Hooked On Pupae Studious Fly Fishers Find Chironomids Are In A Class By Themselves When It Comes To Duping Trout

Smart anglers pause when old-timers anchor nearby because they know a free lesson is about to begin.

In this case, however, the old-timer should have taken time to observe.

He dropped his anchor last week a couple of casts away from Brian Chan, the fisheries biologist responsible for waters in south-central British Columbia. Another experienced local fly fisher was sharing the same bay on Stump Lake just south of Kamloops.

The old-timer cast, let his line sink, and stripped in what must have been a streamer pattern such as a leech.

Over and over he cast and retrieved, using a method that probably has caught countless trout at a different time or place.

This day, the fish refused his offerings while Chan and the other angler hooked and released rainbow after rainbow.

Pride prevailed and the old-timer eventually motored off. Surprisingly, he left without asking Chan the secret to his success.

“It’s no secret,” Chan said, pointing to the squadrons of swallows swooping over the bay. “Look at the water from a fish’s perspective. Chironomids are hatching like crazy.”

Big trout go bonkers when these tiny aquatic insects swim up from the depths in profusion.

Adult chironomids, also known as midges, were flying off the lake surface, blowing in the wind and splattering like rain drops on the back of Chan’s jacket, leaving little doubt that chironomids might be on a trout’s mind.

Chan, with his 25-year practice in aquatic science and his affinity for fly fishing, has become a respected authority on keying fishing techniques to the chironomid life cycle.

He’s convincing.

Three lunker trout had fallen for his first four casts using a half-inch long chironomid pupa pattern over a shoal at the north end of Stump Lake.

“This is pretty good fishing,” he said in a classic slice of Canadian understatement.

From eggs that sink to the bottom of the lake and settle in the mud, chironomids develop into worm-like larvae. Eventually, they become pupae and, when water temperatures are appropriate, they swim with a painfully slow undulating motion toward the surface.

This harrowing journey provides a bountiful meal for trout in many lowland lakes throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Within seconds after their thorax breaks the surface film, wings unfold. They struggle to drag their abdomen out of the pupal shucks, which remain in the water once the adult midges fly away.

Chironomid adults resemble mosquitoes, although they don’t bite.

Male chironomids swarm in dark balls around shoreline brush to attract females emerging from the lake. After mating, the females return to the lake and give trout one last shot at a meal as they drag the tip of their abdomen in the water to deposit their eggs.

“Some days, the trout will focus on other bugs, like mayflies, damselflies, dragonflies-nymphs or adults, but studies have shown that rainbows almost always have chironomids in their stomach,” said Gordon Honey, a Kamloops-area fly-fishing guide.

“I always have chironomid patterns with me, especially in the spring and fall.”

Water temperatures from 50-62 degrees are prime conditions for chironomids to emerge, Chan said.

Eastern Washington fly fishers regularly resort to chironomids on favorite lakes, such as Amber near Cheney, Bayley near Chewelah, Chopaka near Loomis, Dry Falls near Coulee City and Lenice near Vantage.

Indeed, anglers have been preaching the virtues of chironomid patterns in this state for 35 years.

The Kamloops region of British Columbia, however, stands out for its concentration of trout lakes where midge techniques are applied.

“I oversee 2,000 lakes, 1,200 of which hold fish,” Chan said. “About 25 percent of those fishing lakes are stocked, the rest are wild fisheries.”

About 90 of the fishing lakes are managed with special regulations, including bait bans and reduced limits, to provide quality fishing.

Quality is a subjective term. Stump Lake, for instance, is under general regulations with a six-fish daily catch limit. The lake is 20 minutes from Kamloops and bordered on one side by a paved highway.

Yet not one of the 15 or so fish Chan boated that day weighed less than 2 pounds. Several ranged to more than 4 pounds.

And Stump isn’t officially considered one of the region’s “quality waters.”

“We are blessed with incredibly productive waters,” Chan said, explaining why a lake with a six-fish limit could produce so many lunkers.

The region also has plenty of lakes prized by anglers looking for easy limits of pan-sized fish.

Traveling anglers, however, usually are chasing the chance for bigger fish at lakes such as Campbell, Island, Lac des Roches, Leighton, Lundbom, Pass, Roche, Tunkwa and White.

“They’re all good fly-fishing lakes with fair numbers of fish and some sort of restrictions,” Chan said.

First-timers who haven’t developed the touch at these lakes often are frustrated by fish that break their leaders on the first surge.

Chan brought an 18-incher to his net to show why.

Initially the fish didn’t seem extraordinary until Chan reached to remove the hook from its mouth. His hand didn’t come close to going around the fish’s impressive girth.

“That’s why we compare our fish in pounds rather than length,” Honey said.

Various trout species are stocked in the Kamloops region, but in the case of rainbows, only native strains are used, Chan said. Some of these strains have the thrilling propensity to leap from the water, regardless of whether they are on or off a hook.

Brook trout are stocked into about 35 lakes. Since 1996, all of these stocked brookies, and many of the rainbows in certain waters, have been sterilized to increase their longevity.

“These fish have been growing to more than 5 pounds,” Chan said.

Catching trout of this size when they are keying on chironomids requires minimal gear, but a certain amount of forethought.

Before heading out to big-trout waters, a chironomid angler should: Stock up with a few fresh leaders ranging from 9 to 16 feet, plus fresh spools of tippet in 3X, 4X, 5X and 6X, and strike indicators.

Prepare a selection of larval, pupal and adult patterns in various sizes and colors, weighted and unweighted.

Include clippers for trimming leaders and flies, hemostats for pinching barbs and removing hooks, plus items such as a hook file, soft-mesh landing net and a small aquarium net to catch insects for matching colors and sizes.

Equip a boat with anchors at bow and stern.

Chan is a master in preparedness and technique, but that doesn’t mean trout will always take his offerings.

They seemed to get more picky as the hatch progressed that day, forcing Chan to move occasionally, and change patterns.

Green pupal patterns worked for a while, then red with black ribbing, then chrome with black ribbing. At one point, the rainbows fell regularly for the Ice Cream Cone, a pattern featuring a black body with a white bead head.

“They just swim around with mouths open gorging on pupae during a hatch,” Chan said. “The trick is to find the pattern that catches their attention by standing out from the naturals, but not so much that the trout reject it.”

Scooping an aquarium net in the water, he pulled out numerous wiggling chironomids in several colors.

“They’re all emerging at once, but sometimes the trout seem to zero in on one color or size for a while.”.

The fish that day seemed to be working in water ranging from 3 to 9 feet deep. Chan used a 12-foot leader and applied a strike indicator to match the depth. When fishing in 9 feet of water, he fastened the indicator, which functions as a bobber, 9 feet above the fly.

In deeper water, Chan will fish with leaders up to 25 feet long, requiring a well-timed cast and a large loop.

“My formula for leader length is the depth of water plus 20 percent,” he said.

Generally, he’ll start without an indicator in deep water, a method known among chironomid anglers as “fishing naked.”

After a cast in, say, 15 feet of water, he might count to 90 to let the fly sink before he begins a very slow hand-twist retrieve.

On successive casts he’ll experiment with shorter countdowns until he figures out where the fish are feeding in the water column.

“I usually begin with a long count because trout tend to be bottom oriented,” he said.

Even with the countdown method, many anglers fasten an indicator at the end of the fly line to help detect strikes.

Fishing pressure likely will be heavy in the Kamloops region this weekend, which is Canada’s Memorial Day holiday, a week before the same observance in the United States. A cool spring has retarded the normal insect hatches by a couple of weeks, and the fishing should be excellent.

By mid-week, however, few anglers are likely to be on many of the lakes in the sparsely populated region.

“This is an incredible time to fish chironomids,” Honey said, but they’re not particularly glamorous in the minds of most fishermen.

After the holiday, he said, a lot of fly-fishers will be waiting until the hatches of mayflies and the fabled flights of large “traveler sedge” caddis that send trout into a frenzy.

Honey chuckled at the thought and said, “If you have chironomids in your fly box, you don’t have to wait.”

IF YOU GO Angler resources Lodging and services: Kamloops Tourism, 7 Victoria St. W., Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada V2C 1A2, telephone (250) 828-3311. Books: “Flyfishing Strategies for Stillwaters,” By Brian Chan, $14.95; “Morris and Chan on Flyfishing Lakes,” by Skip Morris and Brian Chan, $24.95 (to be published in July). Both books are available from Frank Amato Publications, Portland, Ore., (503) 653-8108. “Flies of the Northwest,” by The Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club, $24.95, available at Spokane-area fly shops. Videos: “Flyfishing Strategies for Stillwaters,” By Brian Chan, Volumes 1 and 2, $25 each. Order from Stillwater Productions, P.O. Box 374, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada V2C 5K9. Guides: Gordon Honey, Lookout Road, Lac le Jeune, SS2 S1 Comp 40, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada V2C 6C3, telephone (250) 828-1286. Fly shops: Wilderness Fly Fishing Outfitters, Kamloops, (250) 372-3311. Licenses: Fishing license are available at fishing shops and many gas stations in British Columbia. An eight-day license for non-Canadians costs $32 in Canadian funds, or about $22.30 U.S. Maps: For a free Kamloops Forest Distirct recreation map, contact Kamloops Forest District, Rt. 1265 Dalhousie Dr., Kamloops, British Columbia, V2C 5Z5, (250) 371-6500.