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On hot summer days or at almost any time for that matter you can get huge hatches of termites and flying ants. They vary in colour but the dominant hatches are of brown termites, red ants and black ants.

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. If your fly imitates the ant well you have a better than equal chance of it being considered part of the food chain.

The biggest problem with many termite and ant flies is that because you only use and only need two wraps of hackle to represent the legs they unfortunately have a tendency to sink. This foam termite whilst still looking realistic overcomes that problem.

Materials

Process

A	Cut a length of 2mm thick closed cell foam about 1/2 as wide as the gape of the hook and about 4/5 as long as the hook shank. Understanding hooks Run a needle or bodkin down the center of the piece of foam. Thread the closed cell foam onto the hook over the eye of the hook.

B	Push the closed cell foam around the bend of the hook and wind cotton thread from the eye of the hook back as far as you can. Take a couple of half hitches in the thread and trim the excess. Half hitches Apply a little epoxy or Tarzans grip or other suitable glue over the thread base.

C	Pull the closed cell foam back into its position. Wait for the glue to go off and set.

D	Trim the rear corners of the foam so they are not too square. Take a few wraps of thread half way along the closed cell foam dividing the closed cell foam into two distinct sections.

E	Tie a hackle in between the two sections and take just one wrap of the hackle. Dry fly hackle Tie the hackle off and take the thread forward over the top of the front section of the closed cell foam.

F	Take a couple of wraps of thread around the leading edge of the front section of closed cell foam. Tie in feather slip or feather tip wings that are as long as the shank of the hook and up to one and a quarter times as long as the hook shank. Trim the butt ends of the hackle and build up a thread head. Whip finish and varnish the head.

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