Brookies and Cicadas

[Dave_W]

The cicada game is still going strong.

I've been hitting small streams lately and brookies are definitely keyed on cicadas. I had many slashing and splashy hits today by natives, including some good sized fish in the 8+" range today. Many of the fish I brought to hand were fat and clearly eating well. Downsizing my cicada patterns has helped with hook-up percentage but I still missed most hits.

If you've got cicadas on your favorite wild trout streams, the fish are looking up right now and this should provide some good dry fly fishing with big bushy patterns for awhile.

 

[kbobb]

Beautiful fish!
I tied up a few mini chubby chernoble - type flies with orange body, black foam, orange legs and sparkle wing in size 12 and these worked well for brook trout today.

 

[Swattie87]

Very nice. I fished a Brookie stream in Tuscarora SF a few weeks ago that was loaded with Cicadas. I was fishing a size 12 pattern, that the fish were hitting just fine. Similarly, I was missing most of them. Anything smaller than about 5” (which this stream mostly seemed to be populated with) was essentially just playing with it and couldn’t get their mouths around it. For a size 12 hook, it’s still a big pattern, versus say a size 12 Wulff or Parachute style fly I commonly fish for Brookies with.

I felt like the naturals were probably size 8ish, maybe even 6. Seem about right with what you’ve seen? If I was fishing for Browns on larger water I’d certainly go bigger with the pattern, but the size 12’s seem as big as is reasonably possible for Brookies.

I’ve been enjoying fishing bigger and bigger dry flies on small streams in the Summer in general though. Usually Hoppers, but clearly going with Cicada patterns this year, even if just for the novelty. Not sure it actually matters much. The Hoppers I use similarly are size 12ish, relatively small for Hoppers. You miss most fish, but it’s just fun to fish with big buoyant flies.

 

[jifigz]

That brookie certainly does not look hungry.. Nice job, Dave.