This year may be the year I finally get to satisfy a long-time curiosity. We have all (I imagine) seen the large, black carpenter ants that emerge about this time of year, seemingly on the first or second really warm (lower-to-mid 70s) day of the year. This often coincides closely with opening day on the managed lakes, or just shortly after.

For whatever reason, I have never managed to find myself on a lake when one of these hatches comes off, but I have to believe, given how much trout will key on even small ants, that catching the carpenter ant hatch with about size 8 foam ant pattern in one's box would be a recipe for some truly memorable fishing.

Has anyone out there found him or herself in the right place at the right time to get in on this hatch? If so, was it everything I have dreamed it would be?