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?

I have seen steelhead kelts chock full of carpenter ants, regurgitating them when placed in anaesthetic. I have always wondered how much fun big dry-fly ants would be on a stream.

Steelhead no less! Wow. Certainly sounds promising.

Ant patterns are usually quite effective in both lakes and streams. They work best when fished right next to the banks, as if they have just fallen out of a tree or something.

Since I haven't seen any other testimonials in response to this thread, I may just have to tie up some big ants and give it a try. It's not looking like we are going to see 70+ degrees within the next couple of weeks, so I should have some time to come up with some stuff before the hatch gets going....

I've never seen a carpenter ant hatch, but I'd sure like to.

The most epic ant hatch I've ever seen was in May on Coldwater lake.
The lake looked like popcorn popping all day, fish rising everywhere and ants crawling all over our boats.

I've also seen searun cutts in the salt below my house go crazy for flying termites in the fall.

You've got me thinking. I may have to tie up some solid black chernobyl ants. Even without a hatch, trout have a hard time passing up an easy ant meal...same with beetles as well.

I believe there may be some truth to the formic acid thing. I have a friend who's on duty in Afghanistan right now, and in one of his special training programs, he learned about what kinds of bugs make for good nutrition when other foods are scarce. Carpenter ants ranked high for protein and flavor. He mentioned that they taste "lemony," which would be consistent with a high acid content. I can't personally attest, however, and I hope to keep it that way.

No doubt, terrestrials are a great way to go when you can't quite match the hatch.

Ants hatching at Coldwater? That sounds like a dream come true for me. Most of the time, that lake is so devoid of bugs (or so windy) that the only thing I can catch fish on is leech patterns, trolled deep. I did fish it when there were hoppers around once, though, and that did not suck.

Chernobyls should get it done. Nicely. We'll have to check back on this thread after a couple of attempts.

FF02,
That day at Coldwater was interesting. When we got to the lake, the wind was howling and the lake was covered by whiecaps. My buddy wasn't really to excited to fish, but after a long drive we gave it a shot.
The way things looked, we might be able to fish for a couple of hours at best.
About an hour in, the wind died down, the sun popped out and the lake went glass. The fun began shortly after that and lasted until we left at 6:00 in the evening. All day epic dry fly action.

We hit a big ant hatch at Coldwater one other time, except the weather was reversed. Great conditions in the morning followed by howling winds and blown off the lake by 1:00.
Hint - Both times were in mid May.

Many years ago, when the Dungeness was open nearly right through the entire year, my father and I were fishing down near the mint farm in May. There were spring chinook in the river (another thing of the past) but I landed a very late-run native winter steelhead. Back in those days we killed and kept everything of course and this was a chrome-bright hen with a few sea-lice still clinging around her vent. Obviously she was just dipping into the river to carry out her spawning because, when I cleaned her, I found her eggs were already loose in the skeins. The amazing thing was that her stomach was packed solidly with the flying carpenter ants which were filling the air on that weekend.

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.