by bob meseroll
photos by michael gallacher

It’s 90 degrees in the shade, if you can find any.

The river is glassy, not a rise form to be seen.

The pale morning duns have long since vanished and it’s hours before the caddis will begin their nightly dance.

What’s a fly fisherman to do?

“I generally pull my boat under a great big pine tree and light up a great big Cuban cigar and watch the day go by,” said Jim Cox, co-owner of Missoula’s Kingfisher Fly Shop, only half kidding.

That’s one approach, and not a bad one either.

But after your siesta, take a look around you on the riverbank. Those ants making off with your sandwich make fine trout food. So do the beetles and grasshoppers.

As a group, fly fishermen refer to them as terrestrials – land-dwelling insects – as opposed to aquatic insects that spend the majority of their lives in the river.

And as land-dwelling insects, terrestrials are not well adapted for swimming once they fall into the river. That makes them sitting ducks for opportunistic trout.

“Terrestrial insects are not designed to float,” said George Kesel, who owned Missoula’s Four Rivers Fly Shop until it closed this spring. “When they hit the water, unless the surface film catches them, they go straight through. Whereas caddis and stoneflies and mayflies, they’ve all evolved to float.”

Terrestrials present anglers with the best chance to pick up a few fish during the lazy, hazy afternoons of summer on western Montana’s rivers.

Grasshoppers are a staple of the summer fly box. They come in a myriad of shapes, sizes and colors.

There are the old-school patterns – Dave’s, Joe’s, Whitlock’s – that are tied mostly with natural hairs, hackles and fibers. And there’s a new generation – Chernobyl, Mystery Meat, Turk’s Tarantula – many of which are tied with foam and other synthetic materials.

Fishing with hoppers can be fun because bigger flies are easier to cast and see on the water, and they can elicit powerful strikes from excited trout. But bigger is not always better when it comes to hoppers.

“Everybody wants to tie on a size 6 grasshopper,” Kesel said. “There are a lot more size 14 grasshoppers. There are size 6s out there, but as you can see as you walk through your yard, there are more smaller ones.”

And Kesel has another unique – at least to me – suggestion. He likes to fish grasshoppers, as well as ants and beetles, beneath the surface, like a nymph.

“Have you done that yourself?” Kesel asks.

Well, yes, but not on purpose.

“It works, doesn’t it?” Kesel says. “Everybody says, ‘My fly sunk, but I still hooked a fish,’ and yet every time it sinks, you hook one.”

Cox has tried the same tactic.

“I’ve done that in the swirlies quite a bit, in the foam eddies, and it’s pretty effective,” Cox said. “When I move into food collection areas, it can be very good.”

There are hopper patterns that are tied specifically to be fished beneath the surface, like the conehead drowned hopper. Kesel ties his own, but has suggestions for those who don’t.

“Buy a grasshopper without a post, without any strike indicators to it,” he said. “Make sure it’s a low floater, coat it with something to make it sink and then fish it just like you would a nymph.”

With hoppers, as with any terrestrial, some common sense goes a long way in determining success.

“These things are coming from the banks,” said Kesel, offering advice on the best locations to fish. “And below tree branches, below trees that hang over the water.”

“And the shady banks, too,” Cox adds. “That’s huge. That lower Clark Fork, there’s almost nowhere where that’s exemplified more clearly. On those blistering days, you can go along where there’s nothing, nothing, nothing and then you get to the lefthand bank and you have those pine trees coming over and that’s where you get your action.”

Grasshoppers also make fine strike indicators when used as part of a hopper-and-dropper rig.

By tying a nymph – or any other subsurface fly like a sunken ant or beetle – below the hopper, you can double your chances of a hook-up.

“Obviously, you choose a high-floating grasshopper-style fly,” Kesel said. “Then I tie a clinch knot to the bend of that hook. Then I tie a clinch knot to my nymph. I tell people you want to have that be as long as you can comfortably control. If that’s 18 inches, it’s 18 inches. If it’s 24, it’s 24. The deeper you can get it, the happier you’ll be in the long run.”

Cox gives similar advice. He says he either goes deep with the dropper, as Kesel suggests, or very shallow.

“It’s kind of odd the number of times on those days where I’ve had my best success with droppers that are actually pretty shallow underneath, like nine inches,” Cox said. “These fish that you would think would be on the bottom on the springs, I’ve had really good luck shallow or really deep. There doesn’t seem to be a mid-column feed going on. They’re either on the bottom or just below the surface.

“I also focus on riffles with the more oxygenated water.”

Some other possibilities for droppers include pheasant-tails or stonefly nymphs, or something more general like a prince nymph or a copper John.

“I like olive-colored stuff, like olive pheasant tails, the beerhead emergers, even though a lot of the smaller things represent baetis, which aren’t going on at that time,” Cox said.

I have generally fished ants and beetles only in food collection areas like backwaters and eddies. They can be particularly effective in areas where the water isn’t moving or is moving very slowly. Trout get into those spots and cruise around, looking for meals of opportunity.

But toward the end of last summer, I started using a parachute black ant pattern while prospecting anywhere along the stream. Let’s just say I’ll have a lot more ant patterns in my summer fly box from now on.

“The ants are evil, absolutely evil,” Cox said. “I’ve had amazing luck on the Blackfoot with ants, to the point where I’ve caught a fair number of bull trout on them. Not the monstrous bulls, but up to 19-20 inches. They’ll take it on the surface.

“I had an 18-inch bull come up and swim right past the Dave’s hopper to eat the little ant. It wasn’t even a flying ant. He swam right past the big-ass hopper to eat the little ant.”

The sheer numbers of ants available make them a logical choice for those slow summer afternoons.

“When you are casting your terrestrials in August and early September, the bug life in the water is minimal,” Kesel said. “That means that those fish are looking for anything that’s food. How many ants do you think are walking around this area? They’re falling in the water all the time. That’s why it works.

“They’re small enough that they’re easy to make drift correctly and they’re small enough that it’s hard (for the fish) to find something wrong with them, unlike a size 6 grasshopper.”

And if all else fails, there’s always that big pine tree and a stogie. 

Bob Meseroll is sports editor of the Missoulian and an avid fly fisherman who doesn’t smoke cigars, but has been known to nap under a tree from time to time. He can be reached at 523-5265 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .