One Month ’til Midges?

One Month ’til Midges?

Spending the week in Western Washington as the hard rain has got me thinking…One Month ’til Midges?

I did not start out with this exact thought. It started with the hard rain, and being thankful that it was raining because I like rain. I grew up on the wet side and it brings back memories. Fond? Oh I don’t think so, just after you have been gone for a length of time from anyplace you look back on it more fondly than it actually was.

So I was loving the rain, then thinking about past winters in sunny Southern Florida. I sat down in that sunny side of my consciousness for a good long while. The splash from a passing semi-truck shocked me right back into Montana winter.

15F to 45F for the week here in Central Montana. Average. Winer is great for trout spey, great for nymphers, but not so great for the dry fly anglers.

Then I had a dashing vision of hope flash through my guide sized brain. Your choice. Feel free to choose either the high or low intelligence answer. I agree with you on both.

Sometimes the Midge comes off in February.

Not really January, sorry.

But the middle of February has shown us good to great early season midge dry fly angling. I’s say a couple times int he past ten years. I do remember one of them during the early years at the shop, I think 4 or 5 that John and I were driving around in the late afternoon with a half box of Budweiser between us staring at all of the fish rising…with not a soul around.

Sometimes those fish feed. And not one human bothers them. It is healthy; for fish to rise without us pounding on their heads.

So take a drive up the river if you are headed through Middle America selling vacuum cleaners, pick up a tall boy, and drive the river in search of those lonesome midge gulping trout.

Lots of them.