{{+1}}Ant – Chatto’s original Palmered ant{{-1}}
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If it's a hot day, a warm balmy night, if water is rising over previously dry ground or almost any time for that matter you can get huge hatches of ants. They vary in colour but the dominant hatches are of black meat ants and banded sugar ants.
The ants that I have come across in my fly fishing exploits have all had the same general shape. They have three distinct segments. The bulbous abdomen, a thinner thorax where the legs and wings if they have them are located and a head that is also bulbous but generally smaller than the abdomen.
The recipe below can be used for all three and of course there is a winged version. Both the winged and non-winged versions are quite a lot different to traditional ant recipes in that they includes a full palmered hackle over the middle thorax area to represent the legs. The full hackle also of course serves the additional purpose of helping the fly to float which is something that is a perennial problem with traditional ties.
When the fish are feeding on ants they just sup the insects down one by one often at the exclusion of all other food sources.
The best technique for ant feeders is to grease your leader except for the last 60 cm or so and to cover individual fish or place your fly amongst the naturals in the path of feeding fish.