part of a two fly set-up, tied on the point, and it works best when attached with a loop knot, allowing full movement. His dropper is usually a small black parachute dry.

The slim nature of the body makes the fly ‘set’ quickly so it ‘hangs’ as soon as it hits the water. It is a very durable fly, but as with all good flies made using possum, he says the wing needs to be fur from the tail of the possum, not the body, as the tail fibres offer better buoyancy.

The seal’s fur used and teased out for the thorax, adds to the silhouette and helps float the fly.

SIMON’S MIDGE

HOOK: Kamasan B100 #16 or #14

THREAD: Black 8/0

RIB: Fine red wire

BODY: Olive or hot orange Krystal Flash or Flat Diamond Braid

THORAX: Black seal’s fur

WING: Claret possum tail for green bodied fly and natural possum tail for orange bodied fly