Cicadas Emerging

It's looking like there is an epic hatch happening any day now…. The legendary cicada. I hadn't seriously considered what this is going to mean for trout fishing until I read this excellent post from Gink and Gasoline, which I highly recommend reading. Maybe this quote will entice you:

"The amount of food that a periodic cicada hatch provides an ecosystem is insane. Some scholars claim that the food value of a periodic cicada hatch is equivalent to an Alaskan salmon run. Have no doubts, the cicada has the power to convince the smartest and biggest fish to drop their guard and come out and feed for several weeks with total recklessness 24 hours a day."


There is also an online tracker, which is showing signs of emerging cicadas in the NY area already. I think I need to buy some new fly patterns for this season. Big ones.

Getting Ready for the Sulphur Hatch

Dry fly fishing is really my first love, there's just nothing quite like seeing a fish take your fly on the surface. Especially when you've spotted an active riser and made just the right cast to get in their lane. And my favorite time to fish dries is almost here- the Sulphur hatch. We had a great one last year and this time I want to be prepared and try using my own flies. I tied a lot of nymphs and streamers over the winter, with varying success, but I haven't had much experience tying dries. I thought I'd start with the Light Cahill, a fly that I had a lot of success with last year. This one is far from perfect, but I think it might get the job done. Apparently there is much debate as to the "proper" way of tying a Light Cahill in the traditional Catskill style . That doesn't concern me much- if these flies catch fish that's all I care about. We'll see.

Mianus Stonefly Hatch

This weekend I had the opportunity to witness a full on stonefly hatch at the d̶o̶g̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶k̶ Mianus and it was really something. The hatches were sporadic throughout the afternoon, but the reactions from the trout were swift and furious. A stream that seemed completely barren moments ago would suddenly erupt with dozens of trout rising all around me. They were just going nuts for these stoneflies that seemed to appear out of nowhere, falling from the sky. It was a real rush to finally see rising trout in the flesh after a long winter of only seeing this kind of thing happen in a fly fishing video. But what really amazed me was how selective these fish were. I mean- we're talking fresh off the truck, dumb as rocks stockies and they were inspecting actual insects like wine snobs. They would either pass on some of them or smack at them with gusto after checking them out. I have no idea what went into making that decision. A few weeks ago they were perfectly happy to eat pellets of fish food and now they're entomologists?

Needless to say, things quickly went from "oh my god this is going to be awesome" to "what does it take to get them to take my fly?!". I tried every dry in the box that looked close, even a blue sedge that I was convinced would do the job. Those flattened wings just looked like a perfect match. Nope. I could see two browns holding in the current, and they would look up and closely inspect each increasingly desperate presentation. And then politely decline. Sometimes they wouldn't even bother looking. I went down to 6X tippet. Nope. I really focused on the drift, mending and getting it just right. Nope. I picked up one of the many stoneflies that were crawling into my jacket and gave it a second look, imagining what it would look like from below. Forget about the wings, they want the bodies. The closest thing I had was a flying ant pattern. A long skinny black body and little white wings. A couple casts later there was a feisty rainbow on the end of my line and a smile on my face. There were still some refusals after that, but I had some takes too. It felt great, like I had solved a meaningful puzzle. But I knew I still didn't have the right pattern to fish this hatch. Something to take to the bench.