Terrestrials and the Trout – A User’s Guide in Four Parts

Terrestrials and the Trout – A User’s Guide in Four Parts – Part One

By Paul Corliss

What has changed since the very first account of fishing with a fly was written? Nearly all things but one have, that one is the food. The insects and creatures of water and land are pretty much exactly as they were millennia ago. Angling author Francis Francis (parents were an unimaginative lot in the early days) wrote what is still one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful angling books in 1867 called appropriately “A Book On Angling”. In this series of four articles, Terrestrials and the Trout, we’ll look at food items for trout that originate from the land such as beetles, grubs, spiders, caterpillars, moths, flies, grasshoppers, cicada, wasps/bees, crane-flies and so on, along with how to imitate them.

He concurs when he says that “the flies fed on by trout have been the same from all ages, I conclude, and therefore one has nothing to do but to take them (artificial flies) from those who have gone before, selecting the best favoured by the fish, and leaving out the worst, and make such suggestions on dressing them as experience may dictate. “Tying imitations of them has altered but the things to be imitated haven’t.

Claudius Aelianus, in the third century AD, wrote a book called “De Animalium Natura” that described primitive equipment of a pliant reed, six feet long with a line of the same length tied to the tip, at the end of the line was attached a hook on which a fly was created. This earliest of artificials had a red wool body with two cock-chicken neck feathers wrapped in to simulate wings. The natural the fish were feeding on was too soft to impale on a hook and also quickly lost its colour. Thus the need for an imitation was created.

Of course, the use of the natural impaled on the bare hook was common practice, even in New Zealand where anglers used to have a field day with a couple of “creepers” or Dobson Fly larvae stuck on the bare hook. I’m sure that where licenses still permit it, some less adventurous anglers still tread that path.
Captain Hamilton, in his “Trout Fishing and Sport in Maoriland” (1904) gives a description of the essential accoutrements for the “terrestrial” angler, the insect flask. I quote: “Flask For Creeper, Cicada, Grasshopper, Etc”.

The Insect Flask

This should be a japanned zinc flask, 8 inches (20cm) high, 2 and a quarter inches (57mm), across the bottom, 1 inch (25mm) across the top, with a strong hinged lid. It should be round in shape, perforated over its whole height, and it should have a zinc handle three-quarters inch (20mm), in diameter and three-quarters inch (19mm), wide, and fastened 1 and a half-inch (38mm), from the top edge of flask.

“It should be hung from a buttonhole by putting a twine loop around the flask and through the handle”.

In later advice, the Captain advises that a sufficient quantity (of grasshoppers, cicada, grubs or creepers) should be collected the evening before, as “even if the fisher has an attendant at the waterside much time may be lost procuring these while trout are on the feed.”

He advises that blow-flies, beetles etc may also be used successfully in the same manner.

The Achilles heel of the trout is undoubtedly its stomach. If it will open its mouth to eat an identifiable something it is the chink in the armour we need.

We must construct an imitation that will fit the bill. Nymphs, duns, spinners, lures etc have been successfully proven over the centuries in all their various dressings and their advocates have promoted and fought for them. Another field of imitation that has delivered the goods but has not been so often championed, the terrestrial insect, has in fact been used and tested with complete success for hundreds of years.

A. Courtney Williams in ”A Dictionary of Trout Flies” (1949) notes that the natural winged fly forms but a small part of the trout’s diet. We will ignore for the purposes of this article the majority diet of nymphs of caddis and mayfly taken underwater and such other dietary supplements as small fish, molluscs, shrimp etc and concentrate on those food items “on the surface” but originating on land, beetles, grubs, spiders, caterpillars, moths, flies (order diptera), grasshoppers, cicada, wasps/bees, craneflies and so on.

Williams suggests that imitations may be usefully extended to this range of “terrestrials”. He states that the ephemeridae (the mayflies), “have assumed an exaggerated and unwarranted importance in the minds of the average fly fisherman.”

They are clearly not the only flies worthy of consideration. When one adds into the equation the abundance of terrestrials and habitat proximity to trout waters in New Zealand, then their “availability” to trout pushes them further up the ”on-surface food ” chain of demand.

Clearly, this is not meant to imply that if there is a hatch of some identifiable mayfly or caddis being taken from the surface you should persist in flopping out some monstrous cicada imitation the size of a small fox-terrier. It is a question of using them at the right or appropriate time. Try not matching the hatch during the Mataura River rise and see how successful you are. Similarly when the willow grub falls from their leaf blisters trout will take nothing else.

They will move ten feet to intercept the small yellow/green blob. It represents the larval stage of the sawfly (Pontania proxima) and as they drill their way out of the leaf-blister they drop onto the trout’s tablecloth.

Maybe some people have difficulty calling a willow grub imitation a “fly” in the purist sense, but the argument applies equally to say a nymph, it is not yet a ”fly”. The object is to catch trout as sportingly as you can and an imitation of trout food tied with fur and feather (or the modern synthetic equivalents) onto a hook must come close to qualifying as a “fly”. Of course, some flies resemble nothing on earth let alone trout food, yet they deliver. I have no wish to be side-tracked into the Glow-bug debate, so will stop this line of logic before I get into mischief.

The simplest dressing I use for the willow grub is primrose floss tied around the bend of the hook (sizes 16 and even 18 if your fingers can handle it) in a plump body tied off with a brown silk head. I usually tie a thin underbody of lime green floss to improve the colour effect when it’s wet, it looks juicier somehow.

The rise to the willow grub can be very difficult to detect if you’re not looking for it. It’s a very deliberate take, but initially, it can be confusing. The rise seems to be a surface one even though you can’t spot the fly on the surface. In fact, the take is in or under the surface. A soft supping rather than an energetic slash, often the surface is not even broken, just a soft dimple as the water boils.

I was caught out once when fishing the Opihi River. The trout was clearly visible sitting downstream of a trailing willow and I just knew he was on the grub but had only my nymph box with me. In a fit of imagination that surprises me still, I stripped a #16 Pheasant Tail nymph and moulded a twist of yellow/green floating indicator putty to the bare hook. Well, I could spin this one out for a good while but the bottom line was that it landed a couple of feet to the left, the trout slid over and sucked it in as neat as you please. I had him on and under control before he said farewell from under a flood-stranded gorse bush. It worked then and has worked twice more since, very cheap flies and so easy to tie!

The flying or winged ant seems more prolific overseas in Australia, England and the United States, but they do occur here and even the wingless worker ends up as trout L tucker when a good wind blows them from streamside vegetation. The New Zealand southern ant (Chelaner antarcticus) has variable colouring, ranging from black to orange. In summer, winged ants, both short-lived males and fertilised queens, fly in search of nesting sites and thus make themselves available as potential trout tucker.

I have found a few in the stomach of trout and I have no doubt that trout will recognise your imitations and investigate Why trouts like ants is a bit of a mystery, anyone who has crushed one will recognise the urine-like smell of formic acid, but like them they do. Imitations have been around a while as well.

Charles Cotton’s writing first appeared with Walton’s “The CompleatAngler” in 1676, and he gives a dressing for the flying ant of a mixed dubbing of brown and red soft wool and a wing of light grey hackle. Jack Dennis in his “Western Trout Fly Tying Manual” (1974) for the black ant gives the following:

Terrestrials and the Trout – The Black Ant

Silk: Black monocord or heavy black nylon thread.
Body: Black thread lacquered.
Hackle: Two black neck hackles.
Tag: Red lacquer or red thread or floss
Tail: None.
Hook Size: #8 – #20.
The hackle is tied at the “waist” of the fly and both ends are built up as knobs of tying silk.

To help the ant float low, as the natural does, give the underside a bit of a trim with the scissors to get it down into the surface film. Some tie the ant with fur or deer hair and swear by their effectiveness, but the only other one I could recommend from experience is the McMurray Ant.

This requires two small balls of cork or balsa drilled to allow a short length of monofilament to be threaded through before anchoring them to the hook with glue. The lumps were painted black and tied over the mono in the middle along with a few wraps of black hackle, fiddly on a size 16 or 18 hook, but very effective. The balsa or cork can be substituted by two small chunks of dense foam enclosed in black pantyhose material. Of course, a true sportsman would not take the easy way out and simply buy a pair of stockings.

C F Walker in his “Trout Flies: Natural & Artificial” has this to say about the ant: “An artificial ant is very seldom required but when it is wanted it is wanted very badly. Trout seem to be inordinately fond of them.” Though he acknowledges that in 30 years of fly-fishing he has never had occasion to use one himself. He gives William Lunn’s dressings:

Terrestrials and the Trout – The Red Ant

Tying Silk: Deep orange
Body: The tying silk wound to form a fat blob at the tail end with a few single turns to represent the “waist”.
Wings: Fibres from a white cock’s hackle tied on slanting over the body and trimmed with scissors to the required length
Hackle: Light bright red cock Hook size: #18 – #14

For a dark ant substitute the above as follows: crimson tying silk, a blue dun cock’s hackle for the wings and a very dark red cock for the hackle. If you really want to try accurate ant patterns you’ll have to consider going as small as size 28 hooks. Generally, the ants are fished underneath overhanging branches and trees.

As American master angler and tier, Ed Koch comments, “Fished near the stream’s edge, a foot or so from the bank the ant will often get more looks, rises and takers than any other fly”. Small sizes, (he’s talking of black and cinnamon ants here) 20 to 28, are best.

Occasionally I have been confounded by trout who were surface-feeding regularly and refused time after time the tiniest well-placed ant: but minutes later, I’d present a monstrous size 14, and the trout took as if it hadn’t eaten for a week”.

How often have I had a trout studiously ignore my most delicately presented size 16 dry flies, nosing it suspiciously then turning away and down as if it was the most stinking creation to float down that stream in its lifetime? Slap a well-hung size 8 green cicada down on its head and you’ll swear that it can’t have tasted food in a year, a slashing, no-nonsense, I’ll-have-that-if-it’s-the-only-thing-I-ever-eat type of take. Who knows why?

Try catching a trout after dusk with a slim blue dun when the brown beetle is about, theoretically possible but highly unlikely.

A big clumpy deer-hair beetle plopped vigorously onto the surface is far more likely to deliver a trout, that’s what they’re on and that’s what they prefer at that time. The natural is a fat lump and needs this shape to succeed. See also Terrestrial Insects – Wasps, Bees, Beetles and more with John Hey.

After dark, it is the shape that becomes the most important key to success.

A well-hackled Coch Y Bondhu or even a big Royal Wulff can be used without sacrificing too much of the imitation but the plump deer-hair fly reigns supreme in my diary.

Mike Weddell, now New Zealand resident; and once world professional casting champion, selected the Coch Y Bondhu as one of his Ten Best New Zealand trout flies. He uses it as a general pattern to explore the water as it is a solid looking mouthful and highly visible to the fish. Equally important, it floats well in rough water and is readily seen by the angler. It can imitate a range of beetles and even the blowfly and will catch fish feeding on cicadas and damsel flies.

Our Series by Paul Corliss Terrestrials and the Trout will continue in Part 2 on Wednesday 4 May 2022.