Ask me about the ideal fly-fishing experience, and I will tell you about casting grasshoppers in an eastern Sierra meadow. It might be a heavily trafficked stream such as the Owens and Hot Creek or a small water in a grassy vale deep in the backcountry. The images in my mind are idyllic: a beautiful setting on a clear sunny day, a breeze, but not a howling wind, and hungry trout feverishly seeking food. Pretty much every cast draws an immediate strike. The best thing is that I actually have been fortunate enough to experience that kind of fishing, and thinking about it goes a long way to get me through the winter, especially a winter like the one just past.
With twelve hundred species in North America, grasshoppers are a significant food source for trout everywhere. Although most frequently found in grassland environments, they also live in forests and above the tree line. You can even find hoppers in places that are otherwise hopperless, a result of the phenomenon of anabatic winds, in which heated updrafts lift insects from low elevations and carry them thousands of feet into the air and across many miles.
Grasshoppers emerge as the weather warms in the spring, and they become more abundant in the summer. They remain active until the first frosts, which shut down hopper angling for the season. A grasshopper is capable of leaping forty times its own length, which means an insect an inch and a half long can cover up to five feet while fleeing from danger. On windy days, it is no wonder that hoppers frequently end up as food for trout. The insects are sluggish in the early morning, needing the warmth of the sun to dry them and to become more active. Thus, hopper fishing can be more productive as other imitations lose their effectiveness at midday.
Grasshopper populations are wildly variable year to year. There are summers when a given area may be nearly devoid of the insects, but in banner years, there are literally clouds of them in the meadows of the Sierra. Populations also vary from location to location, so that a subpar year at the Owens River can coincide with a banner year in the meadows of Bridgeport. Check with local fishing reports or fly shops for information for a specific location. In his book Fish Food, Ralph Cutter describes the sacrifice of dozens of crickets in order to observe the behavior of both terrestrial insects and fish when a wayward bug is cast onto a stream. His experiments showed that when a cricket or a grasshopper hits the water, it appears to be stunned and remains motionless for a short time. Fish that are accustomed to feeding on hoppers respond to the impact on the water and eat it immediately. If there is no immediate response, often nothing happens until the insect makes some sort of movement.
Based on his observations, Cutter concluded that the primary factor in successful hopper fishing is their presence in large numbers in the area you are fishing. If they have not been part of the trout’s diet in the last couple of days, there is a likelihood that your imitation will be ignored. That’s another reason why it is wise to keep tabs on local fishing reports and be prepared to get to the stream when you hear the first reports of grasshopper activities. This is the case in the areas of the eastern Sierra that I fish, including Hot Creek and the Owens River. The first few days of hopper activity are amazing: fish feeding actively and responding to a well-cast fly. However, after a week or so of this, they have seen hundreds of imitations, and the fishing requires a good deal more skill and attention to detail. That’s why, as Cutter writes, the second most important factor in hopper fishing is creating the movement that he noted the naturals making after the first seconds of being on the water. There are two approaches to this. The first lies in the design of the fly. The “legs” of the pattern contact the surface and create the sense of motion required. Rubber legs are particularly useful for this purpose. In addition to the motion inherent in the design of the fly itself, an illusion of movement can be imparted by the manipulation of the fly on the water.
This is a tricky business. Causing the f ly to move or twitch runs the risk of producing drag in the drift. The goal is not to skate the fly across the water, but rather briefly to take the fly out of its dead drift. A slight raise of the rod tip or tug on the slack line in the off hand is sufficient. Having done this, allow the fly to return to its drift. Try to time the twitch so that it occurs at the location of a feeding fish. Successfully executing this trick often results in a take. Also try making this short tic in the fly’s drift just before you pick the fly up for another cast.
Although the classic image of hopper fishing is a splashy surface rise, a great many grasshoppers are eaten below the surface. A grasshopper that lands in a stream and is not eaten is likely to drown and become subsurface food. This fact dawned on me one afternoon when fishing one of streams in Long Valley, south of Mammoth Lakes. Walking through the grass on the way to the creek, my wife and I were herding dozens of hoppers in front of us. When we got within hopping distance of the creek, 10 or 20 would meet their fate in the water. To my surprise, they were not met with an eruption of feeding fish. They would struggle a bit and then disappear beneath the surface. Even with all of these naturals in play, dry-fly fishing with a variety of hopper patterns proved ineffective and as frustrating as can be. Finally, it occurred to me to see what would happen if we sunk a fly by using a bit of split shout and fished it with a sort of high-sticking technique. The change in our fortune was immediate, and an aggravating day became a memorable one.
In “The Cycle of Submergence,” an essay in Modern Terrestrials: Tying and Fishing the World’s Most Effective Patterns, edited by Rick Takahashi and Jerry Hubka, Eric Ishiwata identifies four stages during which a hopper will attract the attention of a trout: the insect riding on top of the surface, the insect stuck in the surface film, the drowned insect in the top third of the water column, and the drowned insect drifting along the bottom of the stream. Ishiwata suggests imitating the surface floaters with patterns with a large surface area of body and hackle compared with their mass. These flies need to be dried and dressed with floatant frequently. Surface feeding is common in pocket water and choppy riffles. Flush-floating imitations need to be sparser and should be delivered with a more delicate landing and a dead drift to mimic insects just about to sink beneath the surface. Try this approach at soft edges in the current, in back eddies, and in slower-moving slicks. On a day like the one in Long Valley, when hoppers are present, but there is no surface activity, go sparser still. There are specific patterns for drowned hoppers — some, like a weighted Joe’s Hopper, are classics. High-stick these with a dead drift. To get to the fish feeding on bottom-drifting hoppers, try using a fluorocarbon tippet, shift to a beadhead pattern, or maybe add split shot. The subsurface techniques are also a good option on heavily pressured waters.
Because they fall on a stream or lake at random, grasshoppers can be found pretty much anywhere. The insects will hit the water while fleeing perceived danger from predators, via miscalculated flights, or by being blown from their perches on vegetation. Although windy days can be problematic for fly casters, they can move a lot of insects onto the water. As the meadows that grasshoppers call home begin to dry up, the insects move toward the riparian corridor, which continues to support green vegetation.
Consequently, when approaching the stream, be aware that hoppers concentrate in areas with high grasses and overhanging grass and brush. This means that casts should be made to the stream banks. Undercut banks are particularly attractive to trout, but any bank area with vegetation can provide the launching pad for a meal. Begin by exploring the area immediately in front of you as you approach the stream. Use a slow and stealthy approach, keeping a low profile. Do not be surprised if a flight of hoppers enters the water as they flee from you. Begin with short, controlled casts and drifts. This will often mean a downstream presentation, dropping the fly near the bank below you with enough slack for a relatively short drift.
After exploring the near bank, look at the rest of the stream. As the summer warms up and grasshoppers become more numerous and active, trout often move into summer lies with cooler temperatures and more oxygen: deeper water, cut banks, and heavy riffles and seams. Work these areas by casting upstream, quartering across. Fish slowly across the width of the water, picking up the fly with a roll-casting motion to begin each cast, rather than ripping it off the water with a back cast. Conclude by working the opposing bank, again using short drifts. Shorter casts are needed because the combination of large imitations and windy days makes controlling long casts more difficult. Be patient with your hook set. Even though the take looks aggressive, it often takes a bit for a trout to get the hook point of a grasshopper imitation into its mouth.
In addition to being fished as a single fly, grasshopper patterns are frequently used as the indicator fly on a dropper setup. This approach can be effective in midsummer, when grasshoppers are present, but there is no surface activity. I attach the grasshopper to the leader using a monofilament tippet and then use a length of fluorocarbon to connect the dropper to the floating fly if I want the dropper to sink, as with a soft hackle of nymph. The dropper tippet is 1X smaller than that of the dry fly. The dropper I choose usually is a tungsten-beaded nymph. The dropper tippet is about a foot and a half or two feet in length. It can also be effective to fish the setup using another terrestrial imitation such as an ant pattern as the dropper. Of course, you want the hopper imitation to be buoyant — use floatant and a drying agent to keep it that way.
Another reason I am drawn to fishing grasshoppers is the profusion of patterns from which to choose. New ones appear every year, and they often use cutting-edge materials. They are colorful and intriguingly designed. Modern Terrestrials contains dozens, and I want to have all of them in my box. A word to the wise, however: many of the patterns that have caught me have not proven as attractive to the trout. The imitation should mimic the shape of the natural, with a big mass at the head, then tapering to the rear of the bug. I look for a profile that will ride low in the water. Modern patterns have evolved with an increased use of foam and flashier colors. However, most of the flies in my boxes tend toward more traditional hues — olive gray, yellow, and tan. Naturals, even within a localized populations, appear in a range of these colors.
Ralph Cutter rates size as a more important factor than specific patterns. The naturals vary greatly in size, growing larger as the season progresses. Carry flies from size 12 through size 4 and experiment with changing sizes if you are not getting action. Often it is productive to move to a smaller imitation. My box leans toward traditional patterns such as the Joe’s Hopper and Dave’s Hopper, Stimulators, and Parachute Hoppers. I favor these more in the backcountry, where fish have not been exposed to the hundreds of imitations that are cast on more heavily fished waters. I also carry foam-based flies such as the Chernobyl Hopper, Morrish Hopper, Dave’s Hopper with a foam body, and several patterns whose names I do not even remember, but were locally effective. Subsurface naturals can be imitated with sparsely tied traditional flies and specific imitations such as Andy Burk’s Spent Hopper, the Taka Drowned Hopper, and the Soggy Hopper. The overexposure factor means that a pattern that is quite effective in one location or on a specific day may not be at all effective in another location or on another day. A trip to a local fly shop to see what if working locally is a good idea. It also offers a chance to see new and intriguing patterns.
Winter was long and aggravating in the eastern Sierra this year. But it’s over, and at some point the word will go out that trout are feeding on hoppers at Hot Creek or the Owens River, and I will be scrambling to get my gear and myself in the car. It will be alright.
