Fly Fishing

kory_k · Location: New York, NY

I moved to NY from Utah 3 years ago. Prior to that, I had no experience fishing the east coast for trout. In fact, I assumed when I moved out here it wouldn't be worth it compared to a lifetime spent fishing west coast streams and rivers where I could catch 16-20 inch wild trout all day long and was going to focus all of my energy on saltwater and steelhead. I soon found that I was wrong and there are some great fisheries out here. I have had some spectacular days and found many large, wild fish in this same category on some of the rivers out here especially the Delaware River system but also on a variety of other rivers. One major thing I did notice though is the lack of midge activity in general and specifically the lack of fish being interested in midges. I have caught fish on midge imitations out here but they are far and few between. Now contrast that with the western streams that I have fished in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado etc. where you can pretty much fish a midge nymph any time throughout the year and catch fish on most streams in the west and frequently catch a lot of fish and some extremely large fish. I was just wondering if anybody out east has found anything different or has had any serious success fishing midge patterns (larva, pupa or adult) in the northeast?

bfly · Location: Spencerport, NY

kory_k
This is great!! I have lived in upstate New York pretty much my whole life. And I must say that there are some great streams that have plenty of midge activity year round. I am most familiar with central and western new york streams. And they have fished very well for me through out the years. More specifically the streams out hear in Western New York. I fish two streams(The Oatka and Spring creek) that have great midge fishing all year. I even fish midge patterns during the summer daylight periods. In fact I would guess we catch more fish on small midge patterns than anything else. Midges are also our "go to" pattern for tough trout. And most of our larger trout have been taken on them as well. These are smaller streams with most of the fish averaging around 11 inches or so. But we have taken many trout 13"-16" and a few in the 17"-19" range. And most, if not all of the larger fish have been taken on small midge patterns. Small midge larvae in sizes #20-26 seem to work the best in black, brown and white. But we have also had success with a blood worm pattern in size #16. These streams also have prolific scud populations and small scuds also work really well. Hey...I love to fish the dry as much as anyone else, but when I really want to get into some good trout or good numbers of fish anytime....I nymph fish. In fact, unless there is a hatch going on, I am pretty much always fishing a nymph. And more often than not the pattern is a midge. Or a midge trailed off a nymph. If you ever want more info on streams out here just PM me. Hey don't you have some spring creek down there on Long Island? they would be a great place to fish a midge pattern!