Fly Tying - November 3, 2025

 

By Greg Walters

Like it or not, the summer weather is coming to an end. On Monday, Oct. 13th, there was snow in Salida (I was there) and even in Eleven Mile Canyon (I have it on good authority). So as the temperatures start to drop, this means one thing for us fly tiers, midges!

Midges are present in all the waterways that we fish here in Colorado, especially in tailwaters during the late fall and winter months. As a fly tier, you should definitely have some midge patterns that are your favorites for the months ahead.

Most midge patterns are very simple and easy to tie. In fact, with just thread and wire, you can tie up a simple midge. Typical thread colors are black, red, brown, cream, and olive. If white thread is all you have, you can use permanent markers to create your different colors.

Simple Midge

A typical hook for midges is the Tiemco 2488 and 2487 in sizes of 24 up to 18 (you can go smaller if you want; I don’t tie anything smaller than a 22). For the simple midge, you want a thread body and wire for segmentation. Start your thread near the hook eye and then tie in a silver or copper wire. The wire size depends on the size of the hook; small to medium are typically used. Wrap the thread over the wire to just beyond the hook bend and back forward using touching wraps, stopping about an eye’s width short of the hook eye. You want to keep the body thin, so don’t overwrap more than needed. Wrap the wire forward with evenly spaced wraps. You want the wire to create the segments of the midge, so don’t space them too close or too far apart (about 4-5 turns). Tie off the wire where you stopped the thread and helicopter the wire to break it (hold the wire after securing it and spin it with a little bit of pressure). Now wrap the thread to the hook eye and build up a small head before whip finishing the fly. That’s it!

Once you have this down, you have many options to create other midges:

• Use a different color thread for the head (whip finish the body thread after securing the wire and tie in another color, e.g., cream body with dark brown head).
• Add a tungsten bead for the head (this is a Zebra Midge).
• Use dubbing for the head (black body, silver wire, and black dubbing creates a Black Beauty).
• Wrap copper wire with touching wraps and a peacock herl head for a Brassie.

All of these imitate either the larva or pupa stage of the midge life cycle. You’ll find other patterns online, including emerger patterns. Simple to tie and build up your fly tying skillset.

Here is a video by Tim Flagler that demonstrates the tying of a basic midge. I use a different thread instead of using a permanent marker. 

Happy tying!