The Parachute Midge

Fly season is upon us, and as usual, I am a little too late to fill my fly boxes – especially when the midges have been hatching for several weeks already. Midge fishing is one of the things I look most forward to, and a perfect way of training myself for what to come.

I use the Parachute Midge as a search fly when nothing else works, as a joker when the fish are refusing perfect imitations of hatching insects or as the first fly I tie on my tippet when I have no obvious fly to attach.

When presented on the surface, the fly rides low in the surface and kept floating by the poly yarn and hackle tied in horizontally. I prefer parachute hackling in most flies rather than the traditional horizontally wrapped hackle around the hook shank, because the parachute forces the fly to ride as desired on the surface. It looks more natural for me as well, and belief is the reason we tie our flies the way we do.

I believe a fly’s strength and functionality lies in its simplicity. Preferably I use as less materials as possible in my flies, and the Parachute Midge is kept well inside this belief.

Step One – Put a base layer of black thread back to where the barb is. This is the abdomen/body of the midge.

Step Two –White or grey polypropylene yarn is used as wing. Lay it on the top of the hook shank and secure with some firm thread wraps.

Step Three – Raise the polypropylene yarn to vertical and take collecting wraps horizontally around the base of the yarn.

Step Four – A slightly oversized grizzly hackle is used to imitate legs, and to keep the fly ride correctly. Attach it in front of the fly and take turns horizontally around the poly yarn, and the are both oriented vertically.

Step Five – Use some fine dubbing to make a thorax. I use Superfine.

Step Six – Take hold of the grizzly feather and wind it down the parachute post and tie it off.

Step Seven – Pull the poly yarn backwards and press the base flat and create an edge.

Step Eight – While holding the wing backwards, put a tiny drop of UV resin at the base. Use a bodkin to spread the resin out and onto the wing. Cure the resin with a UV torch.

Step Nine – Cut the wing to length. I use the hook bend as a guide.

Step Ten – When the fly is on the surface, it creates a neat and clean profile. A slim body, a slightly heavier thorax and a wing. Sometimes I even rib the body with a flash strand, making it stand out from the rest of the midges, or even a few strands of red flash as a trailing chuck.