Midge
Midge
Black Beauty
Pat Dorsey’s tailwater midge — a thread body, a wire rib and nothing else it does not need.
$18.99
$1.58 per fly
Available at Amazon
- Hook size
- 20
- Imitates
- Midge
- Best water
- Spring Creek, Tailwater
- Colour
- Black
- Pack
- 12 flies
Fishes for
Brown TroutRainbow Trout
How to fish it
Fishing notes
Winter: run it as the bottom fly on a two-nymph rig under an indicator, deep and slow through wintering pools. During an emergence: move it up, fish it 12–18 inches under a dry or in the film on a greased leader. Set on anything that looks different.
About this fly
Pat Dorsey’s tailwater midge — a thread body, a wire rib and nothing else it does not need.
The Black Beauty is the pattern that made Colorado tailwater midge fishing make sense. Trout in cold, clear, heavily fished water eat midge larvae and pupae year-round, and they eat them because the naturals are small, dark and completely unremarkable. This fly is the same: black thread, fine wire rib, a wisp of thorax.
Fish it deep in winter when nothing is hatching, and in the film during a midge emergence. It is the one nymph worth having in the box in January.
Key features
- Pat Dorsey’s tailwater midge pattern, proven on hard-fished technical water
- Black thread body with a fine wire rib — deliberately plain, which is why it works
- Size 20 matches the midge larvae trout eat through the coldest months
- Fishes as a larva deep or a pupa in the film depending on how you rig it
- The winter fly when there is no hatch and fish still have to feed
Further reading
- The Winter Midge Game on a Tailwater 5 min read
More patterns
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Nymph
Emerger
Midge
Nymph
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