The Cicadas ar Coming

My recollection from 2008 is that the fish didn't key on the cicadas immediately. It took a few days or weeks before they recognized them as food and not pine cones. Once they did key in on them though, every splash of something hitting the water was like a dinner bell and the fish would come running.
 
Reliable sources say the cicadas started in parts of WV over the weekend.
 
Anyone seeing any? I looked around the yard today and it seems they started to surface in my area. A couple shaded trees had a few shells laying around but one tree in a more open area had quite a few laying around it. I'm thinking they started coming up today. There are holes everywhere around all the trees.
 
Thousands of them are crawling out of the ground this evening in my yard. Too bad the rivers are blown out right now with more rain in the forecast. The yough should be interesting if it comes down.
 
It seems that they are not out yet in the lower lying areas. At least as of this morning. I would think they should be out tomorrow though as warm as it is. The water here is so high and muddy right now. Hopefully it gets fishable before the bugs are gone.
 
They are just emerging in the last week. It'll be another week or so before they start singing and mating. That's when they should hit the water. Be ready it should be pretty good.
 
Judging by current reports on Magicada.org (http://www.magicicada.org/databases/magicicada/map.html) The cicadas are in the Mon watershed but not the Yough. Bummer!
 
I agree.. this is kind of a bummer. I was hoping to see some near ohiopyle. I'm not giving up on them just yet.
 
I spent part of today around the yough lake. They are there. Not in numbers like I'm seeing outside of the mountains but they are there and making a lot of noise right now. We should be able to fish them on the yough.
 
The cicadas were in full force at linden Hall golf club yesterday. Full on!!!!!!
 
I'm going down tomorrow so i can update after that. I rode my bike through Mingo Creek State Park today and was literally dodging cicadas the entire time. In some parts I couldn't hear myself think they were so loud. Really cool to see such a large hatch.
 
I had a report of 5 cicadas by floating unmolested just above Ramcatt on Sunday evening. There are some getting on the water, but the fish may not yet be keyed in on them. Fingers crossed.
 
I drove down to the yough river area yesterday to look for cicadas.
Started out in connellsville. Unfortunately, heavy rain on sunday had raised the river 1.5 feet, and made it quite brown. There were cicadas buzzing around there though - and around dunbar creek, where I stopped at next. But it was also gushing and stained.
So, I headed up towards confluence, stopping in ohiopyle for a look along the way. I never heard or saw cicadas there for some odd reason.
Because when I did get up to confluence, I again heard and saw cicadas flying around. And the outflow water - above the casselman river junction - was clear. But I saw no bugs on the water, and saw nothing rising anywhere on that stretch of river.
Then I ran into a friend of mine there. And after talking to him awhile, he suggested we try laurel hill creek. Which we did.
And the cicadas were buzzing pretty loudly around there - and we actually saw a few on the water.
Started fishing some large orange and black patterns. And did get some fish to come up for them - even though we never really saw any rises anywhere.
So, apparently, the bugs have been getting into laurel hill creek, and the fish are aware of them.
As for the yough - when it finally clears, I think it would be worthwhile to try cicada patterns there too
 
Albatross, How difficult is the wading in that Ramcat section when its running at an average level? I was looking on google maps and it looks like there his some nice rocky structure a short walk around the bend downstream. Is it as difficult as Penns?
 
Ryan,

You definitely need to pick your spots when wading the Yough. There are some huge boulders and equally huge deep holes on the river and one can be in 20 feet of water with a simple stumble. That said, I do wade in spots. I like the riffle right at the Ramcatt access and some of the softer water upstream of there. I find the water immediately downstream of Ramcatt to be more suited to fishing from shore or boulder hopping. Walking down a mile or so you get in to some nice wading again.

Good luck.
 
Wading under 1500 cfs is great. A little tricky, but I like a little challenge. Anything more than 1500 and effectively wading the Yough is very difficult. Over 2k... Boulder hoping is all I'll do.
 
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