A floating, ghostly case of a recently emerged chironomid is an auspicious sight under any circumstance, but when it is almost an inch long, with fluffy undulating plumes and clearly defined parts, it is a cause for major palpitations.
These giant empty pupal shucks first appear sporadically in the lakes of Victoria and Southern Vancouver Island during the hot days of late August. One sees them hanging under the surface film, one here and one there, and soon enough one spots an emerging adult chironomid, brightly coloured amber, most likely struggling a little too conspicuously at the surface of the water.
At this point, the evidence is still too scanty and ambiguous to justify any prolonged excitement, but these are certainly uplifting signs in anticipation of the full-blown hatch. When it happens, it may go on with sustained intensity for a whole week or two—but generally, it won't peak until the beginning to the middle of September.
During the height of the hatch, and in the absence of other prevailing food stuff, the trout concentrate exclusively on the rising amber pupae and the emerging winged adults, and they will come to the proper fly with unmistakable deliberation, cast after cast.
I first discovered these chironomids during a rainy day in September and ever since I have called them Autumn Chironomids. Unlike the smaller species of the insect, for which the simplest patterns can be the most effective, a robust chironomid such as this allows the fly tier to indulge in greater variety of form and detail in structure. Apart from the egg, of course, all other developmental stages of a large chironomid—larva, pupa, and adult—can be significant mouthfuls for the trout; and each stage may suggest a very different fly pattern and a distinct way of fishing. During the autumn of my discovery, I explored only the fishing possibilities of the pupa and the winged adult. Investigations on the larva took place the following spring and summer; and with some reading and a bit of speculation, I finally came up with a comprehensive story.
Chironomids are born from eggs, hatching underwater. What comes out of the egg is the first instar of the larval stage, a stage of straight, uncomplicated growth. Usually, it takes four instars, separated by simple moltings, before the larva is fully grown. I found out over the period of a year, with a fair amount of confidence, that in the case of my amber chironomids, the larva can be over an inch long and takes the whole year to reach its full size. It settles on the bottom and burrows into a tunnel, sometimes, particularly over the winter months, fairly deep into the muck. There it finds little oxygen, but it can easily obtain what is available by means of haemoglobin-like molecules which give it a translucent bright red colour, hence the common name "bloodworm." The larva feeds on detritus, or rotting stuff, on diatoms and green algae, and occasionally on tiny invertebrates and other smaller larvae. It probably lives most of its life in the deepest areas of the lake. Besides their temporary and infrequent wanderings away from the bottom, larvae are known to migrate seasonally in fairly large numbers, either because they outgrow their tunnels, or because they exhaust their oxygen or food supply, or simply because they try to find more suitable areas to pupate.
In local lakes some of the most pronounced migrations of the larvae take place during a short period in early spring, just before the lakes turn over by the action of persistent winds. During a time of year when nothing seems to stir the trout, a few warm, sunny days in late March and early April will mysteriously raise the larvae from the bottom and turn the trout's attention to the plentiful bright red bloodworms. I first stumbled upon this furious activity using a February Red Soft Hackle with considerable success, and so I tied a bloodworm pattern not unlike the famous fly—one of the oldest in the book. The alterations are indeed minor, but the more convincing, elongated body, the compactness of the tying thread, and the added weight of head cement send the fly to the bottom like a rock. I fish it at the end of a fast full-sinking line and strip it slowly, twitching it from the bottom to the surface of the lake. The strike can come at any time and the size and fine condition of the fish can be surprising. It is a happy way to start the trout season, and although the balmy weather is often brief and unpredictable, and although the larvae will soon retreat to the safety of the bottom, the Soft-Hackled Bloodworm should not be put away—one way or another, the trout will find and take the naturals all summer long. Twitched right off the bottom, in the deepest waters of a lake, it can bring up some of the most difficult and cautious fish.
When the Autumn Chironomid larvae are fully grown, by the middle to the end of August, they shut themselves into their burrows, and there, over a period of several days, they are transformed into completely different looking insects. They become pupae: nearly developed winged adults, hunched over inside a dry suit, the pupal shuck. With an air bubble trapped around their thorax, the pupae start their arduous and precarious journey towards the surface of the water. Surely the species does not survive because of pupal agility and speed, but rather because of sheer numbers, spread out over a large area of the lake.
The pupa, in design and clarity of form, is a fly tier's dream. From the tail to the head, every structure is well defined and lined up as though it were a natural prescription for an artificial fly. The darker tip of the insect's tail calls for a reddish brown butt, built around the curvature of the hook with brown tying monocord, a length of which is then used as ribbing. The body, or abdomen, tapering towards the tail, can be formed with many turns of amber monocord. Over it, a layer or two of head cement gives it a brilliant, lifelike translucency and brings the fly quickly to the bottom. Brown fibers from a ring-necked pheasant's tail are perfect for the wingcase, and rusty orange dubbing does nicely for the thorax. The wing sheaths, which are quite pronounced in the natural, can be copied with brown goose biots, trimmed to the right shape. Finally, for gills, a short length of white antron yarn can be anchored with a figure eight of the thread just before the brown head and right under the wingcase. The body of the Autumn Chironomid Pupa may also be tied with floss, yarn, or dubbing, but the compactness of the glazed monocord makes it indestructible and determines the way it should be fished. With every little twitch, the fly rises sharply and flutters down again, pirouetting around the shank of the heavy hook and leaving the impression of an actual pupa's wriggling movements. With a fast full-sinking line, I send it down to the bottom and dance it above the weeds.
The pupae usually rise through twenty to thirty feet of water, and the trout are there waiting for them all the way from the bottom to the surface of the lake in three loosely occupied layers. Right above and through the sparse weeds, the largest trout cruise anxiously, solitary in their disposition, fierce and opportunistic, displacing soft competitors, and racing to snap up any moving pupa within sight. Not particularly numerous, with wide patches of the bottom in their claim, and with the best pickings all to themselves, they allow many pupae to elude their predatory network and rise safely straight into the second layer of murderous turmoil. The twelve- and thirteen-inchers are waiting for them in midwater. At this size, hatchery trout continue schooling, a habit which ironically becomes a lucky break for some of the rising pupae. When the trout are busy exterminating the pupae of one neighbourhood, the pupae of an adjacent area manage to sneak by. Of course, there is no conscious urgency in the rise of a pupa; it just keeps rising, unless it gets eaten. And some of them will be swallowed right at the surface, a split second before they hatch, after a moment's hesitation against the wrong puff of wind, gobbled up in a violent swirl by some clone of a little excited trout hosed into the lake perhaps only the day before. Finally, many of the lucky stragglers, flying away as winged adults, will be cut off by squadrons of swooping swallows that rarely miss their mark. A chironomid's predicament is not a laughing matter.
It may sound like a cruel joke of nature, but a chironomid's entire existence is geared towards becoming food for all the creatures that surround it. And if there are those that manage to escape death in the digestive juices of a hungry predator, they do so simply to maintain a steady food supply for one more year in the life of their marauders. Surprisingly, there are tremendous numbers of chironomids that beat the odds and survive to complete their life cycle. The females find the males in buzzing, suspended swarms, and mating takes place on the go, quickly and efficiently. After the male has made his contribution and the female has dropped the eggs into the water, they have no further reason to exist.
The pupae may rise and hatch into adults all day long, but it is at dusk, when the sun hides behind the mountains and the sky turns crimson, that they come up with dauntless vigour. On a calm night there is hardly a ripple on the lake, until the Autumn Chironomids start hatching in profusion. You see them poking upwards, as though squeezing gently through tight imaginary holes on the surface of the water, still curled up inside their folded wings. As they slide their abdomen free of the discarded pupal shuck, they stretch their legs and wings in one flowing, synchronised motion, and take off in casual, unhurried flight like tiny helicopters buzzing in the distance. Soon after, the lake comes alive with rising trout.
At this point, the trout realign their territorial hierarchies, from their daytime stratified claims into their nightly intermingling plots close under the surface of the water; and there they hover, large and small, poised to pick out the dark shuffling silhouettes against the remaining brightness of the sky. Smooth rings reveal their bulging as they cut off the progress of the pupae seconds before they hatch. During the tranquillity of the early evening rise, the Autumn Chironomid Pupa, tied on a long leader and floating line and stripped slowly under the surface, can reliably entice some of the stronger and pluckier fish. But what eventually caught my fancy was a different kind of rise, a violent rise of earnest opportunism that could be brought about only by the already hatched adults.
A noticeably large number of adult chironomids displays a stupefying knack for calamitous demise. Despite their heroic ascent through the hazards of the depths, for one reason or another, they ultimately fail to break their bondage to the water. Some can be seen dishevelled, bouncing hopelessly up and down on the surface of the lake, each time lifting themselves no higher than a few futile inches. Others, as though irrevocably affixed to the surface film, buzz frantically at high speed, cutting erratic, fatal trajectories clearly visible from far away. Others spin endlessly around a trapped or crinkled wing, and others still just sit there, fully hatched and dry, but completely at a loss as to the actual purpose of their wings. In every instance, one can barely count to ten before the hapless insect disappears under the misty explosion of a trout's rise.
The challenge here is to design a dry fly that can float high on the water, stir up noise, and be nearly indestructible. Because of its undisputed floating quality, spun and clipped deer hair is the obvious choice of natural material for sculpting the long, thin abdomen. The parachute style hackle, tilted over the eye of the hook, creates enough disturbance on the water to make the fly noticeable; and, all in all, the pattern has come through some vicious assaults solid and unruffled. I call this fly the Parachute Buzzer. "Buzzers" is the name commonly used by the British for their chironomids, and I find it very apt in describing the nuptial flight of the winged adults. Considering the size of these insects, the American term "midges" is decidedly an understatement. The British may be flattered by my choice of words, but they would certainly raise an eyebrow if they knew how I fish this fly.
The idea is to imitate an insect in distress on the surface of perfectly still water, and I resort to an arguably egregious use of the dry fly in order to accomplish my objective—I troll my dry fly. Besides covering the rising fish within my reach, I drag the thing from one area of the lake to another. Albeit unconventional, it is a wonderful way to catch a fish. The glimmering wake of the fly is visible from far away, and the build-up of anticipation is at times maddening. Relief seems like the sure thing, but I am always caught off guard, constantly startled by the spraying flash of a showy and solid take.
Eventually, the hatch peters out as gradually as it first appeared. By the time the chilly winds of autumn have dispersed the empty pupal cases, the first instars of the larvae will already be drifting among the planktonic creatures of the lake. Over the winter, they will settle inside their bottom, muddy tubes and will molt and grow steadily, through spring and summer, into large, enticing bloodworms. The following fall will bring again their transformation into pupae and winged adults, and with the laying of the eggs, one more perilous and ultimately fatal life cycle will have been successfully completed.
I have now fished this hatch for ten successive seasons, in five different lakes. One could probably rely on finding it at the same time and in the same spot, year after year. It is an event well worth exploring with a fly—the hidden struggles that take place underwater are usually a lot more complex and lively than the external signs might suggest. And one's curiosity is bound to be rewarded by many surprises and discoveries, which, fortunately for me, have yet to be exhausted.
END NOTE:
Loucas Raptis is an illustrator, writer, fly fisherman and frequent contributor to A River Never Sleeps. He lives in Victoria, where he and his wife have just had a baby girl. He’s currently working on a book ....and is looking for a publisher.
