The Last Waltz

By Steven Therrien

 On hot breezy days in late August and early September, when the thoughts of the Hendrickson hatches have faded into the fond fishing memories of dry fly days, how often have we all sat on the banks of our Midwestern rivers and hoped, prayed for something to happen? Hot sweaty waders, winds that seem to tangle thoughts, as well as, lines, and fading fishing opportunities with the season on the wane all add to the mix of diminished hope and expectation that some magical hatch will fill the niche that’s missing for the dry fly fisher. 

 Something short of a plead but closer to a prayer to the almighty circulated in my self-discussion while I sat on the bank of my home river a number of years ago.  It was getting to be a good session of “woe is me.”  Looking at my wading shoes as they provided a current break for a few minnows, I had considered going home, but 90 degree heat on a trout stream is far better than 90 degree heat any place else that I could think of, so I stayed in hopes that a fish would rise.

 As if in answer to my prayers, fish started to rise, small fish at first.  With almost a dream like quality (remember to always carry water on extremely hot days--dehydration can do some strange things to a fella’s perception) these fish started to slowly and rhythmically surface feed. What started as a few scattered fish dimpling the surface soon grew into a feeding orgy. Larger fish rose without any modesty, and I thought better of the impulse to charge right in and start pitching. It’s quite mesmerizing to watch what seems to be nearly every trout in a stretch of river give up their reluctant ways and freely feast.

 I studied the rises. The rise forms were so much like those you see when trout are taking emerging midge I immediately read the “hatch,” tied on a good all purpose midge pattern and went to work on the closest rising trout to confirm my suspicions. After ten minutes of casting and switching patterns, colors and sizes, without one curious bulging refusal, I took time to find out what the source of the activity could be.

 Taking a time out, I turned toward the bank and searched the surface. What I found lead me to one of those shining moments where realization meets actualization. Ants, flying ants dotted the water between the bank and me. Turning back to face the rising fish I studied the surface more carefully. It seemed that two varieties of ants where present: a small black and a large brownish amber. Of the two the larger attracted most of the attention. The only pattern that came close was a size 12 brown elk hair caddis. I caught a few smaller fish with the caddis pattern, but the larger fish that had surfaced wouldn’t budge for it. I returned home with a few samples of the ants and pattern ideas dancing in my head.

  It is fairly clear that flying ants don’t end up in the water for the same reasons that aquatic insects do. The idea that they get blown into streams and rivers is true enough, but the popular held conditions for their flights--warm temperatures and winds-- are not always what brings them to our streams and rivers. If we see great numbers of flying ants and a number of species on the water also we can be certain of a number of things.  A good number of mating swarms have developed at one time, which means a number of nests are producing swarms at once; and that the nests are close enough to the river for the ants to get blown in when they swarm. Yet, it is not the weather conditions that dictate the development of a mating flight solely. Internal rhythms of the male ants trigger flights although weather may play a factor in producing huge flights. The internal rhythms of males ensure that cross breeding takes place by causing them to fly at different times than the females from the same nest. Weather plays more of a factor for the fisherman than the ant in that flights may be most favorable under the hot and windy conditions with the wind being the key factor in getting the flying ants nearer the water. So, if there a lot of ants in the air and the wind blows, chances are fly fishers may see them in great numbers on the water. Yet, we could also see flying ants on cool calm days as well.

 A social insect, ants belong to the same family as wasps, Hymenoptera. They live in colonies that may contain up to a 20 million residents, consisting of two or more sub castes of females. The male role in the colony is exclusively breeding. They appear in a colony for only a short period of time, are produced from unfertilized eggs and have wings as do the queens. Ants mate on the wing of course with the males dying soon after they copulate.

 What is important to remember about ant swarms (to call them “hatches” would be incorrect for the males are present in the nest long before they swarm) is that they seem to bring out an unusual feeding behavior in late season trout. After a season of getting used to the graceful presentations of the

master angler and the fumbling thrashes of the rest of us, stream wise trout seem to lose their need of solitude and stealth when ants are present. As an added benefit, trout seem to remember the flying ant after it has been on the water a few times and especially after a massive swarm has come down. I have caught foraging brown and brook trout on bright days without a swarm apparent by using a flying ant pattern.

  If any ant pattern were be effective, it would have to be designed to duplicate a number of characteristics: wing silhouette, body shape and color. 

 The features of the elk hair caddis worked well enough to fool a few fish. The wing silhouette of the EHC seemed to match the ants on the water.  I am not sure whether the ant senses a need to keep the wings off the water, but after careful observation of a few large fish taking ants, it was clear they preferred the large amber and brown ant that sat high in the water with its wings caddis like and slightly angled away from the body not flat across the back when you find the ants crawling. Because of the fly’s size, the body shape presented three problems: silhouette, ease of presentation and flotation. 

 With such a large insect on the water, silhouette and color, I am sure, played important factors in the selective feeding of the larger trout. Smaller ants can be represented with fur bodies, but to duplicate an ant in the size 10 to 12 range, fur bodies seem to sink after a few casts and floss bodies are too heavy to float well and present without making them look like rocks.  The solution is found in using underbody material that provides not only bulk, to reproduce the classic shape of the ant, but to also enough buoyancy as to give the pattern an ability to float after many casts.

 A closed cell foam used as an underbody material and a combination of elk hair and CDC for the wings solved the flotation problem. Color matching was easy.  Dubbing over the large body was tricky though, but with a little cement and marking pens to touch up the coloring job, the Whiskbroom was born.

 With a couple of variations of this new pattern hot off the vise, I returned the river the next day hoping that the conditions that produced the phenomenal swarms the day before would occur again. It is hardly the case that we are lucky enough to run into the same case scenario from a previous day of fishing.  My next day on the water was no exception. Even though the day didn’t duplicate the conditions of the previous, I had great success using the new fly as a searching pattern hooking up to a number of brooks and browns larger than those I landed the day before. Before the afternoon was over, a small swarm came down on the water, allowing me the opportunity to test my pattern on larger fish selectively feeding on the ants.  The hollow sound that a large trout makes taking a fly off the surface is often more memorable that the rod arching set and first run for the bank. Even more memorable when they break you off after running nine feet of leader and ten feet of line through the tangle of roots and branches back up stream. 

 I have encountered the swarms of August and September over the past few years and have come to count on them for my last waltz on the surface for the season. Who’d ever thought I be doing my dancing with an ant?