Cicada Pattern

[ryguyfi]

I'm already dreaming of this spring and summer and what my plans are to fish where and when. This year I want to hit some cidacas and have been looking for a pattern. In most of my tying it comes down to a few different components. Durability, easy, cheap, and quick. Sometimes I'll sacrifice one of those but that's the extent of my tying. I don't want to spend 30 minutes tying one fly to have it be torn to pieces after 2 fish or stuck in a tree on the first cast.


So I came up with my own pattern. Yeah it's nothing groundbreaking but it looks good for me. I may tweak it a bit, but the first one is always a trial run.

Hook - sz 6 streamer (couldn't find an actual measurement of the 17 year cicadas. I know they're a bit smaller than the annual ones)

Thread - 210 denier thread. It has to be strong to wrap the foam tight.

Body - 3 sheets of closed cell foam, cut from a template (cardboard) (brown, orange, brown)

wing - Natural Elk hair (may try to sub something easier here)

Indicator - any hi viz material

legs - very small diameter mottled legs


Fairly simple pattern but now I have to work on getting it tied quicker.

(pic was taken with cell phone, I have better pictures at home but none on the computer yet.)


Ryan

 

[Heritage-Angler]

Nice!

 

[ryguyfi]

Anyone else have a cicada pattern they've used for the periodicals with success??

 

[dryflyguy]

Ryan -
I don't know where you're planning on fishing them.
But the next large periodic emergence - for central pa anyway - doesn't happen again until 2025. I guess they can still be fished as a general terrestial pattern though - although I've never tried that.

Your pattern does look nice, and I'm sure would work. I can bring a few of mine to primanti's tomorrow to show you what worked for me

 

[ryguyfi]

This little bit of info has me going to at least try that area........

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/periodical-cicada

 

[jayL]

They are slated for se and scpa in the next two years, I think. Haven't heard any indication that they'll do much for the fishing, but the possibility is there.

Ryan,

I only fished the cicadas once, and it was a big southeastern emergence a few years before the big central pa one. Pattern was mostly irrelevant. It had to be big, float, and make a nice plop sound when landing.

 

[beerbyrnes]

Looks good. Thanks for the link. On hoppers I've glued the pieces together using 3M spray adhesive, especially when using three sheets of foam. This way you don't have the loose gaps in the tail and head.

 

[ryguyfi]

Yeah riverdog showed me some nice foam cut outs he made while we enjoyed a nice sandwich this weekend. He used the spray glue too and it looked great. I'll be heading to a fabric store and be loading up on foam and spray glue this week to tie up a few dozen for the summer.


Thanks again to dryflyguy for the flies on Saturday!

 

[albatross]

I used a "Clark's" cicada pattern on the Little J when the cicadas were coming off there a couple years ago. The "Clark's" is a green spun deerhair fly that I believe imitates the annual cicadas of New Zealand. Mine were size 6. As JayL said, the splashdown was more important than the pattern.

http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp_forums/tying-the-clarks-cicada_topic15286.html

 

[gutcutter]

albatross wrote:
...As JayL said, the splashdown was more important than the pattern...

If you thought that the splash was more important than the fly choice, then you didn't fish the hatch for three straight weeks, like I did. Yes, thats right, 21 days in a row.
When I fished it in '91 for 10 straight days, there were no foam flies, and the best imitations were variations of hoppers and crickets, just larger. Very few people fished the Little J in '91, and pressure was a lot less than it was in '08.
The first ten days, the fly and leader didn't matter, just the splash and a drag free drift.
Once word got out and it started to get crowded, to continue catching 40-50 fish over 15" a day required a good fly, a long leader and a long cast.
Albatros, your fly is a good one, and the reason that you did well must have been the fly, leader and drift.
I saw many, many guys miserable, watching me hook fish after fish, while they skunked.
They had a few things in common, but one of them was a "spent" style fly.

I tied a bunch of Madame X flies in black/orange in 4, 6 and 8. They worked great.
Ryan, your fly will work, but seems a bit complicated. Check out a Madame X and see how easy it is to tie

Hope this helps

 

[ryguyfi]

Thanks gutcutter. I like simplicity, so I may make a few changes on that. I will probably tie a few Clarks patterns, but I hate spinning deer hair. I've seen that pattern while doing some searches before.

I like foam. Durable, floats forever and cheap. So I'll probably tie a bunch of different patterns and see what works best. Dryflyguy gave me a few flies that I'll probably replicate.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

I tied and used Greg Hoover's Cicada pattern when the big bugs were here several years ago and they worked really well.

 

[wsender]

http://www.flyguysoutfitting.com/tutorials/dry-flies/periodical-cicada

 

[dubthethorax]

We have those dog-day cicadas emerge every single year in the courtyard at my work. There are thousands of shucks stuck to the trees and they are really awful at flying. They just bumble around on the ground smacking into things for the first 5 or 6 hours after they emerge. I've seen a few here and there on the stream, crashing into the water, but never enough to get fish going.

 

[PennKev]

I only fished the cicadas once, and it was a big southeastern emergence a few years before the big central pa one. Pattern was mostly irrelevant. It had to be big, float, and make a nice plop sound when landing.

I had the same experience fishing the central PA hatch a few years back.

 

[Fishidiot]

I've fished the 17 years cicadas in 1987 and 2005 when they emerged here in Adams County. These bugs were smaller that the typical cicadas - about an inch of body length and were all black or black with orange abdominal bands. The wings had a very light orange tint; bright red eyes and orange legs.

While I didn't find the fish picky, I like to tie patterns that imitate naturals. Below is an example of what I used in 05.