Everyone remembers the first fish they caught on a dry fly. They remember the pool, surrounding circumstances, and of course the fly. And for me, that fly was a size 16 black ant. For the next few seasons that followed, I turned to the ant more than any angler should. Cold weather Hendrickson hatch when nothing else was working, throw the ant. Explosive rises to march browns and my imitation wasn’t working, throw the ant. The confidence I had in that fly based on one memorable fish was ridiculous and a sign of the fishing stage I was in.
After it occurred to me that one fish on an ant didn’t make it a universal go to, I overcompensated and tried to naturally imitate the bug that was on the water all the time. My box suddenly became full of technical imitations that I fished on 6x far too often. I became a match the hatch bitch that required water that was designed like a golf course to feel like I was in my comfort zone. Flat pools, a nice bank, my “strategy” being look to the bank for a small circle (small rise big fish right?) and then feel like I was good because I saw a small circle that I told myself other guys hadn’t seen before me. I was also 15 years old while most dudes fishing the pool were in their 50’s, so yeah, I should see the small ring that they couldn’t. Its called youth yet I chalked it up to a skill. The one trick pony dry fly purist with under 10mph wind phase can be a permanent stage one remains stuck in, but also something an angler can be forced out of when fishing with a skilled contrarian angler that proves you, are in fact, one dimensional and wrong. After having a few of those days while in the midst of the learning curve, I realized match the hatch was in fact a phase too, and that there were certain times and places for matching the hatch, and oppositely times for taking advantage of opportunistic feeding events to target big fish that seemed to be less frequently taken advantage of by the overall angler base in the east. Perhaps it never dawned on me prior to coming back to even in the phases of fly-fishing that the reason that ant worked on that first fish was because it was a hot August day, a time when the ant is actually a relevant food source to trout in upstate new york. Supporting the biggest point, the primary appeal to fishing an ant or other terrestrial is it makes sense at a time you have now just about had it with actual match the hatch fishing on your waters in the east. It provides a sliver of an opportunity to fish aggressively, during a time of year many are going smaller and lighter than they have all season. You shouldn’t just tie on an ant when you stumble upon one in your box while looking for another small mayfly you had in mind. You should actively turn to it, and the more you do, the more you will after it yields some initial results.
I’ll be honest and say that my renewed enthusiasm when it came to terrestrials in the east largely was due to my growing experiences out west over the years. The more I spent time there, the more I came to learn how reliant the angler base was on terrestrials during the late spring, summer, and fall months. Yes, the fish are generally more numerous and generally less pressured/more aggressive. But after enough days spent there, I also came to acknowledge that they straight up just committed more to the terrestrial game, which was something east coast “match the hatch” anglers generally neglected and deemed inapplicable to their waters. Sure, part of the reason west coast anglers commit to the terrestrial more is because they approach every season out west in a run and gun/keep your fly in the water fashion. However, a good terrestrial angler out west will open even the highest brow east coast angler’s eye to some things that are underappreciated here in the east. Things like movement on the fly works, everywhere, when fishing terrestrials. That terrestrials are technical just like a hatch. A deep box with a mix of general searching patterns, and keyed in precise patterns makes a difference on some days. Finally, the areas you fish terrestrials matters within a river. You don’t just hit the bank all day for 8 miles rowing down. You pick your spots (looking at bank structure/where terrestrials likely to fall in/will be keyed on/also focus on shade and areas where a fish is likely to be more aggressive to a larger fly that isn’t the dominant bug on the water) and fish those spots hard. Seeing terrestrials work too many times, in too many different rivers and water types, caused me both to beef up my box and experiment more while home on east coast waters.
As an example of how terrestrials can and do translate here, albeit with some tweaks when it comes to patterns and approach (slightly smaller/more precise/not a chubby). A couple weeks ago, I woke up early on Saturday morning and headed out to a spot where I hoped tricos would be around. The bugs were underwhelming but there were just enough tricos and some olives/garbage in the drift to have some fish sporadically up. Whether it be the fact I’m now 33 with my eyes now getting worse despite a few years of denial, or the fact I’m over fishing small flies and light tippet, I tied on a size 12 foam cinnamon ant that borderline resembled a large beetle/small hopper. The fish were rising sporadically at a pace that mirrored the underwhelming bug activity, so I figured going big with something that may impulsively draw them up wasn’t a horrible idea, and it was getting hot already to the point I didn’t care and was about to say f-it anyway. To my surprise, within 30 minutes of tying on whatever that size 12 brownish foam fly was, I was able to land 4 fish, one being a legit 20’’ fish at a time the river was by anyone’s consensus fishing a 1-10. More surprising, was the fact that I drummed up two quality 16-18’’ fish that never rose, and broke a couple others off on tuna sets at likely spots where a good fish should be holding. Totally against the Delaware handbook.
The few nice fish I took set the tone for the day and caused me to decide I was going to commit to it for the day, regardless of whether it ended up being a wasted effort. I cut my drive home down a bit, and stopped at a low, but cold stream at around 3pm. It was straight dog days of August weather, in the mid 80’s without a cloud in the sky when I got to the stream. With low expectations and being committed to the simple big fly/heavy tippet set up I had. I didn’t know what I was even going to do with it, there were only a few very small fish rising, no bugs, and after 10 minutes of blind casting to fishing banks with no strikes, I thought am I really doing this right now. I was at that point in the day where you know you are heading home, its hot, and the thought of the drive has you 5 casts away from quitting. I then got competitive against myself and made myself feel like I was going soft after wanting to mentally give up after a ½ mile of stream produced nothing in less than an hour’s time. As a gut check to prove my stamina wasn’t going with my eyesight, I kept going for basically no reason given the conditions and what I was seeing. A couple pools higher after I had that thought, I saw what I doubted was a rise as it made no sense a good fish was there. It was in 10’’ of water in a wide open tailout that birds had just swam over, and looked kind of big even though the water didn’t support a big fish would be there in the bright sun. I through the ant to rule out my delusions, and the fish was on it within a second of the fly hitting the water. That fish ended up being a wild 16’’ brown that gave me some more inspiration to keep walking.
In walking up to the next pool, I walked up some shallow riffles which brought me to a shallow and slick tail out with the first shade of the afternoon creeping in on the far bank, and to me at the time had the look a big fish would be there. But maybe it was just the fact I had just gotten my first nice fish of the day and had the faith. For these reasons, I took it slow there and watched for a few minutes, before seeing a big head come up in no more than 8’’ of water, but right in the shade. At this time, I noticed there were a good amount of small 22-24 olives starting to come off which was no doubt what the fish was eating as he rose a few more times and developed a steady pattern. That said, it was shallow all around, and tight casting quarters making it difficult to get into position for a nice drag free drift, or even get above the fish for a nice downstream presentation. All of the above caused me to rationalize throwing the ant again, against all Catskill principles from below the fish (an upstream presentation). My thought being the drift and approach is horrible, if I go above he is going to see me or spook/so by default lets see if the fish slips up out of aggression for a bigger food source presented from below him. I got the angle to the point where my leader wasn’t going to go right over the fish’s body, made the cast a few feet above him, and the fish took with a no doubt take probably 6-8’’ from where I originally saw the fish rise below where he ate the fly. The fish ended up being a slightly skinny, but good-looking 18’’ wild brown, and was one of those fish that felt bigger given the section of stream I caught him in.
To condense this day, I ended up patiently fishing the next 500 yards or so using nothing but that ant. Every fish was in tough slack drifts, odd places to present a fly. But it didn’t matter with the ant. The instinct to get it was stronger than the weaknesses in my presentation. and drag that came from odd currents and awkward casting situations. The ant did enough damage that I left before dark to spare myself the midnight arrival home, feeling satisfied that a nice day was had going contrarian at a time that conditions were horrible.
USING EASTERN TERRESTRIAL APPROACHES OUT WEST
After a little momentum on the terrestrial front and some confidence, I got organized before heading out west to Montana in mid August making sure I had my terrestrial box in a row. I had the precise smaller 16-18 fur ants/beetles in a box, my size 12-14 mid sized ants/beetles/hybrid foam flies in a box. And I had my big stuff. But after seeing how nice the mid sized stuff fished in the east, and how the fish were willing to eat it. I assumed I’d start with that knowing that by mid August out west the fish have seen enough of every size “chubby” and generic medium to large hopper imitation known to man. My plan was fish big enough to see for blind fishing situations, but also something that was reasonable enough to get a rising fish to eat it when we came across them.
In arriving west and getting streamside, the terrestrial game was on more than I had ever seen. Typically, I had always viewed hoppers as an attractor approach, but as I launched my boat the first day the fish were straight up blowing up on hoppers that were in the water. These rises caused me to look harder at the water and realize that there were significant amounts of hoppers in a light tan body color on the water, and that the fish were rising to a “hatch” of hoppers, a first for me. The fishing wasn’t so easy though, explosion rises were covered with various hopper patterns with fish ignoring them, despite dead drift presentations as well as twitch presentations to try and entice the take. Way too many fly changes to count were made until., based on the process of elimination, dave’s hopper was tied on. Perhaps the millennial was too strong in me leading up to this moment, but the oldest pattern design was the last I tied on. After doing so, we were able to entice several strikes, and land some nice rainbows that had ignored a combination of oversized western whorish imitations along with undersized ants/beetles and more realistic non hopper terrestrials.
After that initial frenzy subsided, I did come to find my niche and place and time to fish the eastern terrestrials with success. While this frenzy like feeding event, and several others over the course of a few days made it clear a big, but natural hopper was the only fly to fish, other less chaotic times of the day proved that a subtle 10-14 ant or beetle was capable of drumming up fish that were not rising. Mid morning or late day situations being the best use of those flies’ time. The twitch and pretending I was fishing for largemouth bass, rather than trout, definitely helped. All of this causing me to question- was it my new found confidence in the terrestrial, or the fact its effectiveness never left when it came to my recent success on these flies?
Short answer is I think my loss in confidence in the flies and failure to use them more is to blame. My primary point here is that east coast anglers (including myself) generally do not appreciate the importance of, or fish terrestrials enough. We tend to think of it as a regional concept, confined mostly to the west. This is not the case. Anytime that bugs dry up, trout turn to alternative food sources. Rivers that have strong summer bug life tend to see worse terrestrial fishing overall because the fish do not have to turn to terrestrials to feed. However, they can still impulsively take one and increasingly do when pressure mounts and causes these same fish to become conditioned not to eat the bugs that are hatching after being hooked repeatedly. And from a pure strategic standpoint, if bitchy fish are unlikely to make a mistake more than 2-4x a day on your small mayfly imitation, why not fish heavier tippet and a larger terrestrial to cover those same fish and find the ones that will impulsively react to your terrestrial pattern? You might not feel as sophisticated or be able to glorify what you did to draw the take, but end of the day you are likely to raise (and land) more fish by playing the impulse game via terrestrials than you are casting to a fish that eats one mayfly every 3 minutes before you’ve made your first cast. Think of a terrestrial like an Iso, its an outlier bug that the fish favor and look for. If it is going to work, it will work within the first few good drifts over the fish. And the beauty of a terrestrial is that the drift doesn’t even need to be that good. In fact, drag can be good and imitate movement whether you intended that or not. The delicacy and fine wine approach to dry fly fishing in the east sets you up for success anywhere, and provides a great framework to trout fishing generally. But it also imposes barriers to outside the box thinking, and creates weaknesses that are tough to break down. Simple take aways:
1-Terrestrials work everywhere including eastern waters.
2-Movement on your fly is not a bad thing with regards to this method.
3-Terrestrials provide an out for avoiding small flies/light tippet at the end of the summer season. And require less than a perfect presentation to get eats due to the impulsiveness you are able to prey upon with fish that are looking for them.
4-Getting aggressive reactions out of fish on terrestrials is more fun than getting your fly pecked like a suspicious goldfish that you barely barb on the upper lip with a size 20 sulphur.
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