One of the most epic dry fly days I ever had on a Wet side lake was on ants. I was at a hike-in, cnr lake that used to get triploid stocks. It was a hot-windy May day. I would say it was about 80 degrees, very hot. I was cruising along dragging a seal bugger on an intermediate line and noticed a lot of commotion along a steep bank.

I finned over there and noticed all kinds of swirling, thrashing, splashing, right next to the bank. In my life I had only seen one fish do this, and that was carp spawning. I mean this area was abolutely hectic. But I couldn't see any fish on the surface, so I thought it might have been bass protecting their beds, because this is a good bass lake.

I started throwing big streamers, fish imitations, poppers, divers, every kind of bass type fly I had in my box. I generally was thrashing the water with everything else thrashing over there. Nothing ever got noticed at all, and the commotion never stopped.

Then, it was like a light bulb just came on. Wind, trees, rises, = facepalm, terrestrials you idiot! I changed to a floating line, and one of those ant pattern made out of the pre-made tube bodies, with hackle around the midde. Super simple pattern, 30 seconds to tie.

Cast #1, SLUUURP. I tangled with idon'tknowhowmany big fish in the next 2 hours or so, basically until I broke off every fly I had that remotely resembled an ant, and any others that I could cut with my nippers to look like them. The bank was so brushy that it was all I could do to get them out of there before they broke the tippet.

Since then I am always on the lookout for that next ant hatch.