March 2022 - 26

A
rare stroke of luck in a fundraising raffle when
my oldest son, Micah, was a first-grader found
me the happy recipient of a fine 4-weight fly rod
and reel. I did a little fly-fishing in high school (poorly)
but passed subsequent years happily engaged as a
spin-angler. But the prize rekindled a desire to give
fly-fishing a whirl. Prior to our next outing I informed
Micah I'd be fly-fishing while he cast his spinning rod.
" Well, dad, " he said, dark eyes looking
intently into mine then darting in the direction
of a house fly crawling on the window,
" shouldn't we catch some? "
Several minutes of explaining passed
before the lad accepted the idea that fly
anglers don't fish with living flies. However,
even seasoned adherents of the sport don't
always realize their imitative flies often fail
to represent a real fly. Flies belong to the
Diptera order of insects, a name stemming
from Latin terms meaning two-winged flying
insects. Most of the bugs carrying the word
" fly " as part of their name (stoneflies, caddisflies,
mayflies, etc.) that frequent hatch
charts on Wyoming rivers are actually aquatic
insects from other orders.
However, real flies are represented, with
one family being exceedingly important to
fly anglers who fish in the winter and early
spring. Midges, tiny true flies of the Chironomidae
family, comprise a notable portion of
trout diets in many locations, especially fish
that inhabit rivers below dams. In such tailwaters,
midges sometimes account for more
than 50 percent of the average trout's diet and
are available at seasons of the year like late
fall to early spring when other bugs are not.
" Midges are important during the shoulder
seasons and in the dead of winter, " said
Jason Burkhardt, fisheries biologist with the
Wyoming Game and Fish Department in
Cody. " They also can be really important to
fish in alpine lakes in the summer. Midges
have multiple reproductive cycles throughout
the seasons so trout are habituated to taking
them about any time. "
Free-flowing rivers normally host more
species and types of aquatic insects than tailwaters.
Midges are eaten happily by fish in
free-flowing streams, but might be likened
to a single item in a smorgasbord versus a
dominant food source. In fact, midges are
found pretty much anywhere there's water
of any kind.
" They can live in severely degraded habitats
where sediment, nutrients or other pollutants
are present, " Burkhardt said. " They
aren't nearly as sensitive to water quality as
stoneflies or mayflies. Midges are kind of like
cockroaches. When things go bad they'll be
the last ones standing. "
26 | March 2022

March 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2022

March 2022 - 1
March 2022 - 2
March 2022 - 3
March 2022 - 4
March 2022 - 5
March 2022 - 6
March 2022 - 7
March 2022 - 8
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March 2022 - 26
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