Friday, December 26, 2008

Description

The Holiday Midge is a great fly anytime of year but really works well in the winter on tailwater rivers. I caught my first fish in Cheesman Canyon on the South Platte River with this fly. I was using a size #22 Holiday Midge and caught a 22 inch rainbow! Quite a coincidence? I hope you have a fun time tying and fishing this fly which is one of my favorite patterns to fish in the winter.

Materials

Hook: Tiemco 200R, Size: 18-26 Thread: White 70 Denier Ultra Thread Body or Abdomen: Red Ultra Wire ribbed over white Ultra thread Thorax: Red Glass Bead

Step 1

Put a small red glass bead on the hook and then place the hook into the vise.

Step 2

Now, start your thread right behind the glass bead.

Step 3

On this pattern we are using red wire and white Ultra thread, but you can change the colors around to make any kind of midge that you wish.

Step 4

 Now, take a piece of wire and tie it in. To tie it in hold the wire underneath the hook and take a loose wrap of thread around the wire.

Step 5

Take a few wraps of thread (3-4 wraps) over the wire then slide the wire back underneath the thread and take a few more wraps to cover up the rest of the wire.

Step 6

Now that you have tied in the wire, wrap the thread back to the starting point then stop.

Step 7

Then, wrap your thread back up the shank of the hook and to the bead.

Step 8

Wrap your thread back and forth one more time then start to wrap your wire. Try to make your wraps an even distance apart.

Step 9

Now, wrap the wire all the way to the bead.

Step 10

Then tie the wire off witha soft wrap of thread.

Step 11

Now take 3-4 more tight wraps of thread over the wire.

Step 12

Then you can spin the wire in a circle and it should brake off the hook.

Step 13

Now we will take some UV dubbing which will be the thorax.

Step 14

Now loosely dub the dubbing onto the thread.

Step 15

Then you want to dub it tighter so that the dubbing isn’t as large on the hook when you wrap it on. This is how it should look when it’s done.

Step 16

Then wrap it onto the hook. When you wrap the dubbing onto the hook you want the dubbing ball to be a little bigger than the glass bead.

Step 17

Now that you have dubbed the thorax you can whit finish the fly.

Step 18

Once you have whit finished the fly you can cut the thread off of the hook.

Step 19

And walah! This is the finished fly. Congratulations, you have just finished the Holiday Midge. I hope you had fun tying this fly and that you have even more fun fishing it!

Step 20

A close up picture of the Holiday Midge.

Step 21

Here is the very first rainbow I caught in Cheesman Canyon on the South Platte River a couple of years ago on a size #22 Holiday Midge.