Fishing With Terrestrial Live Baits -- Part Four Happy Hoppers

Few baits beat grasshoppers for tempting fish into topwater action. Big black or brown ones from the ground, or little yellow or green hoppers from plants, all sorts of grasshoppers work well if properly presented as topwater or mid-depth baits.. Catching such grasshoppers can be as easy as a trip to a meadow or other grassy area just after sunrise. Since grasshoppers can't fly well until their "wings" dry and, like all insects, are much less active in cooler conditions. So you can lightly stun them with a fly swatter and put them into a container until needed. Athletic types can try to catch hoppers on the fly with a butterfly net. It's also possible to catch grasshoppers by driving them into ditches, for grasshoppers can't hop out of holes deeper than they are wide. So if you spot cut for pipe or power lines alongside good hopper habitat, make a drive. Indians in California used to dig ditches and drive grasshoppers into them. Digging ditches to catch hoppers seems rather overkill even though toasted grasshoppers are edible, if crunchy! So you can always eat your bait if you can catch it. Toting hoppers on the stream or lake remains a problem for those too timid to pocket a few that are rolled up in a women's nylon stocking. All sorts of commercial contraptions work some of the time. Anyone who has loaded a batch of cool, dormant hoppers into a container, then opened the container in the heat of the day, knows how hoppers got their name. To tote a few hoppers, consider film canisters punched full of holes . Add one or two hoppers per container and you avoid mass escapes. Smaller hoppers can also work in cricket holders. You can also add a bit of Velcro(tm) to the inside lido of your containers. This will usually stick hopper legs enough so you can get your hook in. Tip: on board, keep hopper containers in the cooler with the ice and drinks and hoppers stay calm until hooked.

TOPWATER HOPPER FISHING

You can drive grasshoppers into streams or lakes to create an instant hatch too. This works best on windy days in meadow areas and when you drive hoppers downwind. The windward side of the lake is, of course, the best spot to fish any flying terrestrial as that's where baits naturally appear. Trout, in particular, are suckers for hoppers along a meadow. Where alpine winds, for example, come up every afternoon and blow across a meadow to a lake, fish will cruise in and wait. In situations like this, consider dapping.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic