The Original Recipe
The fishing of chironomid pupa patterns in still waters for trout has a relatively short history, and initially the methods of tying artificials were broadly similar to those for other flies, using dubbing and other soft materials. It was in 1992 that Kelly Davison, a fishing guide and outfitter in Coquitlam, near Vancouver, decided to try a new approach and created an entirely new family of flies using a distinctive white bead head and a ribbed thread body.
BRITISH STILL WATERS
Trout may well have been perceiving small spider and nymph patterns as chironomids for decades, but the first true pupa pattern was reputedly tied in the 1920s by Dr H.A. Bell for fishing Blagdon Lake, one of Britain’s first reservoirs. After studying the life cycle of the chironomid there he designed the Blagdon Buzzer with a black wool body, gold tinsel ribbing to provide the segmentation, and a tuft of white wool at the head to represent the gills. The pattern is still in use today.
By the 1960s and 1970s the number of reservoirs and managed still-water trout fisheries in Britain had increased considerably and so had interest in this form of fishing. Arthur Cove had already introduced his pupalike version of the Pheasant Tail Nymph, and Frank Sawyer himself had brought out the Bowtie Buzzer, which hangs vertically in the surface film. Being held on only by the gill-like bowtie at the end of the line rather than a knot, it swings loosely on a gentle retrieve and resembles a midge pupa breaking through the surface tension.
Writers such as C.F. Walker, Brian Clarke and John Goddard introduced the angling public to the world of chironomid fishing and to new patterns, including Goddard’s Suspender Midge Pupa, which uses a foam ball to keep it almost horizontal in the surface film, like a midge about to emerge. Highly effective on still waters, it soon proved successful on rivers in very small sizes when trout and grayling are taking tiny surface flies, or “smutting.” At around the same time, Geoffrey Bucknall used black and white horsehair to create a striped pattern called the Footballer Buzzer.
By the end of the 1970s buzzer fishing was firmly established in Britain and it remains a mainstay of the stillwater—and particularly the reservoir—angler there today.
Still waters in England were traditionally the “coarse” angler’s territory, but the introduction of trout to reservoirs and lakes has attracted fly-fishers and led to the development of new flies.
The Life Cycle of the Chironomid
Given that a significant proportion of a stillwater trout’s diet can be composed of chironomids—as much as 40 per cent in the course of a year—it is surprising how long it took the fishing community to latch on to this enormous family of insects, with an estimated 10,000 species worldwide. Known as buzzers in the UK, chironomids are mosquito-like non-biting midges that spend the majority of their lives in water—as eggs, larvae and pupae—before emerging as winged adults.
The eggs of the chironomid—up to 3,000 per adult female—are laid on the surface of the water and then sink to the bottom. In some species, the larvae that hatch from the eggs create tubular homes in the sediment, where there can be up to 4,000 larvae per square foot of lake bed. These larvae, which stay close to the lake bed, tend to have some red coloration due to the presence of hemoglobin, and these are referred to (in the UK) as bloodworms. (These are quite different from the real annelid worms of the same name that are popular among bait-fishers in the USA.) Bloodworm patterns can be as simple as a red-wrapped hook fished just off the bottom. In other species the larvae are free swimming and range in color from very pale through green to brown.
The pupae, which are much larger than those of mosquitoes, are of much greater interest to anglers. When conditions are right and water temperatures are sufficiently high the larvae pupate and thousands of them ascend slowly through the water column. Trout and other fish, as well as aquatic insects such as water boatmen and Dytiscus larvae, feed on them voraciously at these times, and chironomid or buzzer fishing almost always refers to fishing patterns that mimic this stage of the insect’s life.
Once at the surface the pupa lies horizontally and the adult, looking very much like a winged version of the pupa, emerges into the air from the split pupal shuck. The adults fly to the shoreline where they mate in huge clouds—emitting the familiar buzz that gives them their English name—and the females soon return to the water to lay their eggs, often forming clumps of several flies in a group. Fish feed on these egg-laying females too, and small dry patterns such as Griffith’s Gnat can work well at this time.
This style of angling has had a strangely separate and yet parallel course of development in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and most markedly in British Columbia, Canada, where new patterns abound and techniques are constantly refined. Little wonder, then, that this was the birthplace of a style of chironomid that has revolutionized this class of fly.
Aside from a few largely unsuccessful attempts, there was little in the way of North American chironomid fishing in the first half of the twentieth century. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that Dick Thompson, a federal fisheries biologist in Washington State, created a breakthrough pattern in a moment of frustration. Fishing a small high desert lake south of Ephrata with a friend, he watched fish rising everywhere without any sign of a hatch and was unable to persuade the fish to take any of the usual favorites. When, at long last, he caught one he examined its stomach contents “and found lots of black, white-striped pupae with little white collars near the head.” Sounds familiar? With his vice clamped to the steering wheel of his car he did his best to simulate them, using black wool with a silver rib and a little white ostrich herl at the head. It was an immediate hit, and the TDC (Thompson’s Delectable Chironomid) was soon being used by members of the Washington Fly Fishing Club and then across the region after Thompson published an article describing the fly. Many anglers, however, gave up on it because it wasn’t working for them, and it took a while before fishing techniques—essentially a painfully slow retrieve and new ways of placing the fly at the right depth—caught up with the TDC.
Other chironomid patterns soon followed, and most of them included the white fiber gills that seemed to be a vital part of the attraction for trout. These are fussy to tie, and it was Kelly Davison, a BC fishing guide and outfitter, who in 1992 came up with the novel and much simpler idea of giving his chironomids a small white bead head (initially he got his sons to use white spray paint on a batch of black beads strung out on monofilament line, which proved extremely messy). When he tested his creation on one of the many lakes around Kamloops, which are famous for their chironomid hatches, he had barely begun lowering the fly into the water when it was taken by a trout.
As well as having gills, pupae also appear to accumulate a small amount of gas beneath the skin, which may assist them in their ascent and serve to free the burgeoning adult from the pupal shuck, and this can give the pupa a luster and degree of translucency. The white bead and shiny surface of the Davison’s artificial may also emulate these characteristics. Whatever the case, his Ice Cream Cones (also know as Snow Cones or Snocones) have given rise to an entire family of flies in every size and color and they are found in almost every chironomid angler’s fly box.
Tunkwa Lake, one of BC’s richest, is famous for its huge chironomid hatches in the spring. Chosen as the venue for World and National Fly Fishing Championships, it holds plenty of rainbows over 5lb (2.3 kg).
This TDC, tied by Steve Schalla of the Fly Fishing the Sierra website, has a body of black beaver dubbing in place of the black wool and retains the white ostrich herl gills. It is still a popular pattern and has served as the basis for many variations.
It is not surprising that both Dick Thompson and Kelly Davison created their chironomid patterns for use in high-altitude lakes in the rain shadow of the Cascades mountain range. There are literally hundreds of these lakes, stretching from northern California to southern British Columbia, and they offer ideal conditions for chironomids—fertile, nutrient-rich waters with silty lake beds and a long growing season—and in many lakes the abundant midge larvae and pupae provide trout with the bulk of their diet, virtually year-round.
Patterns for these highly productive lakes, some of which hold rainbows up to 10lb (4.5kg), have been developed by tyers such as Brian Chan and Phil Rowley. As a provincial fisheries biologist, Brian managed the region’s recreational stillwater trout fisheries for more than 30 years, and he has applied his extensive knowledge of trout ecology and entomology to fly tying and fly-fishing techniques. Both he and Phil Rowley, a professional flytier and a member of the gold medal winning team at the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships in 2007, are the authors of countless web and magazine articles, as well as several books (some of them together) and DVDs. They both offer fly-fishing instruction and appear on national television, including co-hosting a fly-fishing TV series. In addition to some well-known chironomids, the flies they have created cover a range of stillwater patterns, including dry flies, nymphs and leeches.
Generally tied on a #10 2XL or 3XL hook, Brian Chan’s Ruby Eyed Leech has a cone head in front of a red glass bead, with a maroon body of blended black and red sparkly synthetic seal dubbing.
