Recap: June Chapter Meeting with Rick Takahashi

Rick Takahashi was both our tier and presenter this month. He is an Umpqua Signature Tier and has authored a few books. He started off by tying several midge patterns, then gave a presentation focused on midges. Midges are a very important food source for trout year round. Rick covered the complete lifecycle of midges and what they are like at each stage. In the larvae stage, midges are tiny and wormlike with segmentation. Rick mentioned having success with red midge larvae patterns as that is a common color for the larvae. Eventually the midges will enter the pupae stage where they break out of their larval tube work their way up the water column. From there, an adult midge will escape its pupal shuck and fly off. There are two transitional phases not formally included in the midge lifecycle. The emerger phase is where a midge pupal has trapped gases in its pupal shuck to help it reach the surface of the water. The cluster phase is a collection of adult midges that are either mating or are trapped. Rick gave multiple example fly patterns for each stage. 

After laying out the life of a midge, Rick discussed effective ways to use midge patterns. He went over a few different knots and rigging techniques that he’s found useful (such as nonslip loops and Duncan loop knots). Then he covered various ways to fish these rigs and gave plenty of tips like using slip strike indicators in stillwater. 

Midges really are everywhere and are major food sources for trout. Please watch the recording on YouTube for all of the details from the presentation!

After the presentation, we had the meeting raffle. The prizes included a Orvis Hydros reel, some Cutthroat Chapter Yeti tumblers, and some flies.