One year on our creeks we had huge Carpenter Ant emergence. The wild steelhead kelts (especially females) were plugged with them and in really nice shape. We had some pretty bright ones whose bellies were rather tight. Further, we passed downstream almost every female that had gone up. Some were close to dead and really fungused while others were pretty clean.

Often thought that fishing a big black ant, dry, in late May on a steelhead river just might be a kick.