Periodical Cicada

[David L. Darnell]

How many of the board members get these? The science community says 2011 is going to be a big year for ??? brood.

Going to tie up a few Hoover’s Cicada, got anymore patterns to share ?

I didn’t get to fish the 98 hatch, was young and dumb, put career above fishing 😀

[Karlin Bilcher]

I’ve fished this event twice in my life. 7 years ago certain areas of Maryland and West Virginia then again 3 years ago in central Pennsylvania.  Without question the most incredible dry fly fishing possible in these states.  I thought I knew a few of these rivers very well, until I fished the cicada hatch and realized just how many big fish they contained.  It was epic fishing.  I was working at a fly shop at the time and it was delightful mayhem.  We completely sold out of the Raineys patterns twice.  In between orders the boss had me twisting them up for custom orders all day, which was a blast.  
I started out with Greg Hoovers pattern then tweaked it based on components and triggers that seemed to make sense.  Honestly, the pattern did not matter at all.  The trout were ravenous.  Basic size, basic shape – black foam, orange diamond braid body, some rubber legs, a little touch up with a sharpie.  Poking fun at my perfectionistic tendencies, a friend tied a pattern that was just orange foam on a hook, nothing else.  It looked stupid, we called it Orange Crush.  He experienced no decrease in his hook-ups with this pattern.   If your area is getting the serious event with biblical numbers of bugs, take vacation time, you will not regret it.
Kb      

[Abe Mathews]

Thanks for the head’s up – I was just wondering if we’d have a cicada brood this year, and it looks like it is brood XIX, which is supposed to be pretty big.

[Steve K.]

This is the one I see most of the time….usually in the dog days of summer….floating in the swimming pool…..Piedmont region of Georgia.

[Mike Lewis]

I’m interested in this event also. The 13 year hatch for us in the Southeast, I’m told. What part of the year would you expect this to happen?

[David L. Darnell]

when the ground temperature gets to 64 degrees. usually by May.

[Tim Angeli]

You should check out the Clark’s Cicada…courtesy of Clark Reid, who is a member here.  In my opinion, the best natural cicada imitation.  If you know they’re eating cicadas, the Clarks is a good bet.

And a full step-by-step from Clark himself can be found here:
http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp_forums/tying-the-clarks-cicada_topic15286.html

[anonymous]

Oh my lord do you bring back memories with this post.

2008 Brood XIV in Central PA.  I spent almost every other day and every weekend in June chasing this, because as KBilchjer says, THE MOST EPIC DRY FLY FISHING EVER.

I counted fish one day.  70.  It was ridiculous.  We fished wild trout water.  24 inch+ wild browns rising, well, crashing like idiots in broad daylight for these bugs.  The sunnier, hotter and brighter the days, the more active the cicada the better.

These are the prolific Magicacia-whatever cicadas, not the dog day ones.  

You need no fancy schmanzy pattern for this.  Here is a picture of what I used.  The hooks are 2x strong streamer hooks, #8.  Fish this fly on 1X.  The stupid $3 store bought cicadas with eyes were a bad joke.  I found several in trees, but they looked to hook the fisherman, not the fish.

No disrespect to the Clark cicada, I’m sure it works. But the deer hair will frustrate you… The fish are not picky, even on the pickiest of PA’s trout water, and with so many hookups, the spun deer hair cicada will get destroyed.  Stick with foam, no fancy unneeded stuff and tie a ton of them.  

The fish seriously get stupid for this event and so should you!  I did.

Don’t look for fish rising to these like you would dry flies.  These are opportunistic fish.  They are searching for the bugs, but you will not see many bugs on the water.  Fish it blind, under trees.

Summer solstice is when it peaked.  This is typical from what I read.  I’m tracking all the cicada emergences within a 8 hour drive of here.

[Karlin Bilcher]

Just so you can get a general idea of what this event was like for Dave Z and I, this is something of what it was like:

Cicada Hatch                                         Normal Summer Fishing

3x                                                                    5x
blind casting to bank structure / trees               waiting for noses
10am – 3pm                                                  first light / last light
splashy presentation                                       delicate presentation
occasional twitching                                           drag free
16 – 20 inch fish                                               10 – 14 inch fish
averaging 50 fish days                                  8 decent fish in a day

[anonymous]

Amen to that.

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