Midges and trout fishing. Where do these 2 worlds intersect? If you’re not familiar with angling, this is a formidable question but if you’re a flyfishing genius, it’s an intellectual walk in the park.

 Our correspondent Josh Mills called me up the other day with information regarding trout fishing in the transition seasons.  His emphasis and recommendation was to go midge all the way. “Flyfishing is an all year round pursuit for me. As a fly fisherman gets going, one of the food sources that you need to key in on for trout are midges. Midges I just really small bugs, almost like the size of a gnat, but coming up through the water column they are quite an important food source for trout especially on the edge seasons like early spring, fall and winter. We’re talking small stuff, size 16,18, 22, stuff like you feel like you have to have a magnifying glass to put on but to fish with a midge when you see just little rising dimples and stuff like that try and emerging midge or maybe if you are nymphing, put on a  tail water tiny or a brassy or something like a zebra midge in black and silver and you might clue into some fish that are actually feeding when you can’t see stuff like stone flies and cattis and mayflies. A lot of times fish are feeding that they are feeding on very small stuff called these midges and even in lakes in the springtime people fish chronomids which are a version of midges so if you want to get better read up on midges.