Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Midge stripping is a stillwater technique using an intermediate or hover line, a long fluorocarbon leader and two flies retrieved in very slow six-inch crawls with long pauses. Most takes come the instant the next pull starts, after a trout has watched the flies fall. The guide fishes it about 85 percent of his stillwater trout days.
Jon Easdo manages the services side of Angler's Covey in Colorado Springs, guides year-round, and has fished Colorado stillwater seriously for well over a decade.
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Why are fly anglers moving from rivers to stillwater?
The rivers around Colorado Springs - the South Platte, the Dream Stream, Cheesman Canyon, Deckers, Eleven Mile Canyon - are gold medal water with easy access, which makes them busy all of the time. As the guest's shop owner put it, the river is not going to get any bigger, so the shop began pointing anglers toward lakes and even opened a kayak division. A lake is close to impossible to crowd, and that access widens further with any kind of watercraft, so the same day out becomes solitude rather than a queue.
Why do South Park stillwater trout grow so fast?
Gold medal status on these reservoirs is driven by the quality of the substrate rather than the quality of the fish - better substrate means more bugs, and more bugs means better trout. Two of the three South Park reservoirs never get much deeper than about 20 feet even when full, so sunlight reaches the bottom across the whole lake and the invertebrate life explodes. Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists have measured those South Park fish growing two to three inches a month between May and October.
Where do you find trout in a lake?
Stillwater trout are nomadic and rarely hold in one spot the way river fish do, which is why a lake session tends to run as a burst of fish, then nothing, then another burst. Look for transitions - weed lines, drop-offs, shelves, substrate changes - the same logic as reading seams on a river. Right at ice-off the trout are pushed up on the shoreline where the available food is, and they move out to seek food as the season warms. The deep water matters too: on a reservoir with 100-foot holes, that depth gives fish a refuge when pressure or water temperature climbs.
How do you rig for midge stripping?
The guest starts with an intermediate, type one or type two sink line, or a hover line that sits a couple of feet down and stays there. He runs an Amnesia butt section because its stretch absorbs a hard hook set or a violent head shake, then a leader of roughly 20 feet of straight fluorocarbon around 12 to 15 pound - 0X - down to a micro swivel. Below that swivel he builds tippet in 24 to 36 inch sections of 10-pound fluorocarbon joined with triple surgeon's knots, leaving a long tag for the top fly. That top fly is an emerger or motion pattern; the point fly is weighted, often a leech, so the rig hangs at roughly 45 degrees and swims out rather than straight down.
How slow is the retrieve in midge stripping?
The retrieve in midge stripping is nothing like a streamer strip - it is a crawl. The guest counts to about five between pulls, then draws a slow six-inch pull, or crawls the line in with his fingers, taking in a foot and a half to two and a half feet of line per motion before stopping again. The pause is the point: the flies drop and sit, the trout notices them, and almost every take comes as the line starts moving again. Because everything a trout eats in stillwater swims - midge pupae rising vertically, scuds, damsels, callibaetis, leeches - that fall-and-lift is what the retrieve is imitating.
How do you find the right depth on a lake?
Both host and guest use a countdown: start at three seconds, then six, then keep extending until the flies are in the fish. A trout will move roughly 12 inches to eat, so fishing in 12-inch increments effectively covers every six inches of water column. The critical part is saying the count out loud as you fish it, so a successful depth can be repeated instead of hunted for over the next 15 casts. That depth changes across the day as the sun climbs and warms the surface, and it changes again as soon as you move the boat - a shallow flat and a deep basin do not share a thermocline.
How do you break out of fishing the same water every time?
The guest's argument against fishing one reliable spot is that it sells the angler short on experience, not just on fish. He spent literal years persuading a longtime client to try stillwater; roughly ten minutes into that first trip the client hooked a 27 or 28 inch rainbow that took him into the backing three times, and for the three years since, that client only wants to fish stillwater. Adding a technique - stillwater, carp in town, euro nymphing, streamers - means the busy river becomes one option among several instead of the only plan.
Key takeaways
- Fish midge stripping on an intermediate, type one or two, or hover line with about 20 feet of 12 to 15 pound fluorocarbon to a micro swivel.
- Build tippet below the swivel in 24 to 36 inch sections of 10-pound fluorocarbon, using a long surgeon's knot tag for an emerger and a weighted leech on the point.
- Retrieve in slow six-inch crawls totaling a foot and a half to two and a half feet, with a pause of about five seconds - the take comes as the next pull begins.
- Use a spoken countdown (three seconds, six seconds, and up) so a productive depth can be repeated rather than rediscovered.
- Assume a trout will move about 12 inches to eat, so searching in 12-inch increments covers the column efficiently.
- Reset the countdown every time you move the boat and as the day warms - the feeding layer differs between a 20-foot flat and a deep basin.
