Midges, buzzers & duckfly

What it is

Non-biting midges (Chironomidae) are, by volume, the most important stillwater trout food there is — put at up to 70% of a stillwater trout's annual diet. The cycle runs egg, larva ("bloodworm"), pupa ("buzzer") and winged adult.

Life cycle

In Ireland

Duckfly is the Irish angling name for the large black chironomid (chiefly Chironomus species) that opens the lough season. The hatch builds from mid-to-late March and runs into April/May, and it is genuinely the first serious fly-fishing event of the year on the big limestone loughs — Corrib, Mask and Sheelin.

Two of the catalogue's named "Hopper" wet flies — Claret Hopper and Olive Hopper — belong here rather than with the terrestrials: in traditional Irish/UK stillwater tying, "Hopper" denotes a hackled buzzer-suggestive wet fly (the Bibio Hopper/Blagdon Hopper family), not a grasshopper imitation.

Flies that imitate this

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Buzzer

Duckfly

#12–14

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Buzzer

Red Bloodworm Buzzer

#10–12

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Buzzer

Black Epoxy Buzzer

#10–16

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Buzzer

Olive Epoxy Buzzer

#10–14

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Emerger

CDC Shuttlecock Buzzer

#10–16

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Wet fly

Connemara Black

#10–12

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Wet fly

Sooty Olive

#10–12

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Dry

Claret Hopper

#10–14

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Dry

Olive Hopper

#12–14

Where it matters