Cicadas

It's going to be a cicada year,I used to hammer several species of fish with them when I was a kid,perhaps I will revert back to my childhood for a day!

We had a huge hatch here last year. I've never done well on orange crankbaits here on KY Lake. I painted some cranks orange with milk chocolate brown back and stripes. We murdered crappie on them while the hatch was going on. It shut off after the hatch was over.

There is no doubt that every species of fish in KY lake was feeding on the cicadas. One would hit the water where we were trolling in 20+ feet and SWIRL, it would be gone. No idea what most of the swirls were from but they didn't let one sit on the water more than a couple of minutes.

We caught the live ones on the water last year and put them on our trolling poles. Caught plenty of crappie on them.

We pulled similar colored cranks like Mrdux said and did really well.

They are good Catfish bait too. Take and freeze them in cornmeal,be able to keep them a long time.
LittleJohn

Never seen the fish on a cicada bite, but did experience an amazing catfish, top water bite on may flies a couple years ago. Storing the cicada info for later on.

Wow, how di you catch enough of them to use as bait. We have them in Maryland usually in August and although they are loud as heck you rarely see one. Maybe an occasional one hits the porch screen but never enough to think of using them as bait. I remember I picked one up off the road dead as a kid and excitedly showed it to my teacher thinking I had found a world record house fly, i guess to a kids eye thats what it looked like.

On the good cycle,they are very abundant,they land on nearly every leafy limb.Picking up 30-40 takes mere minutes when they are leaving the ground.

Have you guys ever tried trolling with the metal imitation? We use them up here icefishing but rarely trolled.