TIMBER, TROUT AND TASTY ANTS

For fishing high lakes, be sure to carry a selection of ant patterns in various sizes and colors, such as (left to right from second fly) a foam grey-bodied ant with orange hackle, foam black ant with red hackle, classic fur-bodied black ant and a fur-bodied winged black ant. Honorable mention goes to Wulff flies (far left), which though attractors, sometimes appeal to fish looking for ants to eat. (DAVID JOHNSON)

Ant patterns should be your go-to choice when fly fishing the Northwest’s subalpine mountain lakes in summer.

By David Johnson

Summer fishing trips to mountain lakes promise fly anglers great scenery, camping under the stars, cooler weather than lower-elevation fisheries and the hope of lots of hungry trout.

But like any fishing trip, occasionally the fishing slows. Even more irritating, you might see a series of rises from a single fish cruising along the shoreline within casting distance. You cast to them but the fish blow off your offering.

The fish are eating something. You step onto a log at the water’s edge and look into the clear water in hopes of spotting what’s on the menu.

But there’s nothing there. Even more irritating, you have to keep squishing ants that are crawling from the log up your pants. There are a lot of ants and they are an annoying distraction from your efforts to figure out what the fish are eating.

Exactly.

Although ant imitations are in most anglers’ fly boxes, they are seldom the first fly tied on. But if you are fishing mountain lakes this summer, ants should move up in your batting order.

TROUT EAT ANTS for the same reason terrestrials typically interest trout: ants are larger than aquatic insects, so the energy they provide to a trout rising to the surface to feed is much larger than that provided by, say, a mosquito. Ants are also more or less helpless in the water, so they are easy to catch. In mountain lakes with relatively nutrient-poor water and short growing seasons, trout that want to survive can’t ignore such a valuable resource.

Ant imitations do not work equally well on all lakes. The characteristics of a lake that make ants a good choice include: • Lakes below or on the edge of the treeline. Most “carpenter” ants live on woody debris, so lakes surrounded by trees will have more ants than waters high above treeline. Trout that see ants regularly are more likely to focus on looking for ants. • Wilderness lakes. Lakes surrounded by forests that have not been logged or

Focus on lakes below the timberline, as these will naturally have more ants than those at higher elevations. But also check state stocking stats to see if the water you’re interested in fishing has seen recent releases. In the case of Northeast Oregon’s Twin Lakes – this image – they annually receive legal-size rainbows. (RICK SWART, ODFW)

thinned commercially for many decades will have stands of timber that are “thinning” themselves. As thick stands of young trees age, the weaker trees get crowded out, die, fall down and are broken down slowly by ants. If on the hike to the lake you’re fishing you see lots of dead trees and treetrunks scattered like matchsticks on the ground, you are looking at ant habitat. • Lakes with logjams. The outlets of lakes, coves and any shoreline where wind blows logs into logjams in the water are spots trout will hunt ants. Trees along the shore of a lake that fall into or hang over the water obviously put ants more in danger of falling into the water.

Inlet streams flowing into a lake are also places ants get washed into the water, especially if the tributary flows through timber near the lake. • Lakes in dry country. Ants live everywhere, but in dry areas there are fewer things besides ants to break down wood and other vegetable matter that ants eat. So, for example, mountain lakes on the east slope of the Cascades favor ants.

• Lakes next to old burns. Wildfire kills trees and thus a year or two after a blaze, ants that make a living off dead wood have a tremendous increase in food and shelter. It can take ants a while to repopulate after a fire, but old burns are good ant habitat and trout in adjacent lakes take advantage of that.

BESIDES HABITAT, SOME transitory fishing

conditions can indicate that ant imitations might be a better-than-usual choice.

Midday heat is one such condition, because like most terrestrial insects, ants are more active when it’s warm than cold. The more ants move around, the more that fall into the water. Often in the middle of the day there are few alternatives for trout in the way of aquatic hatches, which makes trout more likely to be looking for ants.

A mountain storm rolling in after a few hours of midday heat can make ant-fishing even better for a while. Thunderstorms are proceeded by wind, and wind knocks even more ants into the water. Temperatures also tend to drop, sometimes rapidly, and coldstunned ants are clumsy ants and more likely to fall into the water. Under these conditions, you can catch trout on the downwind side of the lake (where all the ants in the water are being blown toward), but you can also catch them on the upwind side of the lake, as ants blown into the shallows will be swept toward the first dropoff into deeper water, where trout are comfortable. I like the downwind side, but casting into a strong wind does take some work. In any case, afternoon storms are likely to involve lightning in the summer, so exercise common sense with regard to standing in water in the middle of a lightning storm.

Then there’s the presence of flying ants. At some point in the year, some ant colonies divide, with some ants developing wings and swarming into the air. Ants are not efficient flyers, however, and the slightest breeze can knock them into the water.

IF YOU SEE ants with wings around, definitely fish parachute or winged versions of ants. But because swarming occurs periodically, with timing varying from ant colony to ant colony, trout

Given the generally nutrient-poor waters high lakes trout swim in, they won’t turn up a chance to scarf down ants that have fallen off or been blown out of lakeside trees, downed or standing. (STEVEN JOHNSON)

are conditioned to feed on flying ants whenever they appear at random. Thus you don’t have to wait for a swarm to “match the hatch.” White-winged ants are also much easier for you to see at the end of a long cast than are imitations of “wingless” ants.

Wingless ants can be quite effective, however. A mix of imitations ranging from size 12 to 16 will cover most situations. The most popular color is black, but I also always have predominantly black ants with some red in every size. Most of the ants I carry (and most ant imitations in stores) have black bodies, but some ants are reddishorange, so it’s not a bad idea to carry a few orange-bodied ants as well.

ALL THESE IMITATIONS are fished about the same: The highest percentage cast lands several feet in front of a series of rises. You don’t need to impart motion to the fly at first. If nothing rises, a series of small twitches can work. Ants don’t swim strongly, so they look normal to fish if they don’t move much.

On the retrieve, though, I usually fish a series of short strips and pauses to bring the fly in; trout are predators and predators sometimes react to motion. I also do not worry too much if my ant gets waterlogged and sits a bit under the water. Real ants can get waterlogged, so fish will still take them.

Carry some variety in each size. For reasons known only to trout, sometimes they will ignore ants that are not parachute imitations. Or vice versa. Or, they will ignore ants without red. Or vice versa. Simply let the trout tell you what they want.

When you find the pattern they bite, keep throwing it: Fishing is not rocket science. Just make sure that on a hikein trip you have multiple copies of each type, because you don’t want to run out of the one the fish want. NS

DESTINATION IDAHO

Idaho is a place of vast fishing opportunity for anglers with a variety of fish species spread across millions of acres of diverse landscapes ranging from deserts to mountains to rainforests.

Idaho has 26,000 miles of streams and rivers, more than 3,000 natural lakes, and a quarter-million acres of reservoirs and ponds. Nearly all those waters contain game fish, which includes 42 species ranging from giant white sturgeon to native wild trout to abundant warmwater fish. As a bonus, most Idaho waters have year-round fishing seasons.

To add to this alluring mix, Idaho is the most inland state in the West that has ocean-going salmon and steelhead, which gives anglers an opportunity to catch these sea-run fish as far as 900 miles from the ocean under the backdrop of Idaho’s majestic mountain ranges.

“Anglers’ paradise is probably overused, so let’s just say if you can’t find the kind of fishing you’re after in Idaho, you might not be looking hard enough,” Idaho Fish and Game Public Information Supervisor Roger Phillips said. “In addition to every world-famous fishing opportunity Idaho offers, such as fly fishing for trout at Silver Creek, catching 10-foot sturgeon in Hells Canyon, or 10-pound steelhead in the Clearwater River, there are more equally impressive fishing spots you’ve probably never heard about.”

It’s difficult to segregate Idaho into distinct fishing regions because each part of the state tends to have similar, yet different, opportunities. Idaho’s favorite fish, trout, can be found in every nook, cranny and corner of the state. They’re a mixture of wild, native trout along with a complement of stocked hatchery trout and introduced brown, brook and lake trout.

The Snake River, which cuts through eastern, southern and western Idaho, runs from the Wyoming border across southern Idaho before turning north and eventually flowing into Washington. The river and its series of reservoirs hold abundant populations of warmwater fish, including several world-class smallmouth bass fisheries, as well as perch, crappie, bluegill, catfish and more.

Idaho also has a host of “Great Lakes” spread throughout the state that are known for their size and fishing quality. For example, Lake Pend Oreille in the Panhandle is 43 miles long and boasts a healthy kokanee fishery that also feeds a monstrous strain of “Kamloops” rainbow trout that grow in excess of 25 pounds.

Not to speak too loudly about it, but Idaho’s backcountry is often spoken of in hushed tones by anglers and may be the state’s worst-kept fishing secret. That’s because it’s obvious, yet challenging, because the state boasts 4.8 million acres of Congressionally designated wilderness. There are thousands of miles of pristine rivers and streams and hundreds of alpine lakes spread across that vast, unspoiled, roadless landscape.

With such rich fishing opportunities, anglers can pick and choose their favorite methods of fishing, whether wading a mountain stream for trout during summer, trolling for trophy fish on a large lake or reservoir, or drilling a hole in the ice during winter.

Idaho’s rich fishing opportunities allow you to use your imagination, and its variety allows you to let your imagination run wild.

For more information, check out www.idfg.idaho.gov.