Ants....flavor of the day

had a little trouble getting up this morning so didn't get on the road till about 6:30. had originally planned on picking up bryan but a last minute major honey dew left me fishing solo. since i was rolling solo i had contemplated fishing something a little closer but was dying to hit something new that i hadn't seen so i stuck to my guns and headed about 3 1/2 hours east to fish a south slope stream. fished roughly a 1/2 mile stretch below the lake without even seeing any sign of fish so headed back to the jeep and decided to make the couple mile hike to the other end of the lake where the river flows in. my first impression of the river was that it looked like it wouldn't hold much insect life but throughout the day saw caddis, bwo and some bigger mayflies buzzing around and a lot of stonefly shucks amongst the rocks, also some drakes under the submerged rocks. i threw a variety of dries with limited success on all except didn't get any love on hopper type patterns. later in the day switched to a blank ant that i had modified and that was the ticket. the fish were small but entertaining. a lot of brookies in the 8 inch range and some small rainbows up to 13 inches.i had read about cutthroat up there, which was really what i was interested in, but i didn't see any. maybe i didn't make it up far enough on the river, i don't know. can't wait to get out again.