Bugs of the Underworld
For much of my life, I’ve been swimming in bug stew and watching how fish react to their food. When Lisa and I began our fly-fishing school more than 25 years ago, we started photographing aquatic insects and fish in an attempt to bring the trout’s world into the classroom. It was a good start, but we soon realized that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. We switched from taking stills to shooting video, and over a decade of shooting, compiled enough material to produce the aquatic insect documentary Bugs of the Underworld.
Bugs of the Underworld is not a fly-fishing DVD, but its relevance to fly fishers is obvious. Being underwater and seeing how a bug behaves in its natural environment is by far the best way to learn how to design an imitation and make it behave like the real thing.
Watching an insect in slow motion brings to light many nuances that escape casual observation. Seeing how a giant stonefly nymph tumbles in the flow runs counter to accepted fishing dogma; however, what are you going to believe, urban legend or your eyes?
The following is some of what we learned in the course of 11 years filming Bugs of the Underworld.
Damselflies
Though many anglers fish damselfly nymphs, the most vulnerable stage of a damselfly’s life is when an adult female is laying eggs underwater.
A female damselfly crawls underwater to deposit her eggs onto vegetation. She has rudimentary lungs rather than gills and must carry an oxygen supply with her. Her entire body is cloaked in a film of air that glistens like a mirror and can be seen from long distances underwater.
Once she is done laying eggs, she releases her grasp and allows the buoyant air sheath to float her passively to the surface. She can’t swim, run, fly, or hide, and her brilliant, shiny form is blatantly obvious to the trout. When trout key in on egg-laying damsels, little else grabs their attention.
Unlike adult damsel patterns found in fly shops, with their wings neatly splayed out to the sides like a pinned butterfly, naturals hold their wings tight above their backs to hold a capsule of air. Until someone comes along and sells a realistic pattern, you’ll have to tie your own, which isn’t difficult. All you need is a thin body of braided backing colored with Veniard’s Kingfisher Blue dye—and banded with a black felt pen—with a loop of white Zelon sticking out the back. Forget about eyeballs and other fancy trimmings. It is the general shape, the mirrorlike reflection, and the drifting behavior that make trout drool.
Shake the damsel imitation in a bottle of fine fly desiccant (Loon Outdoors Dust or Frog’s Fanny). The powder repels water to create a shimmering glow around the fly. For fun, poke your finger in the bottle of desiccant and then stick it into a glass of water. The quicksilver sheath coating your finger is amazing. Dry-fly shakes and powders are made from silica (glass) dust and are harmless to you and the environment.
To fish the fly, add split-shot near the tippet knot and cast into your favorite stillwater. Like a little blue angel, the sparkling, buoyant damsel rises, then hovers in the water above the shot. You can jig the fly down and up by making slow retrieves punctuated with long pauses. When the fly no longer sparkles or floats, treat it with desiccant powder again.
Midges
Emerging midge pupae (and some mayfly nymphs) often anchor the tip of their posterior to the underside of the surface film, then arch their backs and attempt to lever, or pry through the rubbery meniscus. I have never seen this described in any of the literature, but it is so distinctive and common across all water types that I can’t help but feel that fly fishers are missing out on an extremely important opportunity. The photo in this article helps convey the idea, but seeing the actual process on video helps you to fully appreciate it.
This arching creates a distinctive U shape, and the surface film reflects an image of the insect’s back. It is the exact opposite of the impression given by typical “hunchback” nymph patterns on scud hooks. Often there are hundreds—sometimes thousands—of arching insects within sight. Most normal patterns look entirely out of place, and are invariably scorned.
I’m at a loss trying to make a suitable imitation, and my hope is that some creative fly tier will be inspired to concoct a realistic pattern. I’m certain this entirely new genre will become a must-have for fishing to selective midging trout.
One of fly fishing’s most pervasive myths is that midge pupae ascend through the water column at less than a snail’s pace. The midge pupae I’ve observed, especially chironomids (chronnies or chromies) race to the surface by using a wavelike undulating motion that turns the entire body into something like a dolphin’s fluke.
I’ve followed midges for 30 or 40 feet underwater, and they never slow down. At times they ascend so quickly that I can’t safely follow them upward using scuba gear. When there is a slight breeze, a great technique for fishing chironomid pupa imitations in stillwaters is to use a floating line with a leader/tippet combination that gets the imitation to the right depth (sometimes 30 feet or more).
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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