A couple of weeks ago Harry Abbott caught a very nice barbel on a dry fly. When I asked him what pattern he used he told me it was a little floating ant.
I have relied almost exclusively on nymphs for the last few years when fishing for gipsy barbel on my local river although there was a time, a few years back, when I fished dries nearly all the time. Back in the day, the barbel were often attracted to the little splash created by the fly landing on the surface. Often they would turn to take a look at the source of the disturbance and, more often than not, they would take the fly. Harry´s success has prompted me to think about dries once again and so I tied up a few little ant patterns of my own.
Ants have a silhouette which is unmistakable. They show the typical insect body plan (a three part body) far more distinctly than most insects. The three body parts – head, thorax and abdomen, look as though they are held together only by a thread.
Their slim waists separate the components of a rather curvaceous figure. A woman shaped like an ant might be considered pretty desirable if you were happy to overlook her two extra pairs of legs!
A number of years ago I read a book about dry fly fishing by one of those American gurus called Art Lee who included in his list of go to dry flies a curious pattern devised by a guy called Ed Sutryn. This pattern is called the McMurray Ant and is named after Ed´s hometown in western Pennsylvania. It is tied using a couple of pieces of balsa wood painted black. Of course purists might poo poo the notion of tying a pattern using wood but then again these same purists might be left scratching their heads as their own creations are ignored while McMurray Ants are merrily slurped down by every trout in the river! I have read on more than one occasion that when the going is tough an ant pattern is well worth a try. Trout love ants!
The most famous “ant” pattern may well be the Chernobyl Ant. This monstrosity looks nothing like an ant unless you consider the ant to have been subject to a series of mutations following exposure to high levels of radiation. This ugly creation might offend the purists even more than Ed Sutryn´s fly but one day it might just catch you one of the biggest trout of your life.
My own ants are tied from black foam and a feather from an ancient black hackle which seems to have been sitting at the bottom of my box of fly tying stuff since the dawn of time. I have not given my little ants a swim yet but they might just do the trick. Jackie Benstead was kind enough to take a photo of one and of the “plastic bag nymph” which is the fly I use almost exclusively on the Río Guadalhorce. Her photos of these flies are shown below.
Foam ant
The standard weapon: a little pink nymph. The deluxe version has a sparse hackle and gold bead.
This is Harry´s big barbel which he took on a floating ant
fishydreams 