The trout food you've been stepping on

Anglers spend hours trying to match the hatch. They obsess over what's on the water, what's in the water, what stage the bug is in. There's hatch calendars, apps, whole books that walk you through the life cycle of a single caddis.

But they're overlooking something huge. Something rather obvious.

On the walk down to the bank you just stepped past thousands of bugs that trout eat every day. Terrestrials. And of all of them, the one anglers ignore the most is the one trout eat the most.

Ants.

No hatch, but they're on them anyway

Here's the secret. Trout feed on ants as long as the water is warm. There's no hatch to wait for. Once things get past the mid 40s the fish are on them, and they stay on them until frost. Every warm day. All season.

Nobody talks about it because there's nothing to announce. No October Caddis moment. No cloud of duns coming off.

Beetles get a bit of attention because they ride the coattails of hopper season, but ants get nothing. Most boxes have one foam ant shoved in a back corner that hasn't seen tippet in three seasons.

You know them days when you're trying every pattern that should be working, you've read the water right, you've picked the right fly, and the fish just aren't having it?

Tie on an ant. See what happens.

Where they end up in the water

Terrestrials are everywhere on the bank. They don't hatch in the water, sure, but they end up in it constantly.

Any high water or flash flood pulls them in off the ground in numbers. But the everyday delivery system is trees.

I have a few spots on my local river with alders and other trees pushing out over the water, and those spots produce fish more or less any warm day I fish them. The bugs are up there living their lives, they lose their footing, they go in.

Windy days outperform still days for the same reason. The wind shakes them loose off the leaves and drops them straight into the drift. Warm and blowing is ant weather.

What to carry

You don't need much. Two or three patterns will cover almost anything you run into.

Foam ants work, no argument from me. Plenty of anglers swear by them and I've watched them catch fish. I don't carry many myself.

My go-to is a sunken ant. Simple thread body, a bit of resin over it, a touch of hackle. Small, dark, sinks a little. Trout don't seem to want much more than that.

Colour and size matter, but not the way most people think.

On the black side, small. 16 to 18. The ant most anglers picture in their head is bigger than the one trout are actually eating. What's dropping off the leaves and running around the bank is a little black garden ant, and it's small.

On the red side, most of the red ants you see in shops look like a fire hydrant. That's not the ant going in the water day to day.

The one that matters is a small rusty ant called Myrmica rubra. It nests right in the damp grass at the waterline, so it ends up in the drift all season, not just during flying ant falls.

Also a 16 or 18. Uniform red-brown, and if you hold one to the light the back end is slightly translucent. If you tie a red ant that works, that's the one to build it around.

Bigger patterns earn their spot too. Wood ants get blown off streamside spruce on windy days and they'll pull fish up on a 12 or 14. But wood ants aren't really red, they're red and black. Tie them honest or don't bother.

The everyday go-to is the small one. Whichever colour you pick, keep it small.

How to fish them

Cast tight to the bank, especially anywhere the trees are pushing out over the water. That's where the bugs are going in and that's where the trout are looking up.

A dead drift is usually enough. The sunken ant fishes fine on its own or as a dropper under a bigger dry when you want to cover water.

Watch the takes. Trout don't slam an ant the way they'll slam a hopper. It's a quiet lift, or a slight hesitation in the line, or a leader that just stops moving.

If you're waiting for a splashy rise you'll miss half of them.

Not just ants

Once ants click, the whole terrestrial category opens up.

Beetles are plentiful and trout key on them hard when they're around. They're not shy about taking one either, it's a solid meal.

Crickets work well through summer, especially where the meadows are drying out and pushing bugs toward the water.

Inchworms show up under any oak that leans out in late spring. Hoppers get all the glory but they're one line on a much longer list.

Ants are the easiest place to start because they're the most constant. Every warm day, all season, everywhere trout live near land with ants on it. Which is most trout water.