Fooled another bug with a Royal Coachman

[j8000 0]

One of the common talks about a Royal Coachman is that it doesn't resemble any bug known, but somehow has great results.  I was fishing my favorite stream a few days ago with a Fan Wing Royal Coachman-dry-.  I had good success the first hour of fishing.  Then the fly was not getting any strikes.  So after a half hour of no strikes, I sat down to change flies and take a break.  I set the coachman on my fishing hat that was on the ground.  I looked back down a few minutes later to see a red ant, medium size, pulling on my size 10 Royal Coachman!  I have never seen such a site and amazed I watched him for several minutes.  While he couldn't lift the fly over his back, he could drag the fly several inches until the hook caught on the hat.  I didn't have a video recorder with me unfortunately, because that would have been recorded for sure.

So, if a Royal Coachman can fool an ant, it should surely work for fish.  I do have to disclose that having been inside a few fishes mouths probably aided in some scent as well.

 

Jeff

[skeet3t 0]

Interesting. Video would have been fantastic.

[niveker 0]

Funny story. 

[Bruce Derington 0]

How weird 

[Chris_in_Louisiana 0]

Interesting.  I was expecting a dragonfly attack based on your post title.  That seems to happen to me with regularity in the spring and summer when using smaller flies.  The fly will be dangling in the air as the rod is leaned against a tree or my truck, when suddenly the leader will shoot off into the air as a dragonfly thinks it has found an easy meal.  Never expected an ant to try and walk off with a fly.

[Moshup 0]

Any chance it was “Atom Ant”?

[j8000 0]

Not sure what kind of ant it was.  It was red/black in color and about the length of a standard No. 2 pencil width. 

[DFoster 0]

On several occasions I've had dragon flys grab a a light brown colored soft hackle while it dangled off the end of my rod and try to carry it away.  My Theory: Bugs eat other bugs.  Flys look like bugs and probably smell or taste like food because of the natural materials they are made with.   You look like food, you smell like food, you're coming with me- 

[mikechell 0]

I've mention this in other threads:  I've often had a "perfectly" cast fly suddenly diverted from the intended landing spot by a dragon fly grabbing and carrying it.  I've rarely had it happen outside of Florida, but it's been a fairly common situation here.

 

Never had an ant go after one!  Cool story.  Sorry to not see it on photos or a video.