Cicadas Everywhere

[Nortrad]

Too cold here in Springfield this morning for any activity, 47 right now, 42 tomorrow morning. That will delay them. Hopefully my prototypes will work next time I get to some water.

Here's a nice photo of these 'meaty morsels' for fish.

[MOsmallies]

I have a buddy that I do a trip with over at Coffeen every summer. We go at about 4:00 in the afternoon and fish until we're tired. We then crash in the truck and get after it again about 5:00 am - noon. We fishing buzzbaits and frogs exclusively and hammer them.

I remember him mentioning a year where the cicadas were thick and the bass were going crazy over at Coffeen. They threw little 1/8 oz. brown buzzbaits anytime they saw a bass explode or a cicada hit the water.

I would love to get on a cicada bite this summer. Especially on the smallie streams! I hope this thread goes into the summer with reports and pics by anyone experiencing a cicada bite.

Paul

MOsmallies

[snagged in outlet 3]

I remember the last cicada hatch. For a couple weeks the bass went nuts for em. Then it was a like a shad kill and they wouldn't touch em anymore. The wind blown banks were covered with them like moss, but the fish weren't interested. I postulated that they only liked the darned things when they were alive.

Yeah I used postulated on a fishing forum, so sue me!!

The fishing remained slow until the water cleared of them in August I believe.

SIO3

[ness]

Nothing here in KC either -- it's been cold and windy. Low last night was 40. I suppose that matters.

[Al Agnew]

The biggest cicada hatch in my area that I can remember was back in, I think, 1972. If I remember correctly, it was a year in which the 13 year and 17 year bugs both hatched, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, at first the smallies on the river were really eating them, but that soon turned out not to be a good thing, because they seemed to get so full of them that they stopped feeding, period. For the first couple of weeks the fishing was terrific (I painted a Tiny Torpedo black with red eyes and they ate it up), but after that it was terrible, and remained terrible for as long as they were on the water. I got into some terrific carp fishing, though.

This very cool, wet weather we've had up until today may have put a real damper on them around here. I keep seeing them emerging from the ground, but it's too cold for them to get active, and they just kinda lie around doing nothing until a bird gets them.

[exiledguide]

We were over on Fellows Lake this evening no Cicadas very few fish. In 98 I fished Lake Sherwood during the cicada invasion, maybe the best fishing I've ever had. Anywhere trees were hanging over water fish went nuts we threw crappie jigs and caught bass, crappie, bluegill and catfish whenever the bugs fell in the water. I was undergoing chemothearapy that year and the cicada invasion sure made a rough time a lot easier.

[jdmidwest]

They peaked out around here last time around Memorial Day thru July 4. I remember camping at Twin Bridges and friends complaining that the dying ones falling like rain on the tent. Not much activity around here yet, but we uncovered lots of them Easter Weekend moving rocks around. Still underground.

[Nortrad]

I hope I'm lucky enough to be on the river when there's some feeding going on, tied up some reasonable foam patterns that should work.