Who can tie an ant that floats on it’s side?

Cowlitz Bottomfeeder

Life of the Party
An unweighted Pickett Pin, maybe?
Who knows? It might work. Following info from Google:

Not everybody knows this, but the pattern was developed for fishing Western US waters by Jack Boehme of Missoula, MT, sometime after 1915; so this pattern goes back a ways. As Deanna Birkholm explains, this pattern is dressed from the tails of ground squirrels (gophers/prairie dogs). The cowboys gave the ground squirrel the name of “picket pin” because the animal, when sitting upright on the prairie, looks like a picket pin; something that they used to picket out their horses. They are a favorite hairwing fly in theNorthwest.
 
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Zak

Legend
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Wow some one who knows the Pickett Oin. The guy who invented the Pickett Pin was the guy who gave me my first fly rod blank back in 1977 and taught me to cork and wrap rods. He then taught my father and I to tie flies. He worked with my Stepmother at Hughes Aircraft in California.
That's awesome! I like that fly. I like flies that can fished in different ways. Without a tail I bet it would look a lot like that ant above. I'd love to see one of yours in the What's in your vise thread!
 

Norm Frechette

Googlemeister
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nope

ant-6.jpg
 

tkww

Steelhead
If the hackle was snipped out so it was just on one side and the wing was on the other side, it'd basically be just like legs on both sides (hook rides point down). The wing might cause a little more air resistance and want to parachute the landing, but I would guess the hackle could reorient it upon landing. The body curve would be absent unless you could consistently get a curved hook to land 90°.
 

Brian Miller

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting Cutthwoat Twout
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If the hackle was snipped out so it was just on one side and the wing was on the other side, it'd basically be just like legs on both sides (hook rides point down). The wing might cause a little more air resistance and want to parachute the landing, but I would guess the hackle could reorient it upon landing. The body curve would be absent unless you could consistently get a curved hook to land 90°.
🤔 Won't the hook point always be vertically oriented in the water; riding up or down? Maybe a light and/or sparse hydrophobic body material (foam?), the wing tied to one side, and the hackle clipped off the sides...
 

tkww

Steelhead
🤔 Won't the hook point always be vertically oriented in the water; riding up or down? Maybe a light and/or sparse hydrophobic body material (foam?), the wing tied to one side, and the hackle clipped off the sides...

When I said "down," I was meaning a traditional fly orientation. (If one wanted to use a curved hook and get the body to curve like the bug in the photo, the hook would have to be on its side with both the point and shank resting on the surface. Which I suppose is possible, though certainly more complicated.)

I think a foam body would be great, particularly on the back half to keep the larger back end up and not getting waterlogged. How far down the hackle was wrapped would also impact the propensity of the back end to sink. One could add a sighter post/poly puff.
sideways ant.jpg
 
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