Zebra Midge
The Zebra Midge is two materials on a tiny hook - thread and wire - and it catches more tailwater trout than flies ten times as complicated, because midges never stop hatching.
Below dams, midges hatch every day of the year, and their pupae - slim, banded, millimeters long - are the most consistently eaten item in the drift. The Zebra Midge imitates them with monastic simplicity: thread body, wire rib, bead. It may be the highest catch-per-material fly in existence.
What it imitates
A midge pupa ascending - the banded, slender stage trout sip by the thousand in tailwaters and cold lakes.
When & where it wins
Tailwaters year-round (it's the default), winter anywhere, and stillwater 'chironomid' fishing at greater depths under indicators.
How to fish it
Small and deep: the bottom fly on fine tippet under an indicator or dry, dead-drifted in slow seams; takes are soft - watch everything.
Sizes & variants
16-22 in black/red/olive with silver or copper wire; the whole 'thread midge' family (Rojo, Jujubee) elaborates on it.
Tying notes
Thread + wire + bead: the first fly every tyer should spin a dozen of - five minutes each, fishes like sorcery.
Mistakes at the vise and on the water
Tippet too thick for size-20 presentations, fishing it high in the column (pupae ride near bottom until emergence), and underestimating 'simple'.
Kit for fishing flies
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