Think about this:

It seems that for the time being I have lost my Caddisfly book by Gary LaFontaine and will have to suspend my Entomology research with regards to the Caddisflies in my area until I can either find it or find a replacement. With that in mind I felt it important to still continue to learn more about that which I am ignorant and the world of Midge’s as I found is a large one indeed. After doing a bit of searching I found a good general Midge resource at Westfly.com

The Westfly page has information on all varieties of Midges and how to best represent them and present them to trout. One thing I found interesting is that Midge larva hang suspended in the water and that your fly should try to mimic that behavior so perhaps a very lightly weighted fly on just the head might help. The Westfly page also has several articles on how to tie various midge patterns and how to best present those patterns under different conditions. This should be used only as a general resource though, I know I will be going to find out what my water holds first hand, hopefully soon.

If the general resource doesn’t cut it for you, it didn’t for me I went further and happened to find a gem which happens to have been researched and produced in Minnesota. It turns out there is a Chironomidae Research Group associated with the University of Minnesota. Clicking a few links I found myself looking at A Guide to Aquatic Invertebrates of the Upper Midwest! I’m going to have to get my hands on a copy of this baby. For now though they have conveniently put sections of it on the web in PDF format. The Chapter on Midges is only 24 pages long and provides a guide to specific identification and information for several varieties of Diptera. 

Guide to Aquatic Invertebrates of the Upper Midwest

Click on the individual chapter you wish to look at and in a short moment a large amount of great information is at your fingertips.  Chapter 13 deals with Diptera the two winged general genre that Midges fall into.

After work I dawned a set of hip-waders and a rain coat, no rod, no reel, and no fly box just a backpack, camera, and items for research. I drove to a stream that I spent much of my summer on. I figured this would be a good place to start gathering samples. The rain poured down as I walked the stream searching for the areas I wanted to sample. I brought several small mason jars to hold the captives until they could be more closely inspected at home. I stumbled through the water not really able to see the bottom because of the rain obscuring the surface of the water, as a result I almost stepped on a few trout that were held up in places that I hadn’t seen them in the summer months. I used a strainer, the handle broke almost instantly and I was forced to used my arm as a replacement to gather samples from shaken aquatic plants and kicked up substrate. The stream water and rain made me rather cold and wet but I had a hard time quitting. Two hours of taking samples, looking for the specifics I’ve been reading about and I decided to pack it in before catching something nasty.

I wanted to take a semi-scientific approach to this so I labeled my samples with the types of substrate or plant they came from, this to help in the future determine what lives where. I also started a field log with date, time, weather conditions and location. I plan to continue this behavior.

I brought my jars home and after gathering a few house hold supplies I was ready to begin my investigation. I did a rough count of each type of insect caddis, mayfly, scud, and what I believe to be midge pupa (maybe not). I measured in mm. many of the subjects and tried to figure out each species. I was pleased to see that my little stream camera takes decent close up images. 

In addition to the pictures above I found several examples of scuds and non-cased caddis. I believe that the picture labeled Nymph 2 is a Baetis. I compared it to images I have and I am pretty sure, it fits the right size in mm, and the right attribute with regards to the slightly shorter middle tail. I found no burrowers but I think I found both an example of a fast swimmer (Nymph 2 above), and a feeble legged crawler (Nymph 1 above). I found several types of caddis both cased and non. The image on the bottom right is of a caddis larva removed from its protective rock built shell. Note: this is not a tubular shell, it is the kind that looks like a tiny pile of pebbles stuck to a rock.

This was a good time.

p.s. After looking the photo’s over I think Nymph #3 is a Stonefly nymph, thoughts?