Ants

For years I didn't use ants, for one simple reason. Under most conditions, I couldn't see them. Then, some years ago, I came across a pattern for a parachute ant in a magazine. I don't recall who originated it, so if anyone knows, please let me know so I can give him or her credit. I've made a few adjustments over the years. Tonight I tied some using foam posts, but I use all kinds of materials for parachute posts. I'm really not that fussy, as long as they are visible and as long as the fly floats right. I tie them so that if you look from underneath, you can clearly see the segmentation. I know somebody out there is going to say, OK Mister Anchovy, you know as well as I do that ants don't have dun-coloured legs. What's with the dun hackle. When I started tying these, I didn't have any black hackle, so I tried them with various different hackle choices. I found that in my experience at least, the hackle colour didn't matter at all. As a result, I've settled on dun hackle, both because I almost always have some on the tying bench and because it's fairly visible to the fisherman.

You can see by the photos that I'm not a fancy fly tier. As I once said to a friend of mine, I tie workingman's flies. They do the job the way I want them too, but you likely won't be displaying them in a glass case.

The parachute ant is my go-to fly in many non-hatch conditions on most streams in my area. I've caught more than my share of trout on these. I generally tie them on a 1X size 16 down-eye dry fly hook, by the way. I've tried different sizes, but 16 has been by far the most successful for me. I've used various kinds of black dubbing, but I've settled on a superfine synthetic dubbing, mostly because I have plenty of it. One season I tied a bunch of them with rabbit and that worked just fine too.

I'm going to confess that I've used this fly successfully during mayfly hatches as well. Once in a while, when I can't seem to match the hatch right and the trout are very selective, I'll try an ant. For reasons I don't begin to understand, "anting the hatch" has occasionally been a successful tactic for me, one usually born of frustration with my inability to find the right fly.