June Bugs and July Flies

By Jimmy Harris
Unicoi Outfitters

One of my favorite seasons for fishing in the Yellowstone region is hopper time. Unfortunately, in the southeast, we don’t get much in the way of predictable, huge hatches of terrestrials like hoppers. Actually, they’re very predictable, just not very frequent. Like every 17 years. I’m referring, of course, to the Cicada hatch, and it’s happening this year. Let me qualify that. The huge hatch of 17-year cycle bugs will hatch this summer. In 2020, it’s primarily going to be in North Carolina and Virginia, but it’s well worth you planning a trip to coincide.

I know folks who complain about the noise Cicadas make, but it has never really bothered me. This may have something to do with my slowly progressive loss of hearing. The noise actually gives me an indication of which fly I should be fishing with. There are flies available now that look exactly like a Cicada, but you can also tie on a Chernoble Ant with good results. The cool thing about fishing a Cicada hatch is almost every fish in the river or lake will feed on them. I recall, several years back, when one of our guides (Rex Gudgel) was absolutely slaying the carp on Lake Hartwell as they rose to take Cicadas off the surface.

Another reason I have such a fascination with these monster bugs goes back to my childhood and summers at the pond. My dad taught me at a young age how to catch a June bug and tie a thread to one of their legs. Kids nowadays have radio-controlled planes. We had better. We had something with a pilot that would fly around and around our heads until we tired of it and cut them loose. Cicadas (July Flies) were simply impressive due to their size, like something out of a Godzilla movie or, at least, The Ten Commandments.

We’ll get smaller hatches of Cicadas in Georgia in the next few years. There will be one next summer in 2021. After that, we’ll have one in 2024 and again in 2025. If you want to start planning now, you can go to www.cicadamania.com. Of all the uncertainties in our lives, I think we can count on Cicadas to be there when they say they’ll be there.