Termites and their not too distant insect cousins, the ants, are quite common throughout the geographically diverse Western states, particularly in forested areas. Their propensity to swarm in mating flights, mostly in the spring and the fall, makes them a notable source of food for fish.
Many Sierra trout anglers know of or have witnessed ant falls and termite swarms, but these insects are available to a variety of species and are found over a wide range of altitudes. Not just trout, but perch and sunfish, carp, and largemouth bass, spotted bass, and smallmouth bass will feed opportunistically on these terrestrials. Stomach samples reveal that fish will consume ants and termites even when feeding selectively on major hatches such as Callibaetis mayflies or emerging damselfly nymphs.
A Google search shows that California is broken into two Termite Infestation Probability Zones (TIP Zones). Ninety percent of California is in Zone 1, and the northern 10 percent of the state is in Zone 2, both having a moderate to heavy probability of infestation. So anglers may find termites just about anywhere.
Ants are much more common and also exhibit swarming behavior, the specific times being related to temperature, humidity, and altitude. Virgin ant queens emerge from the nest, mate with males, and fly off to start new colonies. Since they don’t fly well in inclement weather, this usually happens on clear days. I’ve often fished ant patterns as dry flies on the Truckee (where carpenter ants take flight in June) and outside of California on the Henrys Fork and the Madison River, and I’ve used soft latex ant patterns as droppers on a nymph rig when fishing the Little Truckee River.
Some species of bees also swarm. I have seen large numbers of scuttled bees and possibly the wasps known as yellow jackets in the water at Lake Davis, and rather remarkably, also on the lower Yuba River. Bee swarms are (thankfully) not as common as flying ant and termite swarms, however.
My first experience of a huge termite swarm came at Sawmill Lake on the Northstar Ski property, immediately south of Truckee and the Martis Valley at an altitude of 7,100 feet during a stunning late September Indian summer day.
Four fly anglers had been successfully fishing the small, 12-acre lake, which is surrounded by a tall conifer forest. We were using leeches and then later Callibaetis emergers. We were at lakeside, resting and eating lunch, facing west, and the sun had crossed the meridian. Usually this lake is quiet from midday well into the early evening, but splashy rises started appearing — first one or two, increasing to a hundred or more in a few minutes. We gobbled our sandwiches, finished our beers, and kicked out frantically in our float tubes, because we could see swarms of backlit termites falling from the sky.
Then, of course, we all had to search for a fly pattern that might work. I’m often guilty of carrying too many fly boxes, but it paid off that day, because I had an ant pattern that I had found in Montana and had used as a trailer behind hopper patterns on the Madison River below the West Fork. Fish would be attracted to the larger hopper and then drift back to take the floating ant. It has a parachute hackle wound on a visible post. It didn’t have a name when I found it in an Ennis fly shop bin, so I called it a High-Vis Ant. It worked that afternoon at Sawmill, perhaps because it was the right size and sat catawampus, all askew on the water like a real ant or termite. That termite fall brought to the surface every fish in the lake, large and small, and it lasted for over an hour. We had a good afternoon and had witnessed a remarkable event.
I’ve since seen similar phenomena in both the spring and the fall a number of times. I don’t know the taxonomic names of the insects, but I have compared notes with Sierra fly anglers, and we’ve recognized cinnamon-colored termites, black and brown ants, sometimes with red body parts, and large carpenter ants and smaller ants similar to the black common household Argentine grease ant that invades our homes when water sources dry up. I don’t know if “cinnamon termite” is a recognized name, but Truckee guide Frank Pisciotta and I coined it for the bugs we had seen them at Milton, Webber, and Sawmill Lakes.
Trout can be very selective when ants and termites fall to the still surface of a clear Sierra lake. An example: I was fishing Webber Lake with Jim Cramer a few years ago in late September. We encountered a cinnamon termite fall on the west shore in the late morning. It covered only an acre or so of the surface, but many trout, including large fish, were actively feeding. Trout recognize these swarms and come from all directions when they occur. We had trouble, however, finding a pattern that the fish would take and were frantically trying different flies. Jim worked through his box and settled on a rust-brown clear-wing size 14 caddis that looked like an Elk Hair Caddis, except for the clear, tentlike wing. On the water, it canted to the side, like a real ant or termite in trouble. It was immediately taken without hesitation. He landed the fish and gave me one of his flies. We both broke off our next takes.
Before we could hook up again, in the midst of the mêlée, a very large lady in a too-brief bathing suit rolled her far too small kayak 50 yards out from us. The water temperature was 51 degrees that morning. We wanted to continue fishing, since we thought we had it figured out, but feared for the woman’s life. Our intruder couldn’t upright her kayak. We landed our two fish and maneuvered our 14-foot skiff so she could grab the bow, then pulled her to shore with the boat in reverse. All the while she said that she was OK. We feared that she would slip under the water and there would be nothing we could do.
Our responsibility completed, we moved back into the area of the termite fall, only to find that the fish were satiated for the day and ready for a nap. At least we learned that the rust-brown caddis with clear wings worked. Jim gave me a dozen for Christmas that year.
