Cold weather Midge hatch

Greg Armstrong

Greg Armstrong

Go Green - Fish Bamboo
Forum Supporter
Wife and I went for a drive up into the hills on this snowy, cold but beautiful day. We came upon this lake and was amazed at the prolific midge hatch, but even more amazed at the numbers of trout feeding on them at the surface.

The cell phone photo doesn’t come nearly close enough to doing justice to the extent of the rises…

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Very cool.
Years ago when our south sound lowland lakes used to freeze more often, there would be some incredible hatches right as the ice came off.
The fishing was great. It was like the bugs had a pent up energy from being trapped under the ice.
Gary Sandstrom at the Morning Hatch turned me on to that fishing.
SF
 
Took the dog for a walk on a large deep but closed lake and watched fish rising everywhere on Sunday morning. So eager, I took the boat out with fido before the game to Munn hoping they were doing the same...15ft down they'd eat a midge as typical :cry: I'm ready for high lakes and spring opener!
 
The Shoshone river that flows right along side of Cody has midge hatches all winter long. I was blown away when I was informed I could dry fly fish this time of year. Fish gotta eat and Mother Nature will provide!
 
Biggest question I have here in Colorado, why don't the real trout rise to adult midges?

Only fish that are ever rising are the way too heavily planted rubber trout.
 
At one time you could fish the upper section of the Metolius River year around. It does snow there from time to time and I remember a number of fishing trips where adult midge patterns (BWO) were the flies to use. And yup, they had no trouble landing on a snow covered log. It probably helps that the Metolius is a danged cold river and to the bugs, there may not be much difference in the temps between January and June.

There's only a few rivers like the Met that I can think of where you can catch trout with a dry fly during a snow storm.
 
GAT said:
At one time you could fish the upper section of the Metolius River year around. It does snow there from time to time and I remember a number of fishing trips where adult midge patterns (BWO) were the flies to use. And yup, they had no trouble landing on a snow covered log. It probably helps that the Metolius is a danged cold river and to the bugs, there may not be much difference in the temps between January and June.

There's only a few rivers like the Met that I can think of where you can catch trout with a dry fly during a snow storm.
Click to expand...

Cowlitz Bottomfeeder said:
It’s not only midges. In the freestone rivers of the Cascades you can find #12 brown or black stoneflies crawling out on the river stones.
Click to expand...

The Lady M, 30 January 2016:

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On the bank

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Ahhhhhhhhhh

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I was full of Cheers (apologies for the hijack)
 
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