Bunny Midge

A dozen #30 bunny midges on a dime

Several years back all of my free days in the winter consisted of arriving at the river about 8:00 am, rigging up the 3 weight and walking slowly down to the stretch of the river where the fish liked to eat dry flies.  I HATED nymphing, and I would rather go and sit at the side of the river waiting to see a nose, fin, or tail come up for a snack.  I quickly realized that my offerings needed some tweaking if I was going to be able to take advantage of these risers.  I had been tying a lot with snowshoe hare's foot (because I had no money, and good hackle costs money...) and I began to tie with some small hooks.  I started with a #24 and got the fly to be proportionate without a lot of added bulk where the wing was tied in.  I wanted a shiny trailing shuck and a very faint rib.  I started with a wire rib, but adding any more metal on an already minuscule hook was going to compromise the buoyancy of the bug.  I settled on tying thread of a slightly different color.  Off to the river to fish, and the bugs performed very well, except for the fact that the fish seemed to be taking size 64 emergers that day.  I would drift a #24 right down Santa Claus lane with no takers.  I had to go smaller.  The fly shop was on the way home, and they thought I was nuts for asking for #30 and #32 hooks, but hey, THEY were the ones who had them on the shelves.  The next weekend, the smaller flies performed amazingly, and I have been fishing small flies ever since.  I tie this fly from #18 to #32 in black, brown, olive, gray, etc.  The key is the wing and the shuck; you can do whatever tickles your fancy in the middle.

Recipe:

Hook: TMC 2488 #18-28 or TMC 518 #28-32

Thread: Veevus 16/0 or Uni 8/0 color to match natural bugs

Tail: Midge flash - root beer or opal

Rib:  Uni 8/0 thread - dun or iron gray

Wing: Snowshoe hare's foot - dun

AND... the HD video tutorial.