MONTERVILLE - The trout drifted backward on the gentle current, carefully eyeballing the tiny speck that floated on the surface immediately overhead. With almost comic disdain, the persnickety fish turned its attention from the speck and sank slowly downward, pausing only to eat a tiny insect larva that just happened to be drifting by.
MONTERVILLE - The trout drifted backward on the gentle current, carefully eyeballing the tiny speck that floated on the surface immediately overhead. With almost comic disdain, the persnickety fish turned its attention from the speck and sank slowly downward, pausing only to eat a tiny insect larva that just happened to be drifting by.
"Gotcha!" yelled the angler, as the trout felt the sting of a minuscule hook and bolted for freedom.
A minute later, the fisherman netted the 10-incher. "See what I mean? Eighty percent of the time, the fish ignores the dry fly and takes the submerged fly."
Five students, standing nearby with fly rods in their hands, nodded their heads almost in unison. They'd heard about catching trout on the dandruff-sized flies known as "midges." Now they'd seen exactly how to do it.
Chad See, manager of Randolph County's Elk Springs Resort, had spent the better part of the preceding hour teaching a free streamside seminar on midge fishing. He knew from experience that most fly fishermen are reluctant to fish with flies smaller than half an inch or so in length, and he knew that fish on the nearby Elk River often feed on insects an eighth of an inch in length or smaller.
"We simply have an outstanding population of midges here," he explained. "It's one of the few streams in the state where fish key in and feed on midge hatches. It's not easy fishing by any means, but fishermen who take the time to learn the techniques can extend their prime fly fishing time past the spring mayfly hatches and well up into the summer."
To better prepare anglers to fish for the Elk's fussy trout, See conducted what he called "Midge Week" at the resort. He offered free midge-fishing lessons to anyone who cared to show up for them.
Five fishermen took him up on the offer.
The first thing he taught them was to use lighter-than-normal rods, lines and leaders.
"A lot of people fish with rods designed for 5-weight or 6-weight lines; those are too heavy for this kind of fishing," See said. "They'll present the fly just fine, but they're usually too stiff to protect the super-thin leaders used for midge fishing. Fishermen who use heavier rods will break off a lot more fish than fishermen who use 1-, 2-, or 3-weight rods.
"The leaders we use here on the Elk are very fine. Most people consider a 'standard' trout leader to be one that ends with a 4X, 5X or 6X tippet. The tippets we use taper down to 8X, 10X or even 12X - finer than a human hair and with a breaking strength of about a pound."
One of the most important lessons See imparted to his students was the value of fishing more than one fly at a time.
"Fishing with two flies helps so, so much. Most of the time we fish 'dry-and-dropper' rigs with a No. 28 dry fly on the surface and a No. 28 midge pupa subsurface. Trout often rise to the dry fly and ignore it, but end up eating the dropper. The percentage of fish that take the dropper is really high - probably around 80 percent."
MONTERVILLE - The trout drifted backward on the gentle current, carefully eyeballing the tiny speck that floated on the surface immediately overhead. With almost comic disdain, the persnickety fish turned its attention from the speck and sank slowly downward, pausing only to eat a tiny insect larva that just happened to be drifting by.
"Gotcha!" yelled the angler, as the trout felt the sting of a minuscule hook and bolted for freedom.
A minute later, the fisherman netted the 10-incher. "See what I mean? Eighty percent of the time, the fish ignores the dry fly and takes the submerged fly."
Five students, standing nearby with fly rods in their hands, nodded their heads almost in unison. They'd heard about catching trout on the dandruff-sized flies known as "midges." Now they'd seen exactly how to do it.
Chad See, manager of Randolph County's Elk Springs Resort, had spent the better part of the preceding hour teaching a free streamside seminar on midge fishing. He knew from experience that most fly fishermen are reluctant to fish with flies smaller than half an inch or so in length, and he knew that fish on the nearby Elk River often feed on insects an eighth of an inch in length or smaller.
"We simply have an outstanding population of midges here," he explained. "It's one of the few streams in the state where fish key in and feed on midge hatches. It's not easy fishing by any means, but fishermen who take the time to learn the techniques can extend their prime fly fishing time past the spring mayfly hatches and well up into the summer."
To better prepare anglers to fish for the Elk's fussy trout, See conducted what he called "Midge Week" at the resort. He offered free midge-fishing lessons to anyone who cared to show up for them.
Five fishermen took him up on the offer.
The first thing he taught them was to use lighter-than-normal rods, lines and leaders.
"A lot of people fish with rods designed for 5-weight or 6-weight lines; those are too heavy for this kind of fishing," See said. "They'll present the fly just fine, but they're usually too stiff to protect the super-thin leaders used for midge fishing. Fishermen who use heavier rods will break off a lot more fish than fishermen who use 1-, 2-, or 3-weight rods.
"The leaders we use here on the Elk are very fine. Most people consider a 'standard' trout leader to be one that ends with a 4X, 5X or 6X tippet. The tippets we use taper down to 8X, 10X or even 12X - finer than a human hair and with a breaking strength of about a pound."
One of the most important lessons See imparted to his students was the value of fishing more than one fly at a time.
"Fishing with two flies helps so, so much. Most of the time we fish 'dry-and-dropper' rigs with a No. 28 dry fly on the surface and a No. 28 midge pupa subsurface. Trout often rise to the dry fly and ignore it, but end up eating the dropper. The percentage of fish that take the dropper is really high - probably around 80 percent."
At one point, See opened his fly box and showed the five anglers an assortment of Elk River midge patterns. "Most of the patterns we fish are tied on hooks that range from size 28 to size 32," he said. "They're some of the smallest flies you'll ever see fished. Fortunately, they're pretty simple to tie. Most of them are just a few turns of tying thread and a little bit of fur or feather."
To illustrate why the flies needed to be tied so sparsely and small, See led the group over to a riffle and picked up a couple of submerged rocks. They crawled with tiny larvae, most of them roughly the size of a hangnail.
With the basics out of the way, See stepped out onto a nearby rock shelf and demonstrated how best to present a midge rig to a rising trout.
"See how the fish are suspended just under the surface?" he asked. "When they're up shallow like that, it's a good bet they're taking midges. You don't have to cast very far ahead of them when they're that shallow. You want your fly to land about 18 inches ahead. If the fish doesn't take, let it drift about 18 inches below the fish before you pick it up and cast again."
When a couple of the anglers pointed out how closely See was able to approach the rising trout without spooking them, See pointed out that Elk River fish are remarkably unafraid of fishermen.
"Fishing pressure on this section of river is heavy. The fish have grown accustomed to being approached, and they don't spook like the trout on most other rivers," he explained.
Shortly afterward, he hooked and landed one of the trout cruising nearby. That done, See handed his rod to his students and, one by one, rendered hands-on advice until they too had raised or hooked a fish.
"You can't beat this," said David Sands, an angler from Hurricane. "Once I found out Chad was offering a chance to learn midge-fishing from him, I was determined to take advantage of it. The summertime midge fishing up here can be as good as when [peak mayfly hatches] are on. Now I'll better be able to take advantage of it."
Jonathan Payne of Elkins said the seminar would help him take advantage of the Elk's unique insect activity.
"You can't go any other place in the state and have action like this," he added.
See believes the seminar will help all the students enjoy a couple more months of consistent fly fishing.
"To most trout anglers, summertime fishing means fishing in low water, casting ant or beetle patterns to spooky fish," he said. "Midge fishermen - especially on a stream like the Elk, where midge hatches are prolific and last all year - can extend their season another two months, until [other aquatic] insect activity picks up in the fall."
