Trout rising to midges on a nasty winter’s day

January 27, 2011 — 4:59 pm | Posted by Craig Mathews in Essays & Opinion, Fishing Reports, Fly Patterns, Miscellaneous, Wildlife

Yesterday's weather forecast called for high temps in the low 40's with light winds and sun. PERFECT, so I thought, for finding a midge emergence and trout rising to them. I headed to the river at noon. It was 27 degrees and overcast with winds from the south around 15-20mph...hardly "light" as forecasted. A high overcast ski persisted the entire day, a condition I'd rather have than bright sun for fishing midges. The temps never warmed about 30 degrees, the winds kept coming strong and the midges never emerged. I saw one rise all day...but I did take several fine brown trout on our Muskrat Midge and Rick's Bood Midge before heading home 3pm.

Today's forecast called for high temps of 35 with partly sunny skies and light winds. Arriving on the Madison near West Fork my thermometer never reached 30, clouds persisted and the winds howled. But, the midges came off strong and the trout rose to them.Go figure! I had very good dry fly fishing using Scotty's and Skittering Zelon Midges. Approaching a favorite run, a shallow pool which was sheltered from the gale force winds by a huge boulder, the midges skittered along the suface just below the boulder and the trout rose steadily. I knotted on a #20 Scotty's and had a nice plump rainbow on the first cast...usually bad luck for me as is often the case when taking a fish on the first presentation for this might be tmy one and only fish of the day. Today was an exception as I took several more trout, all rising to midges. I changed spots a couple times when the trout went down. I searched out places that were out of the wind, like the second pocket I checked and found risers. This pocket was protected from the winds by a large snowdrift. As the midges emerged they scuttled along the shoreline just off the snowdrift overhanging from the shoreline and were picked off by the trout. Here I tried a Skittering Midge after observing trout moving to take skittering adults still trapped in their pupal shucks. I stuck with this pattern for an hour or two having taken several nice trout before afternoon temps dropped and the wind picked up even more. I came home. My hands and feet are still chilled, but I had a great time catching rising trout on small dry flies. My audience included water ouzles and their lovely song, a badger that stuck its nose out of a streamside den and then walked down to the river for a quick drink before heading back to its den...(not without glaring at me a short 30 feet away.) Too, I saw ducks and a kite, a Rough-legged Hawk and a cow and calf moose. But most of all, I saw midges and trouts noses as they rose to them; I saw my fly get taken by the trout....I will see this many times in my dream tonight, and dream of spring. It has been a very long winter, even the old-time locals are complaining. I hear them at the Ennis Pharmacy and the West Yellowstone Post Office and other places too. But, this winter I will continue to search for trout rising to winter midges and enjoy the wildlife and work on new fly patterns and complain with the old-timers about our long-windy-cold winter. This is our 33rd winter since moving to Montana....and, no doubt, our hardest-longest-windest......thank goodness for midges and wild tdrout!

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