Florida Carpenter Ant (Alex Wild)

Damn lens! Really shows the flim & flam of the tying. Doubt the fish cares re an ant pattern, but I feel pretty good until the macro hones in on the dubbing, hackling and snips etc. So it is…  The ants are what I have tied along the way. I fish them all with no thought of any differences between the patterns. Dumbbell-hourglass shape…a little hackling between the balls of dubbing. The matched small wings (hackle tips matched for length) can be black or white or ?. The balls of dubbing could be replaced with thread wraps to build up a body. Use 3/0 or 6/0 thread to match color you want. You could add a little lacquer to the thread wraps. The dubbing balls add some buoyancy in my estimation. The fly really does not have to float, but should best be in the top strata of water as if dropping from shoreline grass or blown in from tree tops. I tie most ant patterns on a size 12-14 hooks (14’s in pics), based upon shore side observations. I am sure others see ants bigger or smaller (red ant is size 16).