Grasshopper Forecast

[AZWanderings]

I thought someone might find this interesting.

Ben

[fflutterffly]

Wouldn't you know it. The Hopper-cater says those wonderful fly bugs will be in places I just left on my vacation. But I do see a nice little red spot in the Sierra!!! I hope I can start throwing some late May.

[darrin terry]

*. Look at that solid line right down Nevada's eastern border. Like the hoppers got to the border and said "Hells no!".

[briansII]

I thought someone might find this interesting.

Ben

Being that one summer I almost exclusively threw hoppers, yes, I find that very interesting. Thank you!

briansII

[meb]

One summer when hoppers were everywhere (looks like one of the areas on the map) I fished a westside river that flows out of the mountains into the valley. In the morning my fishing buddy who loves to nymph caught giant rainbows as we floated down the river.

In the middle of the day we rowed ourselves into a section of the river that had a large cliff for a hundred yards or so. My buddy got out of the boat and walked up to the top of the cliffs and spent about ten minutes kicking all the bushes near the edge of the cliff. Grasshoppers started falling into the water like rain. We were chumming and the fish started coming up to attack each and every hopper.

You know where this story goes. Fishing hoppers we caught fish for an hour or two on almost every cast, and these were huge 20 inch plus fish. If you could get your hopper against the cliff and get it to settle for a few seconds, you would get slammed.

I haven't fished that area for probably ten years and heard it's not as productive as it once was, but I'd love to find out for myself, especially if we have a hopper infestation.

Mark

[beachbum]

The biggest trout I hooked last year was on a grassahoppa fly. It was a big male brown somewhere between 8 to 10 lbs, and I saw it as a walked a small cliff over a stream. Hiding behind a willow, I flipped a fly over him from above, and the battle was on. He eventually broke my 4X tippet, but I know where he lives

Yes, I will be tying lots of grassahoppas!

[Jimbo Roberts]

Just look at south-west Montana. I can wait for mid-summer where I plan to be on the Bighorn. Two years ago I hit it just perfect. I arrived at the Bighorn on the day the monsoons started to blow in from the south south west. The Grasshopper bite had been spotty up till then. Then the winds blew in with gusto and the bite was ON! The only real problem was the wind blew so many Hoppers in the water the trout started acting like they were selectively eating a big hatch. At times you could look in the water, and there was about 50 hoopers per square yard, no joke. In fact there were so many hoppers the fish were holding in specific feeding lanes and would not dart around like they normally do to chase them down when they hit the surface. I was there for 3 days and the wind was rarely below 15mph and many times blowing 30. It called for at least a 6wt. I used a 6 and an 8 when the wind really started blowing. But it was worth the effort. The big Browns and Rainbows were looking up and if you could hit their lane it was happening !

Jimbo

[Fishfreak911]

Very cool piece of info Ben. I liked reading all the reply storie too; Especially the cliff one!

[mike.s]

pure protein