“A mind stretched never returns to its previous form” (so says some philosopher).
This axiom even applies to something is maddeningly complex as fly fishing for trout.
The recent cicada hatch has certainly lived up to expectations, if you are lucky enough to find some less frequently fished water.
A recent 2 day trip floating & fishing by Matt McClure and Dan Stag on the Current river with a cicada was a real eye opening experience. Plus, it was fun fishing with someone new. You always learn from each other and we had a blast.
Since most of us have lots of experience nymphing (either Euro or under an indicator), drifting a foam floating fly is novel and more akin to dry fly fishing. The added bonus is that the foam fly never gets so soaked that it won’t pop back to the surface.
You may have noticed I referred to singular “fly” rather than “flies”. That’s because these foam patterns are remarkably resilient. (Thanks, Bob Trigg for some awesome flies.)
With a little care on where you cast and a willingness to get the fly out of a tree, you can fish a single fly all day ! No hanging up on a submerged branch with these things. They float so well that even when fished close to a root wad, the current will normally sweep the fly away. (I don’t think dropper patterns could keep from getting hung up. )
Matt McClure fished the exact same fly for 3 days. And caught a nice number fish each day!
Another “eye opening” fact is finding where trout in the wild are apt to hang out. Fast riffley water with a bottom that has larger rocks, provided good places for those wily big guys to hang out. I can’t remember ever seeing a trout that I fished to and then caught. They are well hidden in places you may never suspect.
Sometimes it’s in the middle of a fast riffle less that 2 feet deep. Sometimes it’s tucked away against a rock bank 5+ feet deep.
Sometimes a nice fish might be lurking in a deeper trough next to ankle deep water.
We kayaked from spot to spot once past the crowd of waders, below our put in spot for close to 5 miles.
At one point, Matt caught a huge brown trout after climbing over some branches from a downed tree in a spot against a bluff wall. It got pretty exciting for him when the big boy wrapped himself around a branch. By deft maneuvering Matt was able to get the fish off and out in an open area and land it. Neither of us used a net for the most part. That often meant beaching a trout to get the picture.
As FATC guys have previously noted there are quite a few takes that are missed for each hook up. 50% hook up rate is not uncommon.
There seem to be several reasons: the smaller fish simply won’t have a large enough mouth to suck the fly in. Sometimes the fish would either bump it or even roll over it. As a result the small guys missing the take, most of the fish were very respectable size 14-18”. The ratio of browns to rainbows caught was probably 3 out of 4 were browns. To be fair, many of the misses were on nice sized fish also.
There were numerous times when I would fish through an area and not get a single take. Then Matt would fish through it a few minutes later and would pull out a nice fish or two.
We could only attribute that to the slight differences in our flies. We felt our presentations were similar enough to have not made any difference. (Although I bow to my trip mate’s superior abilities and tenacity in general.)
We attributed a lot of our success to having the ability to float downstream past the crowds of wade fisherman. We had a ton of pristine spots to ourselves.
At a particular spot on the second day, where we had caught fish before, I had put on a huge cicada in order to “test drive” it. I drifted it out into a spot where knee deep fast water dropped off into a much deeper pool. After 4-5 drifts, I see this huge yellow silhouette come charging at my fly from the deep. It took my fly, I set the hook and then nothing. I can only surmise that the big guy had just enough time to tell it didn’t feel right and spit it quickly. It’s like expecting a crunchy chicken nugget and getting a marshmallow instead.
Sometimes fish would come straight up from the deep to take the fly.
Matt did catch one huge brown trout that actually had shoulders on it. Its back was humped up and it was not only long but was a “bruiser”; a quality fish !
One other notable brown trout caught by the author had a very distinctive blue dot on each cheek (see pictures).
No doubt this cicada natural phenomenon will end all too soon, so one would have to ask “what’s the next step ?”.
One suggestion is to ride this until the end (and beyond). For me, I’m going to fish hopper patterns on subsequent float trips. Don’t expect it to live up to the cicada hatch but might be fun, all the same.
We seen fish in places we never expected and got a feel for where to look. I can say with certainty that my “fishing mind” has been stretched by the cicada experience and will never be the same.
Submitted by Dan Staggenborg
