Cicadas, Cicadas, Cicadas

Andy called and wanted to head out. It's been awhile since we had fished together, I was looking forward to it. Although, we chitchat about fish, areas and patterns, it's just not the same. This trip a few others joined us, Nate and Spice Boy and down the trail we went. I guess it was more like, down and then up, up some more, with a sideways twist through some brush to a little gem with fun fishing.
Mid -way through the hike Ralphy stopped, so we all stopped. Then it hit, man it was really, really loud. Cicadas were everywhere, not just a few here and a few there but far and wide they could be heard. One shake of the tree and a half dozen would take off. The grass, willows and trees were buzzing with life; it was exciting…spirits were high. As the morning heated up they took flight, very cool to see.



We did notice a few different bugs. For one, there are two different sizes and colors of Cicadas. The smaller of the two is light black in overall color with more of a yellow/red rather than red/orange or orange/red markings overall. The larger of the two is dark black. But there seems to be numerous color variations of this one. They were either black with orange or black with red on top. Then there is the underbelly. Some had a red underbelly with black segmentations, some were black with red segmentations and there was also an all red and all black one. I did notice that the "tail" (?) color seems to differ as well… red, black, orange and something that I only saw twice was white. The wings are very translucent and surprisingly colorful in a prism sort of way. A few of the larger ones had an odd marking right on the shell of the head… red half moon shapes with a few dots, its very cool looking. Holding these things is like holding a small, um, shaky thing that’s quaking uncontrollably fast like some sort of wind up toy. At this point, I am sure everyone was thinking that nature is astonishing and very imaginative… and I'll add bizarre to say the least. At first step the water was a bit temperature cool, I was wet wading, but for the rest of the day it was perfect. Rigging up its fascinating to see what everyone is using. I love flies so seeing a new pattern is very entertaining for me. Andy's nymph got a few looks, not because it looked good but more so because it looked, well, "special". He just started tying last year but what he came up with was essentially imaginative. I'm no great tier but I know what I like. Spicy harassed him and said that it wouldn't work but he put it on anyway. Andy and Spicy had on a dropper and Nate and I stayed with a single dry. We took turns playing the old "baseball fishing rules". It keeps things moving rather quickly…. everyone unfortunately had three strikes on a single small fish at some point in time, it's always a bummer when your "out" due to a small fish that's spazzing out on your fly. But it keeps the smack talk going.

At first step the water was a bit temperature cool, I was wet wading, but for the rest of the day it was perfect. Rigging up its fascinating to see what everyone is using. I love flies so seeing a new pattern is very entertaining for me. Andy's nymph got a few looks, not because it looked good but more so because it looked, well, "special". He just started tying last year but what he came up with was essentially imaginative. I'm no great tier but I know what I like. Spicy harassed him and said that it wouldn't work but he put it on anyway. Andy and Spicy had on a dropper and Nate and I stayed with a single dry. We took turns playing the old "baseball fishing rules". It keeps things moving rather quickly…. everyone unfortunately had three strikes on a single small fish at some point in time, it's always a bummer when your "out" due to a small fish that's spazzing out on your fly. But it keeps the smack talk going.





Hitting the water with the old fishing partner was great. A little bit about Andy… he has been fishing only once or twice until a few years ago. Andy was hired on as a sherpa for our winter projects. Mainly because he is very avy savvy, he gots some serious skills and he can pack a ton of weight while hiking uphill in the snow and faster than most. Spring came and snowboards were traded for fishing rods and the exploration has never stopped. At that time it was hard for me to find someone to go with that wanted to take brutal hikes into an unidentified area just to see what the water looks like, so I didn't mind trying to teach him what not to do. It's been such a cool thing watching someone learn how to fish. The progression and ideas are awesome àSpin to fly and then of course, fly to tie. Almost everyday for a full year we hit the water. Now, I am no teacher nor will I pretend to be one as I am still a student myself. But the fact is it actually helped me out just as much, if not more. Going back to the basic fundamentals was a great thing for me as I had to re-teach myself, a few times, in order to try to explain things… then the questions poured in, so many questions, how am I supposed to know even half of em'. If you know Andy, you know he is a meticulous guy about what he does and how he does it, he's always making changes to his gear from Hockey to snowboarding and now its fishing. Genius ideas really, should be doing that for a living. In order to make those changes, for good or bad, you have to understand a little too much about… um, uh, well, lets just call it stuff. What I am trying to say is, all the questions were technical and I had no clue what the answers where, most of them I still don't. I probably said something like its not that tech, fish are stupid or something along those lines. Over the past year I've really enjoyed trying to educate myself in order to answer them, after all I wanted to know as well. So today on the river it was great to see what he has learned on his own and I think we all commented on how fast he learned it in such a short amount of time. I suppose that like anything, you don't need a lifetime of practice to progress at a fast pace. Just look at the snow kids shredding in the park, their only 10 and they posses more skill than 90% of people who have been doing it their entire life. You got or you don't but the main connection is to have fun and progressing is just one small way to keep things fun. Some steps are easy, some take a few tries and some take years to master. Yes practice makes perfect but sometimes people just get it, in my opinion (whatever than means), Andy gets it. The funniest thing happened, Andy's stupid fly absolutely slayed it… it's now called the "Raggedy Andy" after the messy tie and interesting shapes. I was proud of him.





During the day I found myself off in my own world most of the time, seemed like Nate was too. Somehow we were always behind the others wandering around with our cameras observing the little things. From time to time I would here someone shouting my name from upstream, it was my turn at "bat". After it was right back to the camera. The day couldn't have been better, fishing was fantastic, the picture taking options were endless and nobody else was around. Even at the end of the day the Cicadas were signing at full bore, what an amazing place.