Hope all had a good Christmas . Seems a shame that people wear themselves out during such a time. 

Matt has several guide reports to give us, but I will give a ” normal “size fish report. All his fish are abnormal… abnormally large… Fishing has been tough lately;  the last 4 or 5 days. But at least this evening midges and black flies were on. Thanks to Al Hines of Boone, we got a great black fly larva sampling. One fish was full of them .. from size 32 or smaller to size 22. And  the fish was packed with them. The two I pumped had midge pupae- size 22 in them. I layed a size 22 stripper right up against them, and it was a match. Beautiful little thing, dark brown with goldish segements. My fish were caught on a stripper with NO weight. Then up late several fish ate a size 24 Phase 11 BWO emerger. This fly looks like a crippled spinner to me . It is a very effective pattern. I trimmed the trailing shuck to almost nothing.

I have gone back to the book ‘Midge Magic” to try to get a handle on these midges. This book is DYNAMITE. It shows real midges and Don Holbrook’s  patterns that match them. The beauty of his fly pictures are that they show the patterns wet, set right up against the real midge. Then the materials used are given. Don Holbrook gives us 25 years of studying midges . I am goiung to study the hound out of this book. His black fly larva patterns look exactly  like the ones Al Hines brought in this evening. I am going to tie some tonight and try them tomorrow .

We have a few copies of the Midge Magic book. It cost $29 and is worth a million $. If you want one, give us a buzz at 423-878-2822.

Tight lines,

Rod Champion