Tying Hill's No Name Midge Variant

This is a variant to the No Name midge video we posted several months ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0V8ve_gHI ). Specifically, we show a dubbing mix that we like for wings on small midges.

Fishing midges can be tricky business, especially in winter. While the fish can be finicky and the fishing can be technical, the flies are typically the opposite. Most midges are simple and quick to tie, even if they are small. We fished this pattern growing up and we originally saw it in Roger Hill’s book, Fly Fishing the South Platte. Two things have changed since that time….you can buy pre-stripped quills and UV resin greatly improves the durability of this fly. What hasn’t changed is this pattern’s productivity:

Tying Notes:

• There are numerous ways to make the thorax on this fly: hackle, spikey hare’s mask or squirrel dubbing….we like to make a mix of dubbing that includes CDC, xelon fibers, and ice dubbing.
• If you use a dubbing mix, we like to put a bit more than “sparse” and then pull the dubbing upward to create a wing.
• Roger Hill came up with this brilliantly simple bug. In his book, Fly Fishing the South Platte River: An Angler's Guide, he lists the following combos as his favorite: muskrat and grizzly hackle, quill body and grizzly hackle, olive biot and dun hackle.

Recipe:

• Hook: Firehole Sticks 419, sizes 18-22. https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-FIRE315.html
• Thread: SemperFli Nano Silk 18/0, dark. https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-SNS18.html
• Tail: optional. If imitating a small mayfly, consider two split micro fibers. https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-CCMF.html
• Body: Polish Quills Stripped Quills, Natural. https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-PQSPQ.html
• Wing: Dubbing mix of equal parts CDC barbs (this are waste feathers from other flies where we’ve pulled the barbs from the center stem, https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-PQWNCDC.html ), shuck yarn or some other xelon (https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-RWSHUCK.html ), and pearl ice dubbing (https://www.discountflies.com/product/M-RWICE.html ). We put it all in pile and then cut it with scissors.