Ants, beetles and hoppers..

Terrestrials, if you will!

I read this front page article with a bit more gusto than usual. It all made perfect sense and after having enjoyed a full season of this, my most favorite form of fishing this year, I wanted to congratulate the author!

A great article for sure. This past season, when I was able to get out (which was very limited due to a lousy hand injury) I had some good fortune to really discover some great terrestrial fishing that I had only touched on a time or two before, not taking it too seriously prior.

This last couple of seasons it seems I've been taken with fishing more and more with bamboo's. I don't know why, these things just happen to befall some unfortunates I guess...

Anyway, what this did for me, (formerly self-dubbed the Scud King 'cause it's what I relied upon to take fish when I couldn't figure out what the "best worm" was,) was to get me away from nymphing as much. To try to do more topside stuff, like I'd always wanted to do when I discovered this fly rod.

So, for most of the winter when my tying takes place, I looked all over for a good ant pattern , then a better ant pattern and finally something of my own that I could experiment with and change as I saw fit! And I did. And it all usually came together...well, more often than not!

I tied many ant patterns in various sizes and styles, mostly with a downwing, tied delta style and some just the normal ant patterns but experimented with posts for visibility and such. One thing I discovered was that black paint brush bristles, cut short and scrunched, make really good, segmented, durable legs!

I also discovered a way to search for fish using these ants and beetles that turned me from constantly fishing subsurface and watching an indy (which was often quite productive but I needed to change it up some) to a more topside approach, enjoying the gentle presentation casts and all that that style of fishing involved. This also better suited this new bamboo attraction that had (has) a chokehold on me!

Great article today. I enjoyed it very much as it brought back a lot of fond memories from this past summer and will inspire me again to get a couple more ant ideas onto the hook to see if things can be made even more fun.

Right now I'd like to come up with a better pattern for my visibility. Last summer it was using a post made from a hot pink colored hen feather, a "few" barbules of, juust small enough to not bother the fish but yet still visible enough to see, if you don't look away for that split second!

Man, they're fun! And on top too. To me, that makes all the difference. 'Specially on bamboo!!!!

Jeremy.

I really enjoyed this article as well, because it brought back wonderful summer memories for me too.

I think that I enjoy wet wading and fishing terrestrials on a hot summer day, more than anything else in fishing. However, my limited experience with trout taking terrestrials has been totally different than what Neil's article describes. They're not leisurely sipping my crickets, they're hammering them! These are wild browns in a stretch of stream that doesn't see as much fishing pressure, and maybe that's why. Whatever the reason, I love it, and find the differing nuances facinating.

Great article!

Thanks.

Dave Fulton

I'm thinking with terrestrials and Woolly Buggers to fish, you'd never have to worry about a hatch or what the trout are feeding on. You'd have it covered year round.

I used to creek fish a lot with spinning gear as a kid. We would park ourselves under a tree that was full of those tent caterpillars and drop a worm in the pool. Almost always a strike. Now on trout creek which is on the way home from my favorite lake I sometimes stop to flick a black and brown wooly bugger in under the tent caterpillar nests with great success. I once watched as hoards of ants were traversing a stream across a thin branch. A black ant pattern just downstream of that branch was deadly.

Good article nicely told. thanks.