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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. Closed cell foam bodies Apply a little glue to the underside of the foam strip. Tie it in along the rear half of the hook shank. Hooks – understanding them

B	Pull the foam over the top and tie it in at the half way mark. Tie the feather slip in that will later be split to represent two wings. Tie a hackle in. Dry fly hackle

C	Take two full turns of the hackle Tie the hackle off and trim the excess

D	Take the foam forward to the 90% position and tie it off. What is the 90%position? Trim the excess foam.

E	Build up a thread head. Whip finish and varnish the head. Split the feather slip and it will naturally separate into two distinct wings. Trim the wings to size.

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