The cicada emergence is an annual event that is anticipated by fish and anglers alike, as Dave Seaman explains…
Signs of summer begin to appear from late spring that triggers a growing awareness in anglers of the warmer months ahead and a seasonal event that has to be experienced. An isolated week of consecutive hot days, late in October, offers a prelude of the coming summer while the smell of wattle and jasmine helps to remind us of that time of year. The longer hours of daylight and the warming ground offers new vigour to the trees that suddenly fill with the emerging sounds of cicadas. And that is when anglers really start to get excited.
The very nature of the cicada emergence draws together an expectation for anglers and a bounty from the sky for the fish. The mix of large and numerous fish taking surface lures, shaken over shoreline structure, is the premium angling scenario and one that captivates some anglers for months.
Some summers are better than others and it is the cycle of nature that regulates the abundance of cicadas in any year; that and the 700-odd species living under our feet. Just like a good flood of water in a river system sparks a premium bass spawn through the winter months, the cicadas need a dry, warm summer to flourish. A combination of spring rain to soften the ground, a seasonal change of tree sap, brought on by spring sun, and the 3 to 7 years entombed in the earth and the cicadas emerge in mass. Interestingly enough, in North America the cicada life cycle is up to 17 years below the ground surface and the emergence is spectacular.
Luckily the cicadas’ appearance is repeated each year, though in some years and regions of Australia the numbers vary due to past breeding conditions and mortality in the nymph stage of life. One thing is for sure though; it is not a summer without the deafening dim of the males drumming to attract a mate.
The emergence and noise not only attracts anglers to the rivers but the sound carries into the water and alerts the fish, whose attention directs toward the surface. Along a river bank it is no coincidence that the cicadas fill the branches overhanging the water or at the higher extremities of their chosen tree. The outer branches give them access to clear airspace into which they can launch themselves to find a mate or attract one. You have a far better chance of contact with a mate if you’re on the boundary rope and not hidden in the back row of the stadium. It is this trend that sees the competent – though sometimes clumsy – flying skills of the cicada often fail; resulting in a water splash down. The crash landing and spiralling struggle, to escape the water’s grip, almost invariably ends in a few swirls and surface hits as fish try to submerge the cicada’s buoyant, hollow bodies before they are never seen again.
The coming together of a number of elements is what makes the experience so special. Whether it’s bream, bass, saratoga or another species, it is the visual hit on a well shaken lure, the heat of the day, the anticipation of the strike and, most of all, the sound. The sound of thousands of cicadas beating their own drum in efforts to sound out a mate before their short life above ground ends is music to an angler’s ears. A ringing in your ears that is unmistakable, constant and loud.
▲ When the bream are on, it’s not uncommon to catch 100 fish right through the day.
Winged Bandits
The real beauty of winged cicada lures is the resistance in the water that the wings provide once the retrieve begins. With both bass and bream the cast should be made as close to structure or the banks over hangs, as possible. Accurate casting is critical at times where half a metre off the structure can mean the difference between interest and ignorance. Once the lure lands it is important to leave it motionless for a while, say 5 to 10 seconds. Every fish in the area is aware of the splash down and sometimes fish will engulf the lure in the first idle moments, but delaying the retrieve helps to generate interest.
The first movement of the lure is a shake and this is simply imparted via a lift of the rod tip and pulsing the rod to raise and lower the belly of the line a few times before resting the lure again. There is a balance between forward motion of the lure and maintaining its close proximity to the structure but with practice it becomes second nature. The shake and wait retrieve is a direct mimic of a stranded cicada, glued to the water’s surface. If you have ever watched their struggle you’ll notice that during the momentary pauses is when they get hammered.
Sometimes the fish, both bream and bass, will merely grab the wings and submerge the lure; perhaps in an attempt to get a better look at it or to make it easier to get into their mouths. The trick is to discern whether the fish have the hooks or not and this is only indicated by the load of the rod. Too often the immediate reaction is to strike over the shoulder, but this scares the fish and sees the lure fly back toward the angler… and we won’t mention the wind knots. Again this will come with practice and gauging the mood and activity of the fish on any given day. Like all surface fishing it can be a frustrating time but pulling the lure away with a quick reaction strike just isn’t worth it.
▲ The net goes under a quality brackish bass.
The B & B Quarry
The difference between bass and bream is their attention span and the length of shake and wait that will work. Bass will often hit a stationary lure after minutes on the surface with no movement at all; a silhouette is all they need. This is evidenced when you cast a surface lure, of an evening, only to get an overrun in the reel and have to sit to pick it out, then you hear the slurp and know you’re in all sorts of bother as the bass takes off with your lure.
Bream on the other hand are more selective and their greatest motivation to strike is competition with other fish in the snags. A good pair of polarised sunglasses helps to make your day less fatiguing by reducing eye strain and allows you to spot ghosting bream. Generally the grey shadows of large fish will appear under your lure as smaller fish hit and miss your cicada. If you’re patient and let your lure bounce around in the aftermath of hits there is a fair chance the point will come where the big fish move in and do their best to take a swipe themselves. Another scenario sees hungry big fish throw caution to the wind and make a move on your lure before the smaller fish get a chance. Either way there is a chance of a hook up.
While late summer and autumn are my pick of the best cicada fishing, it is a regional consideration governed by the abundance, or lack of, the cicada population. Given the time of year and a healthy habitat in the rivers and tributaries, of eastern flowing rivers, bream will push up into the freshwater and share snags with bass in the lower reaches.
You can catch bream right along a given section of river that has sufficient cover to hold fish; however, it is the areas directly around trees that can really fire. It’s almost like an expectation of food for the fish as the sound penetrates the water to alert them. As for bass, they can be plucked from freshwater pockets of shadowed cover during the day and almost anywhere during the low light that bookend the hot, summer daylight hours.
On the Mid North Coast of NSW, the cicada hatch of 2013/14 was so good that I had to take a pair of disposable foam ear plugs in my kit. Such was the noise that, at times, turning your head way from the bank was the only relief from the relentless, stereo dim that chased us off one particular river. In that season the fishing was red hot and some of the bass actually targeted the cicada lures mid-flight, rising to meet them as they landed. There was no retrieve necessary. The same year, the bream in the local rivers were crazy, big and plentiful so it’s no surprise that 2020/21 is in the fishing calendar already.
▲ Bass love cicadas and are aggressive on the strike.
The gear
Fast tapered rods around 2.1 m are ideal provided they carry a sensitive tip. I use an Abu Garcia Veritas 2 VRTS702-5 which is light enough in the tip that it bends when shaking the line and loads with the weight of a fish reducing a need to strike as you would tend to do with a stiffer tipped rod. The lighter tip also allows you to flick the lures into places with a lot less effort as the bending load is transferred to the momentum of the lure.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this form of fishing favours threadline reels in the 2000 or 3000 (20 -30) size range. A braided main line of 8 to 10 lb attached to a metre of 10 to 15 lb monofilament leader is generally adequate, depending on whether bream or bass are your chosen target. Bass tend not to be as leader conscience as bream and will rarely shy away because of it. Mono leaders with a smear of reel grease helps to float the line on the surface where fluorocarbon will tend to sink, making a short belly underwater and pull the nose of the lure forward and down. I guess the difference is negligible but when the fish get hard to tease from structure, a rod length of leader may be the answer and fluorocarbon will add even more weight to the lure. It’s a matter of trial and error on the day but you need to ensure you have options.
The lure
There are quite a number of cicada patterned lures on the Australian market but it is the formed bodies and folding wing type models that are of the most interest. The shape and size of the lures are generally close to anatomically correct with the exception of the folding wings that, on many models, face forward to the eyes instead of back to the tail.
The exceptions in the main players in this field are the Megabass Siglets and Grand Siglets that host a tow point from the rear and soft wings that fold in during the cast. The Grand Siglet has an underside covered in a flock fur that adds to the forward resistance of the lure in the water which makes them handy stationary baits. This means you can work the lure without too much forward motion that would otherwise pull it out of the strike area. The screw in upward facing W-hooks allow you to cast into some nasty territory in search of bass and bream and twitch it back over snags without the snag rate of a treble of the same size. One small note is if you orientate the W-hook to face the opposite end to that of the tow point, it will allow you to twitch the lure over sticks and snags without hooking up. However it can reduce the hook up rate as they may fold up instead of hanging proud (points down) on the strike.
No matter what lure I use, if the hooks are attached with a screw in eyelet I’ll unscrew it and Supa glue it back in place. I’ve lost too many fish to loose hardware and it’s a routine bit of insurance that never leaves you wondering. As with many lures, there are different sizes and hook configurations that lend themselves to different fishing conditions. Some cicada patterns like the Fish Arrow Cover and Baby Cover are soft, hollow bodied lures that are weedless and great for fishing heavily weeded or lily pad areas for bass. Even though the hollow body is easily compressed to expose the single hook, it is difficult for picky bream to hook up on without the inclusion of a small stinger treble hanging off the bend of the main hook. Bass, however, have no problems eating both sizes of Cover Cicada with their engulfing strike and it’s often a matter of using long nosed pliers to extract the single hook from the fish’s mouth.
The hook hardware and the size of the target species’ mouth are both factors in lure selection. Tiemco Trick Trout Tiny cicadas are reserved for the bream, due to the 34 mm size and fine wire trebles. Too much damage would be done to big bass when trying to extract them from their gill rakers but they are killer on bream as is the Smith Bison which is a similar size with hard plastic wings.
By far my favourite lure has to be the Tiemco Soft Shell made of dense, soft foam, silicone wings and through body wiring construction. The soft landing and buoyant cicada sends the bream crazy and replacing the trebles with a pair of single hooks means it can be modified to target bass. At 40 mm it is smaller than the 45mm Tiemco Magnam Bass Tune hardbody, but both work well on both species. The biggest drawback with the soft shell cicadas is that big bream and heavy drags can tear the rear section away from the central wing assembly and is another reason I always carry a few small tubes of Supa glue. The paint finish is also susceptible to wear but after a few dozen thumping bream or bass it is $25 very well spent.
The final decision on what to buy will come down to price point, the target species and how many you want, but just remember, next time you are stuck at work and you hear the tinnitus drum of the summer cicadas in the distance, just know that someone, somewhere is having the time of their life teasing fish on the surface.
The cool of the night draws the cicadas from the ground to the sky. Less predators and milder conditions prevent their wings dry malformed.
Dave Seaman, has been contributing to fishing publications since his early teens (1978) with his first regular column, Fish Scraps, in Fishing News. In the 35 years since, David has a true love of angling has driven him to seek challenges that have tested his creativity. Culminating in filming, producing and mastering the widely acclaimed Wild River Bass I & II DVDs. Fishing the mid North Coast of NSW (Forster/Manning) keeps Dave busy. Dave is associated with or a pro staff of: Lowrance (Navico) Marine Electronics, Berkley/ Pure Fishing, Daiwa Australia.
